Argentina cries the death of Pope Francis

Faithful of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires congregated spontaneously this Monday in the Metropolitan Cathedral, a place that knew the chair of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in his time as Archbishop, to say goodbye to Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday in Rome.

From different parts of the city, and in the usual transit of a Monday morning, many stopped for some moments to visit the temple and offer a moment of prayer before the portrait of Pope Francis, a floral offering, and the miter that used to use in Buenos Aires, before leaving to participate in the conclave in which he was chosen pontiff and never returned.

We were the Pope of the poor

“We were the Pope of the poor,” says Carlos, a 78 -year -old retiree, who arrived from Chacabuco Park because going to the cathedral is something that “I needed, from the bottom of my heart.”

“I am devastated, I couldn’t believe, but yesterday I had seen it on Italian television when they gave Easter Mass,” he admits.

“It is the Pope of the poor, of the humble, what I know. He wanted the unity of all, especially of the Argentines, so that we would fight for a better country, for an economic and social situation that would be reversed and that we could all be united in a country as rich as this, that we did not have so many poor people,” he says.

As did that March 13 when Pope chose him, Carlos returns to the Cathedral today to ask Francisco “to help us from heaven, next to God, to help us all to get out of this bad moment, that we do not deserve, because it is a very rich country and there can be not so many poor people.”

Think about the other, serve the other, be for the other

Camila is 26 years old and wears pants with the San Lorenzo shield, the team with which the Holy Father sympathized. The death of the Pope, “was a message that I did not want to accept,” he acknowledges, but affirms: “For me it meant a lot. I lost my mother four years ago, and the root of a health issue that I have, I began to bring the church much more to the Church. And the words he had, I took them and felt them as part of help for life, say.”

“Something that the Pope leaves, as my mother has left me, is to think about the other, to serve the other, put on the place of the other, be for the other,” he values. “Beyond being the Argentine Pope, he was a simple person for me. I saw him as one more Argentine. He did not change for being the Pope and for being in Rome.”

A young couple remains sitting in a bench in the cathedral, looking touched towards the altar. They are from Olavarría but were in the city and felt the need to approach. “We feel that it is a representation of the most humble, of the flags of the social struggle, always committed, never changed his way of being since he was bishop here in the city and previously. Then I feel that you have to also commit to his legacy and maintain his memory,” he summarizes, visibly excited.

Karina lives in Villa Celina but works near the center and usually goes through the cathedral. “I was in my house, very sad, and I said good, I’m going to give you goodbye.” He especially recalls that his daughter took the first communion at a great mass that Cardinal Bergoglio presided in Roca Park, months before becoming a pope. “He was very special, he was involved in everything,” he smiles when he remembers.

Gustavo, on the other hand, was a collaborator of the chaplain of the Tornú Hospital when in 2003, Cardinal Bergoglio visited the place to perform with the sick the gesture of the feet wash.

“That day I listened to it very carefully and I liked it because I was a very simple man and when he did the homilies, he spoke, he did not speak for the great intellectuals, he spoke for the people who needed to know the word of God, who were those people of the villas, the people who are admitted to hospitals for different circumstances, who are people of very little culture,” he says. “He wanted to enter the hearts of those people.”

Today Bergoglio, the priest of Buenos Aires

“Bergoglio was a very controversial man when he did the homilies, to face the great powers. He has faced presidents who have stopped coming to Tedeum, who went to Tucumán or went to Luján, where they felt placidly comfortable and that the priest spoke in favor of him. Bergoglio was not that, Bergoglio was a simple guy but with the truth in his boc.

Gustavo especially remembers a confession he had with him: “After I finished confessing, I say, it will make me pray 40 our parents, 50 Ave Mary. And he tells me: ‘No, walk and pray 3 Ave Mary and 3 Our Father.’

“God seeks that. He does not seek greatness, seeks humility to reach the person,” is the message that still resonates in his memory. Therefore, he argues that “today he did not leave a Pope. Today Bergoglio left, the priest of Buenos Aires. We were a great Argentine.”