The glowing colonnade of the Plaza de San Pedro offers a majestic backdrop while four men wait for a free dinner on a terrace in the heart of the Vatican, on a temperate April night.
The prestigious location is the envy of the best hotels in Rome. But the Palazzo Migliori, from the nineteenth century, is a hostel for homeless people, located in a building that the late Pope Francis dedicated to his care.
Francisco, who died on April 21, avoided much of the pomp and the privilege of the papacy and tried to make the Catholic Church more inclusive and less critical. He made concern for the poor one of their main objectives and asked that they have a prominent role in their funeral.
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After becoming a potato in 2013, more stores and sleeping bags appeared in the afternoon in the Plaza de San Pedro, as Francisco’s voice was run to the homeless.
Under his leadership, the Vatican built facilities such as showers and a laundry to help them. Six years ago he gave the palace, in the past used by nuns, to the secular community of Sant’Egidio, which supports the marginalized.
“He has done a lot for the poor. He met so many poor people, who opened the best building to give hospitality to those on the street,” said Antonino Syracuse, an ancient vagabond who works in the Sant’Egidio refuge, which currently houses 38 men and seven women.
Syracuse was part of a group of homeless people, immigrants, prisoners and transsexuals waiting at the staircase of the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, the resting place chosen by Francisco, far from the splendor of the Vatican, to receive the sake of the Pope after the funeral of April 26. Each one held a white rose.
“I was with a flower in my hand, waiting for Pope Francis’ coffin to enter,” Siracusa said.
during his 12 years of papacy, Francisco invited to eat with him huge groups of poor and homeless, sometimes up to 1,200 at the same time.
He asked that the umbrellas forgotten by tourists in the Vatican museums be delivered to those who lived in the street. He made a Vatican post office became a clinic for the poor and distributed sleeping bags on their birthday.
“We’ll miss everything. He was a Pope who did so many things,” Syracuse said.
Savile Piro, who sleeps in the streets of the Vatican, said that the Pope “always thought of us. The showers that there was created them. He created the clinic. The shelter here, he created it. What else can you ask for?”
Piro was in the shelter when the Pope surprised his residents with a visit. “It was an experience that cannot be explained with words. A blow to the heart (…) left me breathless. When we were having breakfast and entered, we all stayed with our mouths open.”
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The next Pope
With Francisco’s death, almost all Vatican officials automatically lose their positions, except those who occupy a handful of positions. One of those who will keep his place is responsible for Charity, cardinal Konrad Krajewski, a Polish named by the Argentine.
Krajewski is well known in Rome for having dropped to a sewer in 2019 to return electricity to hundreds of homeless people who lived in an occupied building.
The cardinals will begin their conclave in a few days to choose a new church head of 1,400 million members. Among the main applicants is the Italian cardinal Pietro Parolin, number two of the Vatican during most Francisco’s papacy.
Another is the Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, who is usually called the “Francisco Asian” for his similar commitment to social justice.
The Spanish cardinal Juan José Omella, 79, is in the race and has promoted the care of the poor and a compassionate vision of Catholicism. Matteo Maria Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna (Italy), is known as a “street priest” that focuses on immigrants and is also considered a possible candidate.
“My hope is that the next Pope follows the same path as Francisco. That is equally accessible,” said Syracuse.
“Many say there will be a black Pope. Many say ‘hope it is Italian.’ I say ‘hopefully it is a good pope’. It is enough,” said Pirro.
With Reuters information
