The honored guests at the funeral of Pope Francis: The most vulnerable in Rome

Before the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, tens of thousands of prominent figures, pilgrims and tourists will have the opportunity to lure and pay their respect.

But in the moments before the coffin entered into a simple grave in Santa Maria Maglor Basilica, Rome, a group of people living in poverty will be the final opportunity to honor it.

The Vatican says it is an indication of the “distinguished place” that the people who live in poverty in the heart of God, and in Francis, who spent the call to the marginalized.

“Everyone is missing him,” said Siopano Catalin Nilo, 49, who was sleeping under the bridges before he resorted to a shelter away from the Vatican.

“Whether you are an Arab, Roman, or Muslim … everyone loved, it helped them.”

Shelter in Vatican shades

The shelter, Palazzo Migliori, is located on the other side of the iconic columns adjacent to the Saint Peter Square.

Early evening on Wednesday, when the crowds mobilized the area in the hope of obtaining an opportunity to pass it next to the coffin, a much smaller group gathered in front of the shelter, waiting for its opening all night.

When this happened, a few dozen was served in carrying backpacks and washing bags. Inside, they were given a bed, a delicious meal and a warm conversation.

In 2019, Pope Francis The best palace palaceAnd that translates literally into the “Palace of the Best”, into a house for some of the most vulnerable city parties.

On Monday, after the death of the Pope, Nilo, who was originally from Romania, said he was staring at the window from his joint room towards St. Peter’s Square for hours.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Nilo said. “Everyone misses him.”

Pope Francis has been repeatedly called Pope for people, who made communication with some of the most vulnerable community priority in society. He visited people living in poverty, called for immigrants and met with gay and transgender activists.

World leaders have challenged him, and some saw him as a steady voice of sympathy in a changing political environment.

“The world is always more selfish,” said Carlo Santoro, director of the shelter run by Sant’egidio, a Catholic association that runs many charitable projects related to the Vatican.

“The poor realize that Pope Francis defends them … not to abandon them, even when there are obstacles or policy.”

Visit the papacy

In the city of Rome, more than 22,000 people suffer from homelessness, according to Modern data It was collected by the National Institute for Statistics, and it is common to see people who lie on cardboard and in sleep bags around the Saint Peter Square and under the structures of buildings and churches.

When Palazzo Migliori, which was based on the religious system in Calasanziane, became in 2019, Santoro said there was a push by many people to turn the building into a hotel.

“Pope Francis) said yes, it will be a hotel, but not for the wealthy – for the poor,” Santoro said.

“Because the poor deserve places like this.”

After opening the shelter, Pope Francis visited and sat with the residents for dinner.

On Wednesday night, while 45 people resided there they had a meal of pasta, chicken and salad, they could hear the loud sound of the crowd in the Saint Peter Square, which came out to its blacksmith.

On the shelter walls, hang pictures and paintings from the Pope.

While Francis visited the shelter only once, Santoro said that residents, volunteers and employees felt his contact with him.

On March 27, 2020, during the peak of the lock in the Covid’s pandemic, the Pope was delivered blessing From St. Peter’s Square, which is full of rain. The Pope later wrote about the moment in his memoirs, saying that he thought about all the vulnerable people, including those who are on the “margin of society” and “the people who live in the street”.

At that time, from the balcony of the Vatican shelter, Santooro says they were praying with him.

Awareness of the Pope

Santoro refers to one of Francis’s recent work as his fixed commitment to those who often on the margins of society.

On the Holy Thursday, immediately before Easter, Go Among the most crowded prisons in Italy and met with 70 prisoners. Usually, to celebrate a day, Francis was washing the feet of the prisoners, including the feet of women and Muslims, in an act to imitate Christ washing his feet before his death.

This year, the weak health of the Pope left him unable to wash the feet, instead, while he was sitting on his wheelchair, he met prisoners for 30 minutes. The Vatican media reported that he said he wanted to feel near them, and he was praying for their families.

Santoro, who met Francis several times, said the Pope had a feeling of denial, and a determination to try to open people’s minds to suffer in the world around them.

Since the opening of the Palazzo Migliori shelter nearly five years ago, more than 100 of the stay there has been transferred to temporary housing.

Fabrizo Salvati, 69, has reached Palazzo every night over the past three years, and he says he hopes to be able to move soon, but he admits that he suffers from some problems.

He began facing homelessness after falling into depression, letting him sleep at a railway station in Rome before moving to the shelter.

Smiling my sulfate, who wears a pearl roll under the Blue shirt, smiling in his plate from Benny, describing how the Pope met a lunch in 2022, and thanked him.

“The previous popes have always done something for the poor … it’s important for the church,” said my sulfate.

“But this Pope has passed, he went far away.”

He says that the Pope prompted the Holy See, the Central Authority for an account The Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican State, to put a news message that gives people like Salvati a higher voice.

He has now found some works in writing the paper and delivering copies in Saint Peter Square.

“This newspaper is for me in my life … it brought me back a role,” he said. “This is the most important thing for me.

International lawyer

While the Pope constantly called for people who live in poverty, he was also a defender of immigrants and called for what he saw as a lack of sympathy.

In 2016, he traveled to the Greek island of Lesbos, which was immersed by the fleeing refugees from the civil war in Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Restore Three Muslim families On board the papal plane for resettlement in Rome.

In the same year, criticize US President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the US -Mexican border, saying that “the person who only thinks about building walls, wherever it is, not building bridges, is not Christian.”

In his last speech on Easter on SundayWhom one of his aides from the Vatican balcony, the Pope said that he was praying for those in conflict areas, including in Ukraine and Gaza, and commented, “How much contempt was sometimes moved towards weakness, marginalized and immigrants.”

Once again in Palazzo Migliori, Santoro, who was working with people living in poverty in Rome for decades, says that the Pope was really associated with them.

Outside the shelter, one man walks with a transparent plastic bag full of property, including a postcard from Pope Francis.

“The Pope lives,” he shouted wandering away.