It’s hard to frame it. Not due to lack of space, but due to excess of people. The marble tomb Pope Francis’s white shirt resists the clean photo: there is always a shoulder, a mobile phone raised, a hand that crosses itself. In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggioreunder a cross and a single word – ‘Franciscus’, in Latin, like a whisper – rests the Argentine Pontiff. –April 21, 2025– the place functions more like a station or destination point than a temple: a continuous flow of people coming, waiting, approaching, looking, praying and leaving.
The queue starts on the left side of the building and meanders without drama, with that resigned patience of airports. It is not the Rome of great noise, but it is the one of almost obligatory visits: enter, keep silentthe ‘selfie’ perhaps, and leave through the other door. The basilicalittle given to hustle and bustle, he has become accustomed to this murmur constant.
Visitors in front of the tomb of Pope Francis in the Basilica of Santa María Maggiore. / EFE
El cardenal Lithuanian Roland Makrickarchpriest of the temple, explains it with numbers. “According to the Italian police, some 20 million people visited the Pope’s tomb during the jubilee year,” he points out. Added to that are more than 50 official delegations —including the Kings of Spain and several heads of State and Government— and a detail that is repeated in the hallways: “A lot of Latin America.”
“Latin American pilgrims, Argentineans in particular, want to share their impressions about the tomb, which is so simple that it is unique… as he was“, he adds. The result is prosaic: today they enter Santa María la Mayor two thirds more faithful than before Francis was buried here.
“Francis came to you”
Makrickas still so present, for Francisco. He speaks of his features when he was alive, of closeness, of simplicity, of humor – “of his way of humanize the meeting“, he says, as if he were listing domestic rather than theological virtues. Perhaps that is where the key lies: a pope who knew how to make himself understood without a manual. And now it may even be better understood.
Outside the sacristy, where the language becomes less solemn, the explanations are even simpler. Nerea, a bank employee from Alicante, sums it up bluntly: “Whether you were a believer or not, Francisco came to you. Because of how he spoke, because of what he defended. He got involved, he fought his battles“. At his side, Raquel, a mathematics teacher, refines the idea: “Progressive, yes, but above all a street pope.” Further back in the line, somewhat disoriented, Kin Bin Xi, arrival from South Koreaalso reduces everything to the essential, which is sometimes the most precise: “I have come because it is a famous pope…and because we are Christians.” He doesn’t seem to need much more.
All in all, the weight of the Argentine pope’s legacy is not a vague impression. Even before his death, polls in Italy They already pointed it out: 75% trusted him —including 60% non-believers—; 80% highlighted their commitment to peace; and 60% continued to remember that image from March 2020, in the midst of the covid pandemic, when he walked alone through San Pedro Square.
a roman mass
This is also why the landing of the most cautious (at least, for now) León this year has not exactly been a walk through a Castilian plain. The new Pontiff, who shares many ideas with Francis, has found himself trapped in that strange choreography of the beginnings: that of steer with the rearview mirror. Not only did he have to put an end to I loved you —that apostolic exhortation that the Argentine left halfway between intention and paper—but he had to pack his bags to fulfill his travel agenda. An example: Türkiye and Lebanon, which were not trips of choice, but rather stopovers of a large deployment that Francisco had already left packed and ready to check-in before leaving.
. “An important massconcelebrated by cardinals, bishops, with the diplomatic corps and the faithful who wish to participate. It will remind you how we remember our loved oneswith this Eucharistic celebration,” explained Argentine priest Guillermo Karcher, one of the closest collaborators of the late Francis and who organized the event.
For the occasion, Karcher, who is still in Rome working for the Vatican, also recalled Francis’ link with the capital of Italy, coinciding with the papal anniversary. “If you observe, looking at his tomb on the right, there is the chapel of ‘Salus Populi Romani’, the patron Virgin of Rome and health of the Roman people. He was very devoted to that devotion, and as bishop of Rome, he frequently went before and after each trip, even after leaving the hospital,” he recalled.
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