VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
From his choice of residence to the break with past practices: Francis’ sobriety is taking over the Vatican
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
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…”
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