Maria Beltrão, 50, lived one of the most emotional moments of her life. The presenter of É de Casa (Globo) met in person with Pope Francis, 85, at the Vatican. And she even heard a question from the pontiff that made her burst out laughing.
The presenter said that the visit took place through a priest she knew and who works with the pope. It was he who told her about the possibility of going to a general audience, which usually takes place on Wednesdays and in which Francis receives the faithful. “There was an opportunity for me to go there on the 24th and I said: ‘I’ll go, I’ll find a way to go’.”
However, the journalist did not want to arrive empty-handed. “I was keen to give him two things,” she reveals. “I know he’s very devoted to Our Lady Undoer of Knots, and I had a beautiful image of her that I decided to give him as a gift. He didn’t even see it at the time, I hope he will later, I couldn’t even explain it because I was so nervous.”
The second gift was a treat with a very Brazilian face. “The priest who is a friend of mine said he likes sweets a lot, he can’t eat much, but he eats a little and the rest he distributes there to the other priests, to the sisters who live there at Casa Santa Marta with him. : ‘Even if he doesn’t eat, I’ll give him a sweetie’. In fact I gave him several: paçoquinha, pé de moleque, bolo de rolo, all Brazilian… and brigadiers.”
Beltrão explained that he has a tradition of distributing brigadiers once a week to his work teams. “I used to do that at Studio I [programa que ela apresentava na GloboNews] and I do it now at É de Casa”, he says. “But before I asked Father Bruno if this was completely absurd and he said: ‘You can take whatever you want to the Pope’. I said, ‘Then I’ll take it’.”
When delivering the gift, however, she says she was nervous. “He thought I was showing him something of mine for him to bless, so he went out blessing the brigadiers”, she says, laughing. “I was trying to say that the brigadiers were for him, I opened the brigadier box and said: ‘It’s for you, you don’t get fat’.”
The game served to break the ice. “Then he saw that I was taken, so to speak, and understood that it was for him”, says Beltão. “He said, ‘Oh, yes it does.’ And he smiled. And then he greeted me, my daughter and my husband.”
After everyone relaxed, the pope still surprised the presenter with his good mood. “He turned to me and said, ‘Pray for me,'” she recalls. “When he spoke, I said: ‘I always pray for you, and the Clarissa Sisters from Gávea [zona sul do Rio], asked me to tell you that they always pray for you and your intentions. Then he looked at me, with the most serious look, and said: ‘I have a doubt: is cachaça water?’.”
The phrase is recurrent in the pope’s jokes with Brazilians, but Beltrão, of course, was surprised and burst out laughing. “I laughed a lot, shook his hand, hugged him … then I got into Maria mode, hugged, cried, all at the same time. It was wonderful,” he says. She says she intends to talk about the experience at É de Casa next Saturday (27th).
Recently, the journalist spoke to the podcast Deus Te Ouça, from Sheet, about his devotion to the Catholic faith. She said that after her second marriage in 2012, she went from a “lame Catholic” to a regular attender of masses and prayer groups.
“The first mass I went to, something suddenly invaded me that I couldn’t stop crying. But I cried with joy”, she says in the interview. “It was as if Jesus came down there and said ‘at last, my daughter’.”
In the conversation, the journalist also reveals what she thinks about public debates that are influenced by faith, for example the issue of abortion – and how this impacts her daily life at work and in personal relationships.
Discover the podcast:
I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
