An empty St. Peter's Square and the pastor in tune with the world

By Andrea Tornielli

Five years have passed since Pope Francis ascended the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica alone. It was raining that evening.

The square was dramatically empty, even though millions of people around the world were tuned in to him, glued to their television screens, still locked inside the long quarantine of the lockdown, frightened by the invisible virus that was claiming many victims, taking them away to the intensive care units of hospitals, without relatives being able to see them, greet them, or even hold funerals for them.

With that gesture, with that prayer, and with the daily Mass from the Chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, the Successor of Peter made himself close to everyone. He embraced all of them in the emptiness of the square, in the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament, in the simple act of kissing the feet of the crucifix, which seemed to weep because it was exposed to the harsh weather of an inclement early spring evening.

"I was in contact with the people. I was never alone at any moment," the Pope would later recount. Alone, but not by himself, praying for a lost world. It was a powerful, unforgettable image that marked his papacy.

On that occasion, Pope Francis addressed God saying: "You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing. It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others." In the following months, he would repeat that "a crisis never leaves us the same, never. We come out better or we come out worse."

Five years later, looking around, it is impossible to claim that we have come out better, with a world shaken by the violence of the lords of war, who focus on rearmament instead of fighting hunger.

We are no longer in quarantine, and now the situation has reversed: the square is filled with people celebrating the Jubilee, while the Bishop of Rome, who prays for us and for peace from his room at the Casa Santa Marta, is absent, convalescing from a serious pneumonia.

Yet, that connection has not been broken, and his words from that day are more relevant than ever: even today, especially today, it is "the time to choose what counts and what passes."