READ: OUR MAN IN ROME | A DISPATCH FROM THE VATICAN by FATHER TIM NELSON: Tomorrow our Holy Father, Pope Francis, will be laid to rest in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major. RIP. While most of us are praying and watching events in Rome from afar, one man who is on the ground in the Eternal City is Father Tim Nelson, Pastor of Saint Mary, Star of the Sea, in Jackson. Here is his dispatch from the Vatican. Father Nelson writes:
I was already scheduled to go to Rome last Monday for vacation when I learned that Pope Francis had died that same day just hours earlier.
My first full day in Rome was last Tuesday. The picture below is taken around 9 AM local Rome time. The Pope’s body was transferred from his residence at Saint Martha’s house to Saint Peter’s Basilica.
There are hundreds and hundreds of reporters. I’m staying in an apartment just outside the Vatican Colonade along the Via della Conciliazione.
Maybe because I was dressed in a cassock, a reporter from France approached me and wanted my opinion of the current event. My response in English was just fine with him. The same happened a while later with a reporter from Brazil. My response was, “On this sad occasion we pray that Pope Francis be received to the arms of God’s loving mercy; a mercy that Pope Francis preached all throughout his ministry.”
Around noon, after the Cardinals had met, it was a really funny to see one of the Cardinals leave the Vatican and walk a short way down the Via della Conciliazione to an ice cream store. He was dressed all in red (hard to miss). The reporters swarmed him like bees and followed him as he walked along! I wish I had a picture!!
Right now I’m visiting San Giovanni Rotondo but I’ll be back on Saturday for the funeral.
Fr. Tim Nelson
