Hat Tip to Intentional Disciples:
From the Knight’s of Columbus Convention and Jack Smith’s Catholic Key blog comes this funny bit from Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted:
“In AD 1880, Arizona got connected to the rest of the world. The first telephones were installed that year, and on March 20, 1880, the Southern Pacific Railroad reached Tucson. It was a momentous occasion. The Mayor of the town, the Honorable R.N. Leatherwood, was so thrilled that he sent telegrams to the President of the United States and other dignitaries. He even sent a telegram to the Holy Father in Rome. The text of the telegram read as follows:
“The mayor of Tucson begs your honor of reminding your Holiness that this ancient and honorable pueblo was founded by the Spaniards under the sanctions of the Church more than three centuries ago, and to inform Your Holiness that a railroad from San Francisco, California, now connects us with the entire Christian world.
R.N. Leatherwood, Mayor”We don’t know if the pope ever got the Mayor’s message. However, some pranksters of the town, learning of the telegram to the pope, crafted a reply of their own, forged the signature of His Holiness, and sent it to the Mayor. It read as follows: “His Holiness the Pope acknowledges with appreciation receipt of your telegram informing him that the ancient City of Tucson at last has been connected by rail with the outside world, and sends his benediction, but for his own satisfaction would ask—where in hell is Tucson?”
Interestingly, though Leo XIII may not have known the location of my fair hometown, John Paul II did: when he visited Phoenix in 1987, he received a delegation from the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, a branch of the Vatican Observatory located approximately 100 miles northeast of Tucson on Mt. Graham.
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