Yesterday, I walked with my wife, Elisabetta Piqué, to the chapel of Santa Marta in Vatican City to bid our final farewell to Pope Francis, a man who had been our friend for more than 20 years. It was a profoundly emotional moment as we stood in front of his simple coffin. We then sat and prayed in that chapel where we had prayed many times with him before.
So many memories raced through our heads: then-Cardinal Bergoglio baptizing our children in St. Ignatius Church in Buenos Aires; him joining us for dinner on the night of Feb. 28, 2013, when together we watched on television the historic moment when the doors of Castel Gandolfo closed and the Swiss Guards departed, marking the end of Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy. I remember how he called me when Elisabetta was reporting from Gaza in 2012, at a time of heavy bombing, and asked how she was and said he was praying that God would protect her. We had lost a friend on earth, but we now have a friend in heaven.
I saw him up close and alive for the last time at 12:47 p.m. on Easter Sunday, April 20, as he was driven in his jeep through St. Peter’s Square and down the Via della Conciliazione. The look on his face gave me the distinct impression that this was his final farewell to the people, and he seemed to know it. The next time he would return to this square would be in a coffin, less than 72 hours later.
Pope Francis had asked to be driven in the jeep through the crowd of some 50,000 people after delivering his “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the city of Rome and the world from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Easter Sunday.
I was there when he made his first appearance on that same balcony immediately after his election on the evening of March 13, 2013, reporting for CTV Canada. I remember well the explosion of joy in the crowd when he greeted them with “Buona Sera!” and the total silence in the square when he asked them to pray for him and then bowed down before them.
On Easter Sunday, his last act as pope from that balcony was to bless the people.
Immediately afterward, he drove among them in the white jeep on a journey of goodbye.
Vatican Media reported that afterward, “tired but content,” the 88-year-old pope thanked his personal nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, who had encouraged him to go around the square, “Thank you for bringing me back to the square.” The Vatican said these were his last words.
We now know that Pope Francis passed a peaceful last afternoon, had dinner and slept until around 5:30 a.m., when he suddenly felt ill, triggering a response from those caring for him. He then suffered a stroke.
Around an hour later, after making a gesture of farewell with his hand to Mr. Strappetti, Pope Francis, lying in his bed on the second floor of Santa Marta, fell into a coma. At that point, America has learned, his Argentine private secretary, the Rev. Juan Cruz Villalón, who had cared for him with great tenderness throughout his recent 38-day stay in the hospital and during his four weeks of convalescence, understood that the pope’s life was now in danger and administered the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
Pope Francis did not suffer at this last moment of his life, according to those present. Death came suddenly, as he had always wished, with an irreversible cardiovascular collapse. He died peacefully at 7:35 a.m. Easter Monday morning. God had granted him this grace.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo and a man Francis trusted greatly, announced his death to the world.
Later that day, the Vatican published the pope’s last testament, in which he made clear the cost of his burial would not fall on the Vatican; a benefactor had provided the means to defray those costs.
He concluded his testament with these words: “May the Lord grant the deserved reward to those who have wished me well and will continue to pray for me. The suffering that marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and brotherhood among peoples.”
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The simple coffin my wife and I saw yesterday in Santa Marta is now in St. Peter’s Basilica, where Pope Francis lies in state.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo appointed by Pope Francis, opened the translation ceremony, as it is officially called, whereby the body of the pope is taken from the place where he died to St. Peter’s Basilica, where he carried out so much of his Petrine ministry.
“As we now leave this home, let us thank the Lord for the countless gifts he bestowed on the Christian people through his servant, Pope Francis,” the cardinal prayed in Latin. “Let us ask him, in his mercy and kindness, to grant to the late pope an eternal home in the kingdom of heaven, and to comfort with the celestial hope the papal family, the church in Rome and the faithful throughout the world.”
Once the brief prayer service concluded, the great bell of St. Peter’s tolled as his body was carried by 14 Vatican pallbearers in the wooden coffin, covered with a red cloth, in a procession led by close to 100 cardinals from the chapel to the basilica at 9 o’clock this morning. It was an impressive but somber scene as the bell tolled and the choir sang in Latin.
Eight papal Swiss Guards and 14 priests wearing red stoles and carrying torches escorted the coffin as it moved slowly forward.
Behind them came the members of the papal household, mourning a loving father, including Francis’ three private secretaries, his two male nurses and lay chamber assistant, all who had cared for him with such dedication throughout his hospitalization and convalescence.
The procession passed through the Piazza of the Protomartyrs, where St. Peter and many early Christian martyrs were executed, then through the Arch of the Bells into St. Peter’s Square, where tens of thousands of Romans and pilgrims were praying as they waited and watched the procession on jumbotrons.
As the coffin was carried into St. Peter’s Basilica through the central door, a spontaneous, emotion-filled applause erupted from the crowd in the square. I saw many weep for this greatly loved pastor; others grasped their rosary beads tightly or embraced persons they had come with.
Choirs sang the Litany of the Saints as the procession moved slowly up the central aisle to the altar of the confession, under Bernini’s imposing baldacchino. Francis’ coffin was placed on a simple wooden platform, as it had been in the chapel of Santa Marta.
Cardinal Farrell sprinkled holy water and incensed the body of the late pope, dressed in a red chasuble and wearing a white miter. He concluded the translation with a Liturgy of the Word and a prayer in Latin “for the late Pope Francis, so that the Prince of Shepherds, who always lives to intercede for us, may receive him graciously in his kingdom of light and peace.”
•••
The flags of the Vatican are flying at half-mast as Pope Francis lies in state for three days. Cardinals from 94 countries and all continents are flying to Rome for the funeral and the conclave that will be held in early May to elect the next pope.
A host of world leaders are also traveling to Rome for the funeral, including President Donald J. Trump and his wife, Melania, President Javier Milei of Argentina, the pope’s homeland, and the presidents of Ukraine, Brazil, France and Poland, as well as Great Britain’s Prince William.
Some 4,000 journalists and media operators have already been accredited to the Holy See Press Office since Monday morning, and more are still arriving, reflecting the global interest in the pope who sought to promote peace and defend human dignity in a world where both are in short supply.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Romans and pilgrims from all over the world are queuing under the blazing sun in St. Peter’s Square, or the night sky, hoping to gain entry to the basilica to pay their last respects to “the people’s pope,” “the pope of the poor,” the first Latin American and the first Jesuit to lead the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion faithful. They will be able to do so, the Vatican said, until 8 p.m. on Friday night, at which point Cardinal Farrell will preside at the ceremonial closing of the coffin.
Pope Francis’ body will remain in the basilica until Saturday morning, April 26, when pallbearers will carry the coffin onto the foreground of the basilica and place it in front of the altar for the solemn requiem Mass in St. Peter’s Square. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 91, dean of the College of Cardinals, will be the main celebrant at the funeral. After the Mass, the coffin will be taken in a motorcade across the city to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, where Pope Francis will be buried, as was his final wish.
