A Wake Without Tears: Viewing Francis

“If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” Jn. 15:19

The crowds, feeling like hundreds of thousands of people, who "lined up" last night to pass by Jorge Bergoglio's open casket, were faces without tears. I checked. Was there one person in that ocean of people trying to get into Vatican City, who gave off even the slightest appearance of feeling sorrow in their hearts over the passing of the man whom the world knew as Pope Francis. Maybe mourning is something that has passed from our collective consciousness? But I don't think so. There is always tears, sometimes streams of them, when a person dies, especially when a person dies "before their time." There is also or there should be, a spirit of gravity as friends and family collectively confront the stern realities of life and death, absence and the hole that opens up in one's soul when a "presence" is suddenly lacking. What goes on in the inner recesses of men's hearts is unknown, however, there was absolutely no such manifestation of sorrow or lack or even sober dignity and reflection in the crowd that I pushed against in the universal push to present at a truly unique historical event. This was a expectant and exuberant crowd that snaked its way around the walls of St. Peter's, sent in different direction by the long lines of yellowish green jackets of the security details that now occupy the major Catholic places in Rome. We were lined up down both sides of the nave as we headed to see the man who had done more than almost any to erase all the lines distinguishing "Catholic" from "non-Catholic." Maybe this was his triumph, the man who lay so frighteningly in his coffin. You could not tell if anyone was Catholic or not. When we approached the body, the guards insisted that we must put away all cameras. This was about 20 feet from the casket. As people approached, being allowed only a few seconds to "stand in front of the body," really there was no standing at all but a moving through, no one that I saw made the sign of the cross. No one tried to stop a tear. I kept watching people and there was not one. They just passed and went through the church, just as in the way that you would pass through any of the great churches in Rome at a curious and observational state. No one was weeping or even seeming to be sad, as we went down the stairs of St. Peter's. The power of the idea of the papacy obviously drew people to some degree. Something drew all of these people. It might be the realization that a historical event was unfolding that they should be a part of. But there were no tears. 

Francis, to my surprise, looked awful. Previously I had only seen him once at a distance. As he lay there, in the simplest and most minimal of episcopal robes. he looked a ghoulish green color, to me how looked a solid lime green. His features were distorted a distended and exaggerated way. His entire look was that of a thick wax mask. His expression was like that of someone who had just been interrupted when making a mistake. But had Bergoglio succeeded really. Had he created a church without sorrow or even without the deep sobriety that used to characterize the Catholic Faith. Had these crowds finally merged into the Noosphere, become part of the mass that was no longer needs tears and black vestments. Well, if atheists go to Heaven, I suppose Jorge Maria Bergoglio is safe!