A strangely moving vigil for the Pope

Steady rain during the day stopped just before Monday’s evening prayers for Pope Francis in Saint Peter’s Square. A line of cardinals sat on a platform, an aging politburo in black and scarlet. A couple of thousand of the faithful and the curious stood below. Vatican gendarmes, wearing kepis and carrying sidearms, directed people to their places. The Swiss Guard were not on duty. Their gaudy, striped uniforms would anyway have been too exuberant for the occasion, a tenth night in hospital for the Pope, dangerously ill with double pneumonia at the age of 88. Floodlights illuminated the great baroque façade of the most famous building in Christendom. Cobblestones glistened; fountains shimmered. There was a nasty chill in the air. I stood at the back, behind a group of elderly nuns with sky-blue habits, white veils and pursed lips. The nuns made the sign of the cross and the crowd recited the rosary prayer for the Pope’s health. Even an atheist like me could be moved by the strange and beautiful words. “Hail Mary, full of grace… pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

The next day the Pope seemed to be getting (a little) better. The Holy See press office said he’d slept well, got up, had breakfast, and had done some work. He called the Holy Family parish in Gaza, as he’s said to do most days. Of course, the Vatican has a reputation for being extremely secretive about papal health — under previous popes, its press office made the Biden administration look open and honest about such questions. At Gemelli hospital, where Francis is being treated, a gaggle of young Italian hospital workers say they don’t believe the official bulletins and think he is already dead. They wanted to confirm their suspicions and tried to get into the Pope’s all-white suite on the tenth floor — heavily guarded and served by its own lift — but were thrown out. I’m told, however, that Francis — as one of the many reforms he has introduced at the Vatican — has instructed his officials to be “completely transparent” about his health. But doubts persist.

David Willey has spent more than half a century covering the Vatican, watching five popes come and go. As the BBC’s Rome correspondent, he went on some 70 papal trips abroad. At the beginning, you could just wander to the front of the plane and chat to the Pope. Whatever this Pontiff’s intentions about being more open on the issue of health, Willey says it’s getting more difficult generally to report on the papacy. Once, you could simply ring up a cardinal, and pop over to talk to them. Now, he says, everything goes through the press office and cardinals are discouraged from getting too close to the media.

Willey’s fascination with the papacy began when he came to Rome in the 1950s, while studying modern languages at Cambridge. He watched Pope Pius XII being carried aloft on the gestatorial chair — the ceremonial throne — by 12 footmen in red uniforms, two more carrying huge fans made of ostrich feathers. Today, the sedia gestatoria has been replaced by the Popemobile, another sign of “the transition between the old and the new.”

The Vatican is an intensely political place. “Above all, it’s a patient politics, because they’re willing to wait. They think in centuries, not four-year election periods,” says Willey. He believes the Church is threatened with “a huge loss of power and influence and prestige,” congregations falling away in Germany, the US and even Italy (where they never came back after Covid). He wrote a 2017 biography of the Pope, The Promise of Francis, and believes his successor will have to be in the same image. “If the Church is to survive… there’s no returning.”

On Saint Peter’s Square, beggars sleep under the sweeping colonnades leading to the basilica. Next to the motionless forms are wheelchairs and crutches, the tools of their trade. A few yards away stands “Angels Unawares,” the bronze statue of migrants and refugees on an overcrowded boat unveiled by Francis six years ago. The first official visit out of Rome he made as Pope was to the island of Lampedusa, where he threw flowers on to the water. His statements on migration, capitalism, the environment and gay rights have often angered his conservative critics. A priest who has served as one of his advisers told me that his papacy would be defined by his “pastoral approach” to these issues. That would be his legacy.

Francis is a Jesuit and as such, the priest said, he would emphasize helping the poor and the downtrodden — which had political ramifications. But, he went on, Francis did not consider himself a political figure but “rather a religious, moral force.” He was not an intellectual in the mold of Pope Benedict but had a “special talent” for making connections with ordinary people. You could see this when he moved among crowds, or in small meetings, where he would put nervous visitors at ease. “He likes to joke,” though he also “likes to conceal what he’s thinking, because that’s what Jesuits are also famous for… he likes to surprise people.” Above all, “Pope Francis is a fighter.” The news from Gemelli hospital this week had been grim, but “as long as the Lord gives him strength, he’s going to keep going.”