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In a trip that has been full of surprises, Pope Benedict XVI saved the best for last, visiting a Manhattan disco in the early hours of Sunday morning. In an effort, aides say, to give the Vatican and the Papacy a more contemporary image, the Pope and his entourage arrived at the long-shuttered Magique disco on Manhattan’s Upper East Side shortly after midnight on Sunday, after a long day of meetings and religious gatherings, including a visit to a synagogue, in nearby Yorkville, a once predominately German neighborhood. After a brief wait outside the velvet ropes while his name was checked on a list, the Pope and his all-male group were admitted, despite a policy against “letting in large groups of guys” according to Daryl Jordan, 26, the doorman.
According to Monsignor Dennis Michaeljohn, the Pope had originally requested to visit Studio 54, but that space is now being used as a theater and the owners were unwilling to recreate the decor from its heyday for just a single evening. Similar problems prevented the Pontiff from going to Xenon, the Mudd Club, or the Rock Lounge, none of which is still a nightclub.
The purpose of the disco evening, according to Msgr. Michaeljohn was to show that the Pope was “modern but not entirely up-to-date.” “The Early 80s seemed like a perfect era for us to target since we thought that the public might be willing to believe that the Pope and, by extension, the Catholic Church, was only 25 years behind the times,” he said.
Magique, located on East 86th, had only a very brief period of popularity as a second tier nightspot. But the interior has remained largely unchanged due to a long-running legal dispute between the owners. It features crushed velour banquettes surrounding a parquet dance floor, illuminated by the obligatory mirrored disco ball. Because the space is available for rent for bar mitzvahs, corporate events, and sweet sixteen parties, the archdiocese was able to secure its use for the evening.
Benedict, who prepared for the evening by watching “Saturday Night Fever” and practicing dance steps with a private instructor, spent most of the evening on the dance floor as the D.J. played classic disco songs by Patrice Rushen, the Bee Gees, Lipps Inc., and Evelyn “Champagne” King. The Pope wore a black Quiana shirt open to the navel and a large gold cross medallion.
Observers described the 81-year-old Pope’s dancing as “poor,” “uncoordinated,” and even “spastic.” John Ferrinucci, 41, of Woodmere, Long Island who had driven in to the city with his girlfriend, Denise Frisch, 33, after advance word of the Pope’s disco visit leaked out on several Catholic websites, said the Pope “looked completely ridiculous, even after he took the Quaalude I gave him.”
Benedict’s inept dancing was all part of the Vatican’s strategy, according to Cardinal Edward Egan who accompanied the Pope to Magique but remained quietly in his seat sipping a Seven- and-Seven for most of the night. “We wanted to show that the Holy Father was out-of-date but not as out-of-date as some people might have thought and that, while he’s not a part of any particular era, disco is another era that he’s not really a part of.” The Cardinal added, with a chuckle, “Not surprisingly, the whole thing was dreamed up by Jesuits.”
A Jesuit priest, Father Mark Mikulski, S.J., 51, who was sitting nearby, expressed some exasperation with the confusion over the purpose of the disco visit. “It’s very simple,” he explained. “A large portion of the public sees the Pope and the Church as bogged down in these arcane theological disputes dating back to the Reformation. It also sees a Pontificate that is defined by ancient ritual and ceremony, not what you might call the ‘common touch.’ Our hope is that, by showing the Pope in an unexpected and contemporary setting, that the ordinary Catholic might come to regard His Holiness as a more approachable and relevant figure. Some of us would have preferred that he went to a club that’s fashionable right now like Bungalow 8. But that was too big a step for others and so we compromised on an 80s disco.”
After just a few hours sleep, the Pope concluded his U.S. visit in a more conventional manner by praying at Ground Zero and celebrating Mass in Yankee Stadium before boarding a plane for Rome.
