I was in my room at the famed Metropol Hotel in Moscow, Russia, next door to Red Square. It was April 2005 and I was preparing for a training workshop in advanced communication skills the following morning for personnel at the U.S. Embassy.
Built in 1905, this five-star, czarist-style lodging house historically had borne testimony to some of Moscow’s most intense chapters in history. The hotel is known for its glamour, for its use as a barracks during the Bolshevik Revolution, and for guests who were writers (including George Bernard Shaw), artists, mobsters, celebrities, and spies. The KGB monitored all visitors from outside the Land of Reds.
Pope John Paul II had died eight days before my arrival at the Metropol. Watching the funeral Mass in my room, it was clear that the much-beloved and well-traveled polyglot pontiff was a religious rock star for the Catholic Church and all of Christianity.
I was pleasantly surprised that the live broadcast of the funeral was allowed.
Read the full story from The Daily Signal
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