Reportage
Bergoglio’s last trip through Rome, of wine and of holy water
All of us in the crowd are included in a continuous Mass, expanded to public space and, in Francis’s final journey, to the whole city. When the consecration comes, some people kneel on the cobblestones.
There is an anticlerical saying that probably dates back to the time of the Roman Republic: “Mejo puzza' de vino che de acqua santa” (“Better to reek of wine than of holy water”). Some will find it a bit crude, but it encapsulates the two worlds that collided, and sometimes became entwined, in this week of saying farewell to Francis that followed the Holy Week of Easter.
On the day of the Pope's funeral, these dimensions were neatly highlighted by the final trip he himself had planned in advance, after so many missions from one side of the planet to the other: the procession of his body through the streets of the capital.
At 9 a.m., the path of the funeral procession is ready and clearly laid out: the streets leading from the Vatican to the Esquiline Hill have been cordoned off and manned by police, and the onlookers and faithful are getting ready to catch a place right by the cordon to get a closer look at the coffin aboard the popemobile.
A local police officer reassures them: “He’ll go by very slowly, you’ll have time to say goodbye to him.” At this point, it is still possible to travel the route in reverse, from the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to St. Peter's. One of the reasons why Bergoglio chose to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore was to get away from the symbols of the institutions, as well as to be able to be eternally close to and gaze at his beloved Salus Populi Romani, the most important Marian icon.
But traveling the route in reverse offers an anticlimactic experience: from the city that reeks of the proverbial wine, with its contradictions (all too familiar in the neighborhood that as of Saturday houses the Pope’s tomb) to the apparent quiet of the holy water beyond the Tiber. The inversion only becomes more striking when one sees that same route, from the surrounding world to the Vatican square, being taken by the sedans with tinted windows bringing the world's powerful to the ceremony.
But the first surprise is that the multitude filling up Via della Conciliazione and St. Peter's Square likewise represents the real world which burst through among the Vatican's marbles with Francis. The scouts, pilgrims, laity and religious nod as Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re recounts the Pope's biography and recalls the different path which led him from Buenos Aires to Rome, under the banner of a church “capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition.” They applaud at length, first of all when the cardinal recalls the Pope's trip to Lampedusa and the horror of the migrants who died at sea. Then, the cardinal makes a more subtle reference, which the crowd immediately gets and acknowledges with another round of applause: namely, to the mass Francis celebrated at the U.S.-Mexico border. “He reached the most peripheral periphery of the world,” the elderly cardinal's homily continues, before recalling, amid another round of applause, Francis’s commitment to peace and emphasizing the key words underlying Francis' message: “No one is saved alone.”
If the Church has two available paths to return to center stage in the world – either thinking of itself as global and speaking to all men and women, or riding the “clash of civilizations” – most of the people gathered here seemed to be on the side of the first, a path which Francis began to carve out.
All of us in the crowd are included in a continuous Mass, expanded to public space and, in Francis’s final journey, to the whole city. When the consecration comes, some people kneel on the cobblestones. And as the handshakes at the sign of peace are exchanged, the crowd made up of people of all languages and backgrounds watches the lineup of holders of temporal power do likewise, with unspeakable hypocrisy. This is another paradoxical, almost ironic moment of the two ceremonies, in the square and on the sidewalk. It’s the same at the time of the Eucharist, with priests from all parts of the world lining up along the barriers to hand out the host.
Some people are wearing T-shirts with the words “Canonize him now,” but that looks like something from another era. This time, 20 years after Wojtyla's funeral, the spirit is completely different: Bergoglio is being remembered as a man, which is also the meaning of his final journey: as he exits Vatican City, the coffin crosses the Tiber to go to the temporal city, traveling almost six kilometers at walking pace.
As it climbs on Via Acciaioli, at the entrance to Corso Vittorio Emanuele, a citizen is playing a requiem loudly from his window. From there, the convoy reaches Piazza Venezia and then Via dei Fori Imperiali and the Colosseum.
Then we are at the last stretch, with thousands of people on the sidewalks still accompanying the coffin: via Labicana, then via Merulana. All the way to the early Christian basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The journey of the man who came from the end of the world does not end at St. Peter's, but seems to point towards a path of openness. And those who wish to resume his path will have to engage with the many other unsettling decisions of his pontificate as well, which smells of holy water, but mixed with the scent of wine.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/roma-il-vino-e-lacqua-santa-lultimo-viaggio-di-bergoglio on 2025-04-27