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his time, you’ll receive a miracle. You have passed God’s test of faith. We’re sat close to the pope and we’ll say goodbye to this wheelchair,” I told my wife when we attended the Good Friday ceremony where Pope Benedict XVI led the reading of the Passion, the adoration of the cross and communion in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica on April 6 last year.

“Why are you so sure I’ll be able to walk normally again?” my wife asked when I repeated myself at the Easter Vigil liturgy in the Basilica on Holy Saturday, April 7.

“What does the miracle mean to me?” she whispered when Benedict presided over Easter Sunday mass in St. Peter’s Square. The pope blessed her again.

My wife and I received VVIP treatment during the Holy Week’s celebrations. We didn’t queue like thousands of pilgrims who had official — and free — invitations from the Vatican for the holy week service. We were escorted by an officer directly to the lift and seated several meters from the altar, at the left side of the famous Vatican choir.

We didn’t deserve this treatment. I’m a mediocre journalist, likely in the profession for almost 30 years because I’ve found nowhere else to go.

My wife is no better than me but in terms of the afterlife, I believe she has a much better chance of getting into heaven than I. She has had to endure the suffering of having a husband who always thinks he knows everything and always thinks he is right.

I became a Catholic because my parents baptized me two months after my birth. My wife was a Protestant before our marriage and I violated her fundamental human rights with a forced conversion. I’ve never thought my religion was the most perfect one in the world. Many priests have committed sexual crimes and church officials have stolen church money.

A friend who recently converted from Catholicism to another religion for marital reasons laughed at my faith. “Jesus was married and had children from his wife Mary Magdalene,” said the friend.

To be honest, I couldn’t say whether the friend was right or wrong.

“People with wheelchairs are always a top priority in this church,” said Father Markus, an Indonesian priest who helped us to get the tickets when I asked him about the generous treatment. He has worked in the Vatican for years.

The pope was so close to us when he gave his blessing to the churchgoers. I had high expectations that my wife would fully recover from her health problems after our close encounter with the supreme Catholic leader, who officially retired from the papal seat on Feb. 28.

But to be honest, my main purpose for visiting the Vatican was not to meet with the pope, but to visit the tomb of John Paul II, which was located about 30 meters from the tomb of St. Peter inside the Basilica. We prayed there several times. I prayed for my wife to be the first Indonesian to receive a miracle at the tomb. It would’ve been
sensational if it had happened.

I met John Paul II on two occasions. In February 2000, in the presence of then Indonesian president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, I attended an audience with then pope John Paul II.

“My son, are you Catholic?” the pope asked me softly when I reluctantly kneeled in front of him.

In September 2006, I criticized Pope Benedict for his comments on Islam and violence.

“As an ordinary Catholic with limited knowledge of church teachings, again I can only say: ‘Was it necessary for my Holy Father to make such a comment?’”, I wrote in my column.

The visit to the Vatican was a last effort to heal my wife’s health problems through non-medical means. You may laugh at me for attempting to force God to grant my prayers, but if you were in my position, dealing with the daily suffering of your beloved, then regardless of your religion, wouldn’t you have done the same, no matter how foolish it might have seemed?

Just one year after her failed spinal surgery in 2001, I took her to Lourdes in South West France. St. Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to the young girl Bernadette in 1858, so I believed we would leave my wife’s wheelchair there, but it didn’t happen.

Spending much of our savings, we made a pilgrimage to Bethlehem (where Jesus was born) and to Jerusalem (where He was crucified) in October 2005. But my wife’s wheelchair remained loyal.

Almost a year after our pilgrimage to the Vatican, the wheelchair is still here. Is our faith futile? Does God have his own purpose for her sufferings? Or is it because I’ve embraced the wrong religion?

No matter what, we’ll stick to the same faith, whether it’s right or wrong.

— Kornelius Purba