When in Roma. Four priests were walking along the crowded Via Dei Corridor, off St Peter’s Square, as people were being marshalled along by stern police, including a group of carabinieri standing in front of four beautiful black horses.
One priest stopped to admire the horses, patting one on the nose, while a second filmed him on his phone and their colleagues laugh. Then, they decided to bless the horses, and everyone paused. Even the carabinieri smiled and across the street, an Irish Tricolour remained unmoved. It could be the heat.
Temperatures rise to the mid-20s in Rome these days, which can be a shock for anyone arriving suddenly from Ireland and the recent Arctic April temperatures.
Security is such that no one – not even nuns – is exempt. All bags are searched, even that belonging to sister, who just might be bringing in a weapon.
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At a queue ahead, some appear to be suffering barely suppressed despair. It is outside the Vatican’s Halla Stampa press office, upon which the world’s media has descended with as much warning as a murmuration of starlings at Lough Owel in Westmeath. As to how many journalists, a young priest helping there offered “ ... thousands and thousands”.
The media are among the few in Rome so far for the funeral of Pope Francis. Almost everyone else was in the city for other reasons. Then, came the news that the pontiff had died.
Francis Meehan, from Monaghan town, waited four hours to see the pope’s remains on Wednesday. He had originally come to Rome for the canonisation of Blessed Carlo Acutis next Sunday, which has now been postponed. “It was on the plane the pope’s death was announced.”
Francis, he said, “was amazing. He turned the church upside down and it needed it. His simple living, his message, his care of people, his reaching out to all the marginalised.”
Every December, he used to send Pope Francis a birthday card and a Christmas card. “Four times he wrote back to me during his papacy,” says Meehan, who is staying for the funeral.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands queued the length of St Peter’s Square and beyond as, inside the basilica itself, people waited quietly, all to one side of its vast space, the bright sun streaming through windows overhead.
The body of Francis lay in red vestment with his coffin tilted slightly forward so he could be seen, as four Swiss guards stood to attention near its corners.
People knelt briefly at a rail in front to say hasty prayers before being ushered along to make way for more. Phones were much in evidence but there was little of the jostling that can mar such occasions.
