Hello all,
This has obviously been an extraordinary week here in
Rome. As I mentioned before the Pope died on
Saturday, and I was at my friend's bar when we found
out. We then made our way to St. Peter's square,
where we and thousands of others paid our respects to
the fallen pontiff. The square was so deathly quiet
as to be able to hear the fountains, even with
thousands of people in the square.
On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I had to work near the
colosseum. I avoided the square on Sunday, but on
Momday afternoon I went over there for a while. I got
into the piazza as they were letting people in for the
transfer of the popes body to the square. I had to
work that afternoon so I couldn't stay for the
transfer, but I realized that people were arriving at
noon for the transfer around six. At the time I
thought they were crazy, but I had no idea about the
lines that would follow. Monday night, we attempted
to go view the body figuring too many people wouldn't
be there at midnight. We soon gave up as we weren't
able to even see the line, because there was aline to
go to the line.Again on Tuesday, I worked all day at
the colosseum, but the area near my house was
absolutely packed. People were coming from all parts
of the city, the country, and the world to view the
body of the pope. Surprisingly, the rest of the city
seemed to be fairly empty. Even less busy that
normal.
On Wednesday, I had the Vatican tour at 930. There
was absolutely no line for the museums. I had a group
of about 15 people and Sam followed my tour. This was
the last day that the Sitine Chapel was to be open, so
everyone was quite happy they got to see it. Even
though there were a million people lined up to see the
pope, noone at all was coming to the museums. We were
all flabbergasted.
On Thursday I was supposed to do a gathering tour, but
there was again no line, so instead I got to promo
tours. Sam, Jules, Linden, Keely (friends from the
hostel) and I were planning on camping out on thursday
night to go to the funeral on Friday. The three girls
cancelled out on us and it was just Sam and I. When
we went out, we soon realized the futility of our
purpose becasue no one was getting anywhere near the
square until the morning. After walking around a
while and seeing all the campers, we headed back to my
apt around 1 or so.
We got up on Friday at 530 and were at Piazza
Risorgimento. I (correctly) figured that they would
let people in from that direction because metal
detectors are set up there normally for papal
audiences and etc. We waited for about an hour and
then we managed to get ourselves onto the road that
leads to the square. We were less than 100 meters
away from the columns, but it took over 2 hours to get
inside.
When we got inside, we were quite lucky as they first
filled in the piazza on the outside and they had just
recently opened the center of the piazza. Sam and I
got a spot near the obelisk, and we could even sit on
the railing there. Essentially we had optimal seats
as we were right in the middle and not that far back.
I wouldn't have dreamed of having that good of a spot,
s we were really lucky. There were quite a few french
people near us, including a group of French priests
and it was quite neat to see them as they sang and
stuff before the funeral.
At about tenn til 9, the bell of St. Peter's began to
ring. Normally they just play a recording, but they
used the real bell then. The bell rang for about 10
minutes and then the procession out of the church
began. When they brought the pope's casket (a very
simple wooden casket with his personally designed
insigna on it), a wind began to circle around the
square. It unfurled the flags and the applause for
the pontiff began - which cotinued for several
minutes. The procession of his coffin was very
emotional and many people (myself included) were quite
teary-eyed.
The mass itself was quite nice and it was really neat
the way they did it in many different languages. He
was Polish, but he was truly a Pope of the entire
world and doing portions in all the different
languages (including Swahilli and Fillipino) was quite
appropriate. The unfortunate side effect of this was
that it was nearly impossible to understand the
funeral. The Homily was quite nice and especially
interesting as the crowd kept interuppting with
applause. I heard over 13 times, the Cardianl had to
stop to allow the applause to die down.
At one point during the mass, the applause grew quite
fervent and long, and in several parts of the square
banners were revealed saying "Santo Subito" or
immediate saint. They were calling for John Paul II's
immediate sainthood. I heard accounts of spontaneous
calling of Santo or Saint, but it wasn't really
spontaneous as the signs were clearly made before
hand.
At the end of the service, things began to again
become very emotional. The crowd cheered and clapped
loudly as they began to return into the church. As
they carried the Pope's casket inside, you could see
everyone visibly straining to catch one last glimpse
of the pope. Then, as if in response, the pall
bearers, turned around and bowed the pope down for a
final honor. Once again, quite an emotional time for
everyone there. Ashe finally entered the church for
the last time, I looked around and the emotion in the
square could be phisically felt. We were no longer
mourning his death, everyone was celebrating his life.
I half - expected to turn around and see people
holding up lighters for an encore. That may seem
innapropriate, but that was the feeling that the
square had. In addition, as the pope's casket fell
from view, the sun began to shine for the first time
that morning.
It took very little time (relatively) to get out of
the square once the funeral was over. The area was an
absolute mess. Newspaper and water bottles
everywhere. Amazingly this morning everything was
really clean.
Italy often seems to be the most disorganized country
in the world, but they impressed me and the rest of
the world with their effort this last week. Things
were busy, but they were able to double the population
of their city, on just a few days notice and handle
the influx with very few problems. I have heard of
one person dying from a heart attack, but that was it.
Considering Rome was essentially the largest Polish
city in the world the last few days, that is
impressive.
Well, I hope everyone enjoys my account of the Pope's
funeral. Please feel free to ask me anything that I
may not have covered, i tried to get it all, but it
has been complete sensory overload.
Ciao,
Al
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| View of the funeral from the Square |
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| Sam when we first arrived |
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| Before the funeral |
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| Just after the funeral |
