A funeral Omnibus. Poor and powerful. Last and first. Rigorous and picnic improvised picnic protocol on the pavement. Flags and prayers. Malors, sleeping bags and smiles. At dawn, when it is still dark and in the skies of Rome only the helicopters and the only bars open outside the colonnade are twisted are those of the Chinese, the square is deserted. The first pilgrims arrive by running to grab the places later, possibly seated.
The air is cold, almost a blow of the tail of winter. Then the sun that warms Rome, returned, for a day, the capital of the world As had been at the time of the Roman Empire, but also when it became a Christian, thus laying the foundations of western civilization.
There is a beggar that does not make alms today but distributes candies. Amelie, Senegalese, for five years in Italy, at the corner of via della Conciliation poses for a souvenir photo with the cover of theStreet observerdistributed every Sunday at the Angelus and which for the day of the funeral was released in an extraordinary edition. I ask her why. Sobbare. “I have a child with a bad evil from birth,” he says, “in Senegal it was impossible to cure him. Pope Francis made sure that he came to heal to the Child Jesus. God bless him, he is a generous and kind man».
There is a top manager who is moved and bursts into the churchyard on the churchyard. A girl, who is a wearer, asks how to become Catholics. A mother who has seven children, and the last one called him Francesco. Paolo, one of the clochards who lives around San Pietro, who thanks to the Pope visited the Sistine Chapel, set up an altar under the portico of via della Conciliation to thank him.
A group of scouts from Casteldaccia, Palermo, says that the Pope has perfectly embodied the values of scouting: The welcome to everyone, the help for those in difficulty, no discrimination. “A really great», summarizes Fabrizio, 15 years old.
At the gates in Piazza San’Offizio, the side where Casa Santa Marta is located and the classroom Paolo VI, between Monsignori, priests and journalists, there is an old woman lined up to enter with the stick. “Where does he have to go?” Asks her, perplexed, a volunteer of the Civil Protection. “Give my pope,” he replies in Romanesco. “Beautiful mine, you are sweet as me ‘grandmother,” replies giving her a buffet on the cheek.
It is a farewell of people. Sobrio but true at the same time. And that Francesco would have liked. Nobody is indifferent, nobody is foreign. Because he was all of them, and everyone, in him, recognized themselves, found, heard loved, called (on the phone).
What was supposed to be the jubilee of teenagers with the canonization of Carlo Acutis He turned into the farewell to the Pope who started the Holy Year opening the Holy Door to Christmas in the wheelchair. “It was a great one,” say the boys who arrived from PlateauBologna, the diocese of Cardinal Zuppi. “By the way, we cheer for him,” says Andrea, one of the educators, “he is cool, one in the leg”.
The crowd of faithful along Via della Conciliation during the funeral of Pope Francis (Reuters)
On the churchyard the tests for mass with the choir that tries the songs in Latin begins. Via della Conciliation is a river of people who seem to never end. And there are still two hours at the beginning of the celebration.
A boy with the Barcelona shirt continues to post photos on Instagram with type captions “It is a great”, “spectacular”, “super and still super”. An old man, French, does not want to sit on a folding chair offered by a young man. “Only Francesco understood me and no one else”, he lets himself go a very rigged lady (and very little in line with the dress code of the funeral).
A group of American Sisterine begins to tell the Rosary. The most caciaroni are the Italian and Spanish boys, the most compounds Poles and Germans. A couple with two children says that this morning they had to wake them up soon: “We entrusted them to him, we could not miss”.
Tommaso, Elena and Pietro, all fourteen year olds, come from Perugia: «It is a historical event. It is nice to see how such a great community meets not only to cry but also to pray for the future of the Church and the world». Elisa found a place in front. It offers me a piece of tart and tells of when the Pope took his daughter in his arms who is now 7 years old and waits a little sleepy a bit of the beginning of the mass.
Someone, on the eve, said there would be two funeral, the solemn and popular one, that of the powerful and that of the faithful. This is not the case. Pope Francis, with his charisma, has been able to keep everything together. It was the parish priest of the world and the leader who strilled the powerful That now they arrive at the expense on the churchyard of St. Peter, welcomed by the gentlemen of his holiness, and are sitting in the places indicated to them by the ceremonial.
Trump and Zelensky had to be distant and instead find themselves on the same row, even if not next to it. They met in the Basilica, before the celebration. “Funeral diplomacy,” some say. “A miracle of Bergoglio”, enthusiastically comments a priest who sees the photo on the smartphone. Mattarella is accompanied by his daughter Laura. Premier Meloni does not have a veil. Melania Trump yes.
The Argentine president Milei, With his sister, he sketches a smile. Lulathe Brazilian president appears moved. Prince William scrutinizes the rite careful. Serious Macron.
The square is not that on April 8, 2005, John Paul II acclaimed “saint immediately”. There is less fury and more reflection. The first large applause starts when the coffin is brought to the churchyard and placed on the ground with the book of the Gospels placed above but there is no wind that turned the pages on the occasion of the Wojtyla funeral. The second applause starts when Cardinal Re, in the homily, recalls that the Pope “used to conclude his speeches and meetings saying:” Don’t forget to pray for me “. Dear Pope Francis, “says the purple,”Now we ask you to pray for us and that from the sky you bless the Church, bless Rome, bless the whole world, Like last Sunday you did from the balcony of this basilica in a last embrace with all the people of God, but ideally also with humanity looking for the truth with a sincere heart and keeps the torch of hope high “.
Some pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square
“Thank you”, it is the word most used by all the faithful (even in the few banners) towards the Pope who subverted a lot of rules, even in the world of the Curia, made the out of the output a program, chose the suburbs to travel shouted against the war, as King still remembers in the homily summarizing the pontificate in a phrase that would have liked it in Bergoglio: “Bridges, don’t wall”.
A pope who called many who are here. Literally. Like when he telephoned to respond to the letters or tickets that came to him. To make birthday wishes, console a mother to whom her son had died, inquire about someone’s health.
Claudio is with a group of boys who arrives from Castrocaro Terme: “I had never entered the Basilica of San Pietro, it was an unforgettable experience”, he says, “it was a blow to the heart to see the Pope but he was really a great one, he leaves us a less traditional and ancient church, closer to young people and the last”.
The rite is also sober. Almost everything in Latin, except the readings and prayer of the faithful, in various languages. After the communion, the coffin is turned to the blessed and uncensized water. There are 220 cardinals, 750 between bishops and priests, 4,000 priests.
The plea of the church of Rome with the litanies of the saints in Latin and then that of the patriarchs of the oriental churches that sing a prayer taken from the Byzantine liturgy of the deceased. The coffin is raised from the ground and showed, for the last time, to the crowd as a sign of greeting. Many now move and burst into crying. Also in the press room.
The last song is that of Magnificatthe singing of Maria exultant, the song that says no to the will to power: «He overturned the powerful from the thrones, he raised the humble. He filled with goods hungry, postponed the rich empty -handed ».
Francesco will not rest within these walls where, in a few days, the cardinals will be called to choose the successor in a conclave that promises to be difficult and crucial.
The last trip, on a pensabile adapted for the occasion and used in one of his trips to Asia, is to Santa Maria Maggiore. One hundred and fifty thousand faithful, says the police headquarters, are assied along the journey to greet the Pope the last time. To be added to the about two hundred thousand of San Pietro. There are those who throw flowers, who applauds, who shouts “Francesco, Francesco”.
There are forty poor people on the churchyard of the basilica: clochards, detainees, refugees, transsexuals. Like Tamara, Argentina, hunted home at 11, who has definitively surrendered to the street and its laws. In hand it has a white rose. Cries. The coffin is brought to the icon of the Salus Populi Romani where Bergoglio came to pray before and after every apostolic trip.
The earthly journey of Francis, 266th Pope of the Catholic Church, is now really finished.
