It is the big Wednesday general audience of the pope in St. Peter’s Square. Forty thousand people or more are here, pilgrims and tourists spilling through the square past the fountain, some holding flags, still more holding umbrellas against what is already, at 10 a.m., a punishing Roman sun. Papal chamberlains in white tie and tails; rows of bishops, cardinals and abbots; the Swiss Guard in their yellow, red and blue uniforms, halberds held sternly in white-gloved hands—the church, as always, knows how to put on a show.
When Francis comes out there are cheers, calls of “Papa!” and applause. John Paul II at the end, in his illness, looked different from his pictures, and Benedict XVI seemed taller and sweeter than what you’d seen, but Francis is exactly the Francis you anticipated, the big smiling man in eyeglasses and white cassock.
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