Who knows if Pope Francis, in imagining his last earthly home in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, as well as at the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, also thought of that neighborhood, the Esquiline, so multi -ethnic and multireligious. In the first morning after the funerals, the people tail, to the thousands, to pray in front of that light marble plaque that continues to postpone, strongly, the salient steps of his pontificate. Not only believers, as evidenced Robertoreminiscent of Francesco’s phrase: «Better to be atheists than Christians who speak badly of others. Even if I am atheist, if I can, I do good to others, as he taught us». Florine, Instead, originally from Benin, but who lives in Grenoble where he makes the nurse in charge of the operating rooms, he came “for the funeral. I am a believer and this Pope reminded me of the great value of the poor. He testified a church that takes care of the last, a poor Church, according to the message of the Gospel “. There are hospital nuns, who quickly run to their commitments and there is the group of Divine mercy of the parish good shepherd of Cormano, near Milan. “He was the Pope of all,” Diana and her husband say together, who had come from Australia For the Jubilee. Over twenty thousand alone in the morning of the 27th passed away, quickly to give way to others, in front of Francesco’s tomb. And thousands more are waiting for it. A banner reads “Thanks Francesco”. There could be no better exposure, from those windows of the Lombard college, the one that was approved in 1890 by Leo XIII and who, in 1943, thanks to the rector Francesco Bertoglio, saved 65 Jews from persecutions.
A few meters are open The Chinese shops, the commercial establishments of North Africans and Bengali. From Piazza Vittorio, on Monday morning, the smells and cries of the markets that will exhibit the typical products of the kitchens of the most distant countries will also arrive so far. “Peripheral”, Francesco would say, yet so central. In the heart of his diocese, in the Basilica who first listened to mass in a Slavic language, where a Sunday mass with the Latin rite according to the Messale di Paolo VI is also celebratedwith an artistic wealth that attracts tourists and lovers of beauty, with the relic of the “sacred cradle”, which makes it “Bethlehem of the West”, With the Salus icon that is said to be painted by the evangelist Luca, the symbolism does not seem random.
Crossroads of peoples and faith, halfway between the neighborhoods of Rome well and the poor one, between the scents of the boutiques and the pungent smell of the waste, a stone’s throw from Termini station and the Interior Ministry, the theater of the Opera and the luxury hotels Francesco chose the best place not to remain alone and, above all, in order to continue talking to “Todos, Todos, Todos”.
