GB man meets Pope Benedict XVI
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

Picture courtesy of Patrick Welch Gulf Breeze resident Patrick Welch, left, kneels before Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square in April. Welch was invited to participate in the Pope's 80th birthday celebration and mass in Vatican City, Italy. The mass was attended by thousands and broadcast worldwide.

Exactly what do you get the pope for his birthday?

That's the question Gulf Breeze resident Patrick Welch had to answer before traveling to Vatican City to participate in Pope Benedict XVI's birthday mass on April 15.

Welch, 58, said he was invited to the religious leader's 80th birthday celebration by a nun he met in a Vatican coffee shop. Welch took part in the offertory along with eight others in St. Peter's Square during the mass. Welch said the eight people each represented different countries and he was the only American. The event was broadcast live all over the world.

Along with coming face to face with one of the most powerful men in the world before a crowd of thousands, Welch said he was given private tours of Vatican City and areas not nor- mally accessible to the general public.

"The whole thing has been kind of surreal," Welch said, describing the day and the cup of coffee that changed his life.

Welch said he was visiting Rome and struck up a conversation with a nun inside a Vatican café. Welch said he exchanged phone numbers and email addresses with the woman he called "Sister Janet."

Welch said that by the time he returned to his home in Gulf Breeze from his vacation he had an email from Sister Janet that included a picture of herself with the pope. Welch, who is not catholic, said he spoke with the nun on the phone everyday for two months before returning to the independent Roman Catholic state in April.

Welch added that he was cordially asked to bring a gift for the pope that represented where he was from.

"[Meeting the pope] would be the equivalent to meeting the president," Hunt said. "I would see it as a huge honor. So many people would like to spend time with him or have an opportunity to say hello."

Welch said his gift for Pope Benedict XVI was a framed copy of the sand dollar legend, which makes symbolic connections between the marine animal and Christianity, and a whole sand dollar skeleton.

In addition to his photo album that includes pictures of various ornate private chapels, religious artifacts and papal meditation gardens, Welch possesses a set of rosary beads that he said was given to him and blessed by the pope.

"That's usually what the pope gives as a gift," Hunt said after viewing Welch's rosary.