It’s a pleasant sultry summer afternoon in Rome
and two Swiss guards and a Vatican policeman, all in uniform, stand in
front of the entrance to St. Martha’s House, home to the Pope and
another forty or so bishops, monsignors and lay people who work in the
Vatican.
It is a sign the Holy See’s top man is about.
The white
and yellow flag with the Vatican crest hangs limply in front of the
windows on the second floor of the anonymous rectangular building which
John Paul II had built in the mid 90’s to give cardinals taking part in
the Conclave a decent place to stay.
Now we are in Francis’ living quarters. Guests
take the semi-circular staircase that leads down to the austere and
slightly cold hall. There, standing behind a bar is an Oriental looking
layman in a tobacco-coloured suit.
All is silent.
One can feel it’s
summer even inside St. Martha’s House and guests know Bergoglio could
pop out from just about anywhere, at any moment: from the elevator, from
an opening door, from the dining hall or from one of the sitting rooms.
Everyone needs to look their best when the Pope is about.
In the hall way there is another Swiss Guard
and Vatican policeman in plain dress.
“I was seated in a sitting room
with green upholstery. The Pope appeared out of nowhere, alone, without
any butlers or secretaries and he was carrying an envelope with some
rosaries,” says an anonymous source who was received by the Pope in a
private audience.
“At the end of our meeting he opened the door for me
himself and showed me the way out.”
No other scene can better describe
the change that is taking place in the Holy See. St. Martha’s House is
half-way between a hotel and a pilgrim’s residence: there is almost no
trace of that courtly feeling you get in the apostolic palace with its
renaissance-like dignity.
St. Martha’s House is the ideal starting point
to our journey through the most important changes introduced by the
Argentinean Pope, the small and big breaks with protocol and their
significance.
Francis’ choice to stay put in the residence where he
stayed as a cardinal elector during the Conclave was taken for
“psychiatric reasons” because he did not want to be isolated.
As he
wrote to his friend, the Argentinean priest Enrico Martinez, also known
as “Quique”: “I am visible to people and I lead a normal life. A public
Mass in the morning, I eat at table with everyone…”
There are no butlers to serve the coffee, just a
bog-standard vending machine in the main hallway.
Francis’ room is suite
number 201, on the second floor: bare white walls, a sitting area with a
couple of armchairs and a desk, a glass bookcase, some Persian rugs, a
slightly over-polished light coloured parquet floor, a bedroom with an
imposing dark wooden bed and a bathroom.
This suite used to be reserved
for the Pope’s important guests such as the Patriarch of Constantinople,
Bartholomew I.
When Francis received the patriarch, he apologised for
stealing his room.
But Bartholomew was happy for Francis to have it.
The
two rooms that are adjacent to the Pope’s are where his two secretaries
live: one of them, Alfred Xuereb, was “inherited” from his predecessor
and the other, Fr. Fabián Pedacchio, he picked himself.
These two men
are less powerful than their immediate predecessors. Jorge Mario
Bergoglio continues to see himself as a priest in service of God and
therefore of others. He does not see himself as a monarch and has not
changed one bit since his big election day on 13 March, when he found
out he would not be using the return ticket he had bought to Buenos
Aires.
And so, Francis, the Pope next door, decided to
carry on living here, moving to just a couple of doors down from room
207 where he stayed during the Conclave. He decided not to move into the
Papal Apartment, normally assigned to Popes and members of their
closest entourage.
Francis was overwhelmed by the size of the place:
“There’s room for three hundred people in here!”
It is certainly no
palace, but it is easy to imagine the reaction of a cardinal who up
until then had been used to living in a two-room living space and making
their own bed each morning.
The first changes could be seen during the
Conclave.
The minute he was elected and even before he put on his white
robes, Francis went to embrace Cardinal Angelo Scola, his “rival”,
during the scrutiny phase of the papal Conclave.
Then came his refusal
to wear one of the forty five pairs of red shoes prepared for the
occasion. He preferred his big black ones.
More than a question of
taste, it was a question of comfort as he found his worn in shoes more
comfortable to walk in. He did away with the red mozzetta and lace
rochet, the gold papal cross and the flashy 18 carat papal ring, the
Popemobile with the “SCV1” registration plate, the flagship car in the
Vatican car fleet which is now made up of more sober, utility
vehicles.
And he there’s no police escort following him around the
miniscule Vatican State 24/7.
The small Vatican world which Mgr. Marcinkus
defined “a village of washerwomen” initially let these things slide and
then tried to adapt, as was seen two days after Francis’ election, when
all cardinals who greeted the Pope in the Clementine Hall had swapped
their jewel-encrusted golden crosses for iron or silver ones.
There are two elevators in St. Martha’s House
and one is usually kept free for the residence’s most important guest.
But Francis often takes the other one too.
One day, two bishops saw him
entering it quickly before the doors shut and pressed themselves up
against the back of the elevator feeling a little embarrassed.
The Pope
smiled at them and said in Spanish: “No muerdo”, I don’t bite.
There are all sorts of stories like this going round and occasionally
blown out of proportion, like the time a Swiss guard who had finished
his night shift was apparently seen taking Francis a sandwich.
The Pope
loves walking.
On Saturday 16 March he politely declined the motorcade
which was to accompany him 50 metres down the road, as if to say: “Are
you kidding me?”
Another time, as he was going out, he met a bishop
standing outside the entrance to St. Martha’s House and asked him: “What
are you doing here?”
“I’m waiting to be picked up,” the prelate said.
“Can’t you just walk?” Francis replied.
Pope Francis is extraordinary because he is “normal”.
He refers to old words in the Gospel in
a new way.
“His words are so striking because they are a unique
illustration of what a genuine person he is,” Professor of Church
History, Andrea Ricacrdi, said.