I write these words on the airplane taking me home from my first visit as a bishop ad limina apostolorum (to the threshold of the apostles).
This is the pilgrimage, required by canon law of every bishop, to pray at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul and to meet personally with the successor of Peter.
In an earlier column, I wrote of the extraordinary visit to the tomb of Peter and an even more extraordinary conversation with the Galilean fisherman’s successor, Pope Francis.