POPE LEO XIV
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“The Pope was my friend. I loved him so much!” says Salvatore. With his thick mustache, veteran’s charm, and playful spirit, Salvatore is a familiar figure near the Palace of the Holy Office leading to St. Peter’s Square. The 74-year-old Sicilian had been on the streets in a wheelchair after a series of accidents left him hospitalized for years. Francis’ own health struggles stirred Salvatore’s deep compassion.
“But you should talk to my wife — she really knew him,” he adds, pointing toward a grumbling woman standing nearby. “She even shared a meal with the Pope twice.” His wife, clearly used to Salvatore’s unfiltered way of chatting with passers-by, keeps her distance.
“I cried so much when I heard he had died,” says Luigina, surprised to have anyone pay attention to her. She’s used to being invisible in the crowds streaming through St. Peter’s.
Luigina had been invited by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Papal Almoner, to sit directly across from Pope Francis at a special lunch for the World Day of the Poor. She met him again during a breakfast gathering. Yet she holds two regrets:
“I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t say a word. I had so much to tell him, but nothing would come out. And then someone stole my phone — all the photos from those days were lost,” she says quietly. Life on the street often means holding onto very little — and losing even that.
“He opened a breach in hearts”
Many of the homeless around St. Peter’s have lost everything but their dignity — something Pope Francis restored.
“I once shook his hand, and I felt he was truly with us. He was a man among men, like Jesus — carrying our burdens without running away. He knew what real life was,” says Giovanni, a man in his 60s sitting under the great colonnade. For Giovanni, Pope Francis helped change how others looked at the poor. “The Pope opened a breach in people’s hearts, like the bersaglieri opened the breach at Porta Pia in 1870. He opened a new door — a new world,” he explains.
With his glasses and thoughtful speech, Giovanni could easily be mistaken for a philosophy professor. Yet he has spent decades sleeping on cardboard. Thanks to the help of Pope Francis, Cardinal Krajewski, and the Sant’Egidio Community, who run the nearby Palazzo Migliori shelter, Giovanni has now found a home — and a family.
“We’re 43 people living here,” says Rosanna, a 60-year-old Sicilian woman staying at the shelter for the past four years. She remembers when Pope Francis came in 2019 to inaugurate the center, taking time to meet each person. “This Easter, we got to see him pass by in his car [the popemobile] — for the last time. We shouted to him, ‘Ciao, Pope Francis! We love you so much!’ Every evening before dinner, we still pray for him,” she says.
Francis had devoted great efforts to providing hygiene services, medical care, and shelter to those in need, rallying many volunteers, including doctors who donated their time.
The compassion of the poor for the Pope’s frailty
Those living on the margins felt a deep compassion for a pope who faced his physical decline with humility, accepting the public humiliation of weakness. A few years ago, Maria, a young Spanish woman living on the street with her partner Robert, offered a moving insight: “I think the Pope is like a grandfather who knows his end is near and wants to make sure his family is safe — so much so that he sometimes makes mistakes. But everything he does is out of love.”
Maria herself died before the Pope, lost at 40 to an aggressive cancer that went untreated because of her living conditions. Perhaps more than many, she had understood the heart of Francis’ message.
Fittingly, on Saturday afternoon, a small group of poor and homeless people gathered on the steps of the Basilica of St. Mary Major to accompany Pope Francis on the final stage of his journey, the final moments before his burial. It was the last tribute from those he loved so dearly — the ones he, like Christ, never abandoned.
