‘No selfies’: What it’s like among the horde queuing to pay respect to Pope Francis

People take photos as the body of Pope Francis is transferred to the Basilica at St Peter’s Square. Picture: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

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I wonder if Pope Francis had any inkling that hundreds of thousands of well-wishers would be sticking their hands up high, mobile phones aloft, to get the best view up his nostrils.

Because that appears to be happening inside Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, where the Pope has begun lying in state for the start of three days before his funeral on Saturday.

The scene is a curious one indeed. Many thousands of pilgrims are lining quietly around the 9th-century walls of the Vatican, spending many hours in quite warm sun often without any shade and inching their way forward eventually through St Peter’s Square up various corridors and steps before being confronted with a 150m-long queue under the soaring ceilings of the Basilica.

Remarkably, everyone seems patient, and most importantly has their phone fully charged and ready.

This is the moment many have spent long hours preparing for, and so what do they see in the three seconds or so as they approach the front? There’s a red-lined casket at an angle leaning slightly upwards towards them just metres away. The Pope is in prime spot and clearly visible about 20m away with some Swiss Guards between them and the former head of the Catholic Church. We see him lying at ease, eyes closed, arms folded, and he is wearing his vestments of authority and looking very much as if he has just gone to sleep. Young children, one hoisted aloft on dad’s shoulder, are witnessing this as well, and you must wonder what are they thinking. To see a dead body can be shocking and confronting: so what is the deeper purpose?

Is it like antiquity times, to convince the population that the leader of the church is indeed dead and there does need to be a new pope elected in a conclave, or is it a form of gawkish entertainment? What else to do for a spare few hours on a Wednesday or Thursday? Do the breakfast conversations over the hotel buffet go like this? “Colosseum, Trevi Fountain or the dead Pope? C’mon, let’s get something great for the ’gram.”

The body of Pope Francis is carried through St Peter’s Square to St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, where he will lie in state for three days. Picture: Markus Schreiber/AP

It is no coincidence that officials at the front of the queue repeatedly warn people there are to be “no selfies” and to “move along”. There is no time for reflection, or prayer, just an elbow in the back from people behind at the merest hint of dallying.

Many people here have been on booked holidays, planned months or a year out and just happened to jag the one week when a pope dies. Amid the sadness and respectful reverie, it’s true that most can’t believe their luck being here. They are in Rome and in the Vatican City at the time of a significant change in the Catholic Church’s 2000-year history. Surely this should mean much more than a chance to ramp up social media content for some likes.

When Queen Elizabeth was lying in state in September 2022 some 250,000 people queued for more than a day to see her closed coffin, and no phones were allowed inside Westminster Hall so that mourners could quickly pay their respects without distractions.

The Catholic Church could learn from this.