The first time was 20 years ago, when the bombing of Sarajevo was at its height. Fed up with the abdication of the great powers, I sought an audience with John Paul II and brought with me the Muslim president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic.
The second time was very recently, December 9, on the eve of a celebration organized by the Holy See and the major American Jewish organizations. The celebration, to be held this Wednesday at United Nations Headquarters, in New York City, will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the encyclical Nostra Aetate, which--though this is not widely enough remembered--marked the beginning of the end of Catholic anti-Semitism. (The encyclical can be found at the Vatican's Web site.)
I will not dwell on my impressions of the two Pontiffs. On their curious and striking blend of grace and power, of visible spirituality and mysterious strength, of almost palpable saintliness residing in an equally imposing body. Nor will I dwell long on the strangeness, in both cases, of a tête-à  -tête between the sovereign Pope of the "one holy, Catholic, and apostolic church" and an affirmative Jew accompanied in the first case by a devout Muslim and in the second case by two Orthodox Jews, former chief rabbi David Rosen and Michael Landau, representing the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, who had come to present Pope Francis with a sheet of new commemorative postage stamps depicting some of the major moments in the last half-century of Judeo-Catholic rapprochement.