“I was very excited about this trip to cover Pope Benedict XVI’s first trip to the U.S.A.,” said Salt+ Light TV camera operator Wally Tello, 43.

Tello remembered Pope John Paul II’s visit to his native Peru in 1984. Since the nunciature was a few blocks away from his home in Lima, he got to see him up close. 

This time however, Dmytrenko, Tello and fellow producer David Naglieri, 27, found themselves swept into a gruelling round of 18-hour days that started with dogs sniffing all cameras and laptops for explosives, hand searches of briefcases, hair-raising bus rides under police escort and Secret Service or diocesan minders keeping everyone in assigned locations.

The Canadian Catholic TV network’s team covered the Pope from his arrival  to celebrations on the lawn of the White House, to his speech at the United Nations, and meetings with families of victims and first responders at Ground Zero in New York, to the closing Mass at Yankee Stadium, and many events in between.

“As a Catholic network, we at Salt+Light are at the service of the church.”

“Our goal is to report on everything the Pope says and what’s happening, and to give people a vision of the church that shows it is salt and light in the world,” Naglieri said.

The producers found their responsibilities as journalists put new demands on them. Tello, who worked for a Peruvian TV station during World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, however, knew how to mix being a pilgrim and a video-journalist.

And Naglieri had already covered the Pope at WYD in Cologne and on his apostolic visit to Poland.

Dmytrenko found himself so caught up with his work, so physically tired and so busy taking notes that it took seeing a 40-year old priest, built like a football player, “crying as the Pope was walking around the altar” at St. Patrick Cathedral in New York City April 19 to remind him of the event’s spiritual importance to the 3,000 clergy and religious men and women gathered there.

“It really shook me up to see here was someone next to me who was really seeing what was going on,” he said.   

WYD 2002 in Toronto had changed Dmytrenko’s life. Yet, he had almost skipped going because he thought it would be better to follow the events on television “especially knowing the Pope might not be more than a little dot in the distance as (Benedict) was for many people who came to see him in New York and Washington.”

But WYD gave him “a renewed conviction in the authority of the church” and a sense of the sacramental importance of the successor to Peter.

Yet journalistic objectivity is a demand of the job, despite Salt +Light’s special mission. During the April 19 youth rally at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., Naglieri found it hard not to join the more than 20,000 youth when they broke into spontaneous applause or started chanting, “Benedict, we love you.”

He was standing with about 70 journalists, most of them Vatican-credentialed, who remained quiet, reminding him that as a journalist he needed to present a different attitude, despite his desire to join in.

“But deep inside there is still the emotions and there is still the sense of spiritual renewal I get as a Catholic, someone profoundly impacted by WYD.”

For Naglieri the most moving event was Benedict’s meeting with disabled children and their caregivers at the chapel of St. Joseph’s Seminary April 19, since it followed his speech at the United Nations April 18 to world leaders “where he spoke out about the importance of human rights and the dignity of each and every human life.”

“We witnessed Pope Benedict turning his words into actions, meeting with the most vulnerable among us,” Naglieri said. “For me it was a profound testimony of the moral force of the Holy Father and a lasting image of the prophetic message he brought to the United States and to the world.”

Dmytrenko’s most emotional moment came at Yankee Stadium, when he realized the historical import. The last time a pope was there was in 1979, but now the stadium is slated to be torn down. On April 20, 65,000 Catholics gathered there for Mass and the stadium was transformed into a church.

Dmytrenko pointed out that while Benedict “doesn’t communicate with the same sense of drama,” as his predecessor, “you always remember what Pope Benedict has to say, it’s always kept in the forefront.”