Rome spent months preparing for the Jubilee of the Roman Catholic Church. He built tunnels, opened squares and purified mold molds. Now thousands of pilgrims have been pursuing this occasion from all over the world – one year of penance and forgiveness that take place every quarter of a century.
The only thing that was missing was the pope.
For the last three weeks, Pope Francis, the leader of almost 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, has been in the loneliness of the 10th floor of the Gemelli Hospital, where he is treated with pneumonia and other infections. He missed his regular general audience on Wednesday, where he welcomes visitors and pilgrims, Angelus prayer on Sunday, and on Wednesday he entrusted his homily to the Cardinal.
A brief audio recording of the Pope poor blessing in Spanish was all believers received on Thursday, as they gathered for the Rosary for Francisco in St. Peter Square.
“We hoped we could see him,” said Dinora Ramirez, a pilgrim of Honduras, who was preparing for the holy door of St. Peter’s Basilica as her tears filled her eyes. “Our hearts hurts.”
Doctors talk about the “guarded forecast” for the Pope. They offered mostly short reports of his condition, which alternated between crises and stable moments, leaving enough space for conspiracy theories to flourish about his health and intentions to resign and even false reports of his death.
But one unrivaled reality is the pope longer absence.
She was also especially observed by the pope who made a point to be among people, often engaging in crowds, accepting believers and involving improvised conversations. And he feels deeper as thousands of pilgrims came to Rome, hoping to see Francisco and as Roman Catholics prepared for Easter celebration.
On ash wednesday, the first day of Lent, About a dose Cardinals in Red Biretta Caps and Shoulder Capes Walked in a Procession Among Olive Trees and Umbrella Pines Along Rome’s Aventine Hill, then Enterred the Santa Sabina Basilica for Mass. AS The Warm Afternoon Light Filtered Through the Windows, Pope Francis’ Homily – Prepared, and Vatican Official Said, Before His Illness – Echoed in the Basilica.
But Francis did not deliver him. The Italian Cardinal, Angelo de Donatis, read the Pope’s words, imposed ashes on the bald head of the friars, and swung the canter as the choir sang.
“The Pope is not here and you can feel it,” said Mario Maurer, 27, a student of theology on massive. He came to Rome for a pilgrimage for the anniversary.
“There is a cardinal who can read the text and that’s fine,” Mr. Maurer said. “But the pope is a completely different category.”
Standing in front of Santa Sabina as he paused with a tour of the infinite churches of Rome, Mr. Maurer said that the absence of the Pope was not only during the Mass, but also in the city, of which the bishop. “This emptiness is here, but also in Rome itself,” he said.
In his sermon, Pope Francis offered a message in accordance with his long -established topics, complaining about “the return of old identity ideologies that theorize the exclusion of others, the exploitation of earthly resources, violence in all its forms and war between the people.”
For some believers who attended, it was at least a consolation.
“He made us feel his presence through the homily, which was in the spirit of Pope Francis, about peace, pollution,” said Giuseppina de Palma, 67.
The Vatican official did not exclude that going forward, Francis could give up the preparation of the texts if he was aware that he would not deliver them, saying that it might not make sense to do it.
For some Catholics, Pope absence at a time when the global order under exceptional pressure was particularly disoriented.
“I would like to tell us more about how to proceed,” said Luz Viviana Flores Maciel, 21, which is originally from Mexico. “The world is upside down, and we’re like a nation without a leader.”
For three weeks, the Vatican also did not share any Francisco.
In the past, before the appearance of technology and mass media, the physical appearance of the pope was much less known, even if it did nothing that would diminish their authority. But now it is very unusual for the world to pass for weeks without seeing pictures of the church leader (although it has been circulating on social networks with a tumultuous forgery that is generated by AI).
In order to try to feel Francis’s presence, some pilgrims hiking at Gemelli Hospital to pray under his windows. Others decided not to stay on his absence.
“Pope Francis would agree that we should focus on Jesus’ presence, not any of us,” said Jonah Berger, 24, a Dutch Catholic who attended Mass on Wednesday.
