That was in 1995 with John Paul II in Rome, barely two years into his tenure in the Isa and Father Mick said it was a humbling experience.

“There was only 30 of us in a room one morning upstairs right up the top and he meets with you personally afterwards, ” he said.

Father Mick’s face lit up as he remembered a Mount Isa connection to the visit.

“That July I was leaving it was really cold and I got a knock on the door and there were four or five Aboriginal fellas and they said, ‘you’re going to Rome, aren’t you?’,” he said.

“I said yes and they said ‘when you go to Rome, will you give our blessing to the Pope?’”

Father Mick said he’d do his best but he didn’t expect to meet the pope on that visit.

“But when I was there, I was told, ‘put your name in, you never know if it comes out’, so I did and I came home at 10 o’clock one night and I was told you’ve got to be up there at seven o’clock in the morning,” he said.

“So when I met the Pope I told him ‘Aboriginal people from where I come in Mount Isa send your blessing, your Holiness’.”

Father Mick said the Pope’s response was “where was Mount Isa?”

So Father Mick proceeded to explain.

“I said to him ‘so you’ve been to Brisbane’, and he said ‘yes, I remember Brisbane’ and I said ‘you’ve been to Alice Springs’ and he said “ooh, I don’t remember Alice Springs’ and I said “when you came to Alice Springs you prayed with the Aboriginal people and this big storm came, so it was like the Holy Spirit’ and he said “Ah! I remember! I remember!’,” Father Mick recounted.

“So I said, ‘between Brisbane and Alice Springs is Mount Isa’.”

Giving geography lessons to the Pope is just one Father Mick’s many talents which his many friends in town celebrated with him as he passed the 25 year mark in Mount Isa on Thursday.

“I like the diversity out here,” he said.

“There’s a breadth in what you do, there’s a great variety.”