IL PAPA

It’s 11:32 pm. The pope has been dead for just over two hours and I am standing in St Peters Square with about 15 thousand other people.

And I have never heard such silence.

I have spent most of my week here actually. I was here last night. Out of respect, and curiosity- But I spent the first few days of this week actually working here. Illegally selling tourists a tour of the Basilica. It seems like ages ago that a cop stopped me to see if I was working… “no, non capisco niente…” (no, I understand nothing) I said. Playing my dumbest American possible. It worked and he left me alone.

Now I feel sacrilegious for trying to make a sleazy buck off the place.

Tonight it is far from the hustle and bustle of the black market. Tonight is it silent, somber… people with candles, silently crying, a few openly weeping. None if the usual Italian old ladies weeping and crying… it is far too respectful for that.

I was at a party tonight- across town with a whole gaggle of Irish ex-pats… when all of the sudden everyone’s phone went off at once. We turned on the TV. The Pope was dead. I turned to my friend Sinead and said- “want to go down there?”

Within minutes we were in a cab on our way. I don’t know why I wanted to go so bad. For the sheer possibility that I COULD. But also out of respect, and reverence.

The church is so present in Rome- in the buildings and the statues, and the churches… fucking hell the churches. I could go to a different church everyday and it would still take me the better part of a year to see them all. I go into churches all the time. I love the smell- it’s always the same. It smells like stone and cool and rock and marble. Tall cool air, quite, stillness, age. It’s the smell of faith.

I was in St Peters Basilica a few days ago, working, and I saw a woman- all dolled up- Gucci glasses, French manicure, highlighted hair, the whole nine- she was in her late 40s… and there she was, not 5 feet inside the church door, on her knees, eyes closed, whole body involved… praying, pleading… having a word with god, or herself, or whomever. And I thought to myself- I have never felt like she feels right now. I’ve never known a faith like that. I can’t say I want to- at least not with this church… but I wonder sometimes, am I missing out?
She looked so vulnerable. And I wonder- is there anything that could possibly make me trust and believe that hard?

There is a mass being held tonight. Prayers, singing. The applause washed over us in waves. First from the speakers, and then right next to you. Such acoustics in the square. “Padre. Figlio. Spiritus Santi”


I am interviewed for Irish TV. I don’t know what to say. I am not religious, I am here out of respect- and out of Awe. It is quite a spectacle.

The next month will be strange in Rome. We are bracing ourselves for a flood of believers. His body will be on display for a few days. Then the funeral. (the Vatican has yet to announce whether he will be buried inside the Vatican or in Poland where he was from) Then the cardinals will file into the Sistine Chapel and vote in a new pope. They get locked in until a decision is made. If they vote, and there is no decision made the burn chemicals that produce black smoke. If they elect a new pope- they burn chemicals to make white smoke.

There will be people parked out here for days to see that smoke. I may very well be one of them.

I saw the pope last summer… sat pretty close in fact. Now all we see is his bedroom window.

I stay for an hour or so. Walking out is a maze. A parade of people coming, going… a parade of pilgrims.

I don’t have my Vespa so I walk home.

The bus stops are jammed with people- all the restaurants are still open at 1 am.

And the pizza joint just down the street from St Peters is hopping.