A wide angle lens gives the appearance of seating further away, while the stanchions encompassing the papal dais are visible in the lower center of the photo.

Another first was attending a Papal audience with Paul VI in the Piazza de San Pietro. The popularity of Paul VI plus the Holy Year entirely filled the Piazza.

Begun in 1248 and completed only in 1868. It represents the architectural high gothic and the abandonment of the double choirs and the struggle for power between papacy and emperor.

The papacy of Innocent III (died 1216) represented the apogy of papal power in Western Europe.

The pope, surrounded by cardinals, greets 6,300 pilgrims including those of the WCTS.

In 1969 it was still the custom to set the cathedra for the pope in front of the high altar from which he presided for the papal audience.

It is obviously an honor to be chosen to be bearers of the pope. The rational for the sedia gestatoria given by the Ladies of Bethanie was that it was not intended to be a matter of implied supremacy but rather the throngs ...

Through the office of Cardinal Willebrands we received preferred seating along the route traveled by the Pope.

In 1969 the Ladies of Bethanie arranged to have the members of the Western Christendom Travel Seminar honored by being represented by two of their number to be personally greeted by Pope Paul VI. The Ladies insisted that ...