There’s a strange kind of hush over Rome this week.
Not silence — Rome doesn’t do silence. There’s still the buzz of scooters winding through cobblestone alleys, the espresso machines hissing in cafes near Campo de’ Fiori, the chatter of tourists with matching scarves following guides with raised umbrellas. But layered beneath the din is something else: a reverent stillness that seems to have settled like morning mist over the Eternal City.
Since the death of Pope Francis, the city has entered into a rhythm of mourning that is uniquely Roman. Only here do the tumultuous currents of modern life and ancient tradition converge. One moment you’re navigating a crush of humanity at the Trevi Fountain, the next you’re caught in the soft echoes of the Salve Regina being sung by pilgrims kneeling on the cool marble floor of one of Rome’s hundreds of glorious churches.
A pope unlike any other
Outside St. Peter’s Basilica, crowds swell. Nuns in habits and businessmen in suits wait side by side. A mother cradles her baby in one arm, a rosary in the other. Some have come to pay their respects to a pope they loved. Others, it seems, have stumbled upon history in motion — waiting long hours to enter St. Peter’s for a passing glimpse of the late pontiff.
Inside the Vatican walls, liturgies unfold with the timeless precision of Roman ritual. The pope’s casket was solemnly carried into St. Peter’s. The cardinals of the Church have gathered to pray. The rites are solemn but not unfamiliar; Rome has mourned popes before. And yet this is new — because this pope was new.
Francis was the pope of spontaneity, selfies and slums. The pope of mercy, the chief physician of the field hospital. His last days were marked by vulnerability and his dedication to the Petrine ministry.
And so now, the margins come to him. Pilgrims from every continent stand shoulder to shoulder, filing past his body. They are here because of who he was: not a distant sovereign, but a spiritual father.
An eternal Church
Still, Rome goes on.
There are cappuccinos to be made, museum tickets to scan, trains to catch. That is the strange poetry of this place. The sacred and the secular meet in the same piazza. These days, that juxtaposition feels almost sacramental. The Church on earth is, after all, a pilgrim Church — always in transit, always between sorrow and joy.
Cardinals spend mornings in administrative sessions. Over coffees and dinners, the work of the coming election is quietly happening.
And Rome, eternal as ever, holds the tension. Between liturgy and life. Between mourning and movement. Between what is and what is still to come.
Because after the mourning will come the white smoke.
And the Church, as ever, will rise.
