They waited for him on the churchyard of Santa Maria Maggiore with the white roses and the shiny eyes of those who lost a friend. The last earth -act Francesco wanted to reserve it to them, the last ones, those for whom he spent during the pontificate and who today returned the last hug before the burial.
Poor and in need, migrants and transsexuals, the ‘different’ that in the pope who came from the “end of the world” have found hope. “He got out of the pedestal to be among people”, the comment of a faithful who has waited for the coffin throughout what Francesco’s ‘house’ will now be.
The luckiest found themselves at the Basilica of the Esquiline, like Antonino, who lived on the street. “I was also in Santa Marta,” he says today by remembering a phrase that Francesco said to him and that he never forgot: “Antonino – were the Pope’s words – never say that you are tired: it helps the others until you stand up”.
Many others attended the funeral ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. Many more, however, followed the funeral on television at Palazzo Best, the residence that Pope Francis gave to the poor and is managed by the Community of Sant’Egidio.
Each of them has a story to be told linked to the pontiff, whose image appears in one of the photographic photo of the visit of 2019 in the building a stone’s throw from San Pietro. Down, on the street, there are all the others, ‘scattered’ for the city to give the last farewell to the Holy Father along the procession that brought him from the Vatican to Santa Maria Maggiore.
Ansa agency Farewell to Francesco from his slums to Plaza de Mayo – News – Ansa.it After the mass the procession and the slogan of Jorge: ‘Fate Casino’ (ANSA) “Thirty years ago it would have been impossible for me to be here,” says Regina, a member (“non -militant”) of the LGBT+ community who in front of Santa Maria Maggiore shows a sign with the effigy of the Pope in which he asks for a simple and together big thing: ‘Holy immediately’. Holy why? “Because with holiness they stop, they freeze ‘the values of a character – he explains – his holiness was in being close to the poor, against war, and with LGBT+people. So better to do so immediately, as soon as possible”.
“Someone says that for our community he did not do enough – continues Regina – but I think that sometimes ‘to do’ is not as important as ‘say’. Others will do, but Francesco has meanwhile sown his closeness”.
To give the last farewell to Francesco also migrants and ex -homeless, those for which he made basic necessities in the area around San Pietro. The same square where today, sitting with all the greats of the Earth, there were also representatives of the UNHCR, the United Nations Agency for the rights of refugees, and Mediterranea, the NGO that saves lives at sea.
On the loggia of the butler, however, there was the Argentine Sergio Sánchez, the ‘carton’ that in 2013 Pope Francis, just elected, wanted to the Pontificate Start Mass in the places reserved for his family members. Today he was in one of the most exclusive places in the square, to look from the top of the 250 thousand faithful who arrived in Rome to greet the “Pope of the people”.
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