DON GONYEA, HOST:
It's been one week since Pope Francis' funeral and burial. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED host Scott Detrow is in Rome to cover the upcoming conclave. He visited the Church of Saint Mary Major, the site of Francis' tomb, and has this report.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The line to see Pope Francis' tomb begins behind the basilica. Police and security guards herd visitors behind silver, red and white barricades which snake back and forth through the plaza and then around the side of the church. Some people are here intentionally for Francis. Others just happened to plan a trip to Rome that ended up falling in the middle of a papal transition.
MARLENE WICKMAN: I didn't know that there's still going to be - like, there's still ceremonies, like, a week later. I don't know. We were surprised.
DETROW: Marlene Wickman (ph) and her husband, Andre, are in Italy with their children for a family wedding. They were moved by Francis' final appearance on Easter Sunday.
WICKMAN: I was kind of impressed that he still would try to, you know, make it out for the Easter Mass. And like, you - sometimes you do see that with the elderly. They have that last little bit of energy.
DETROW: Katrina Keeler is ahead of them in line. She grew up Catholic in Pennsylvania, playing organ in the church.
KATRINA KEELER: My whole family's musicians. My dad went to Juilliard. He went to Manhattan School of music. Growing up, it was like the Von Trapp family.
DETROW: She says the family was so in demand for church services that around Christmas, her mom would come up with a master schedule of who was playing what instrument, where and when.
KEELER: But as I grew older, I felt like it was more the interpretations of the Bible from the Catholic religion that I feel like we're really straying from what the main purpose, I guess, of a lot of the teachings were. I feel like a lot of it has kind of been weaponized, I guess, especially about - with marginalized groups. So I definitely have not been following or practicing the Catholic faith anymore.
DETROW: And when you're talking about marginalized groups, are you particularly talking about LGBTQ?
KEELER: Yeah, I would definitely say LGBTQ being part of that community, as well.
DETROW: She says she did appreciate Francis' more open and welcoming posture toward LGBT people. It was progress, she says, even if not as much as she'd hoped for. The basilica is large and ornate, but compared to Saint Peter's Basilica, where so many other popes are buried, it feels much more quiet, more personal. Francis made frequent trips to the church to pray in front of a centuries-old icon of Mary and Jesus, an icon that over generations, Romans had developed close bonds to.
We're going into Saint Mary Major now. We're going through one of the Jubilee doors throughout Rome that are open once every 25 years. 2025 was a Jubilee year. The idea according to the church is when you walk through the door, your sins are forgiven.
Inside, people line up along the left side of the church under an arched gold ceiling to wait for a moment in front of Francis' grave. Sometimes they're too loud, at least according to the church official with a microphone.
UNIDENTIFIED CHURCH OFFICIAL: Sh.
DETROW: People are quietly waiting in line for a few moments in front of Pope Francis' grave, which is just one week old today. There's two police officers standing guard out front of it. The burial site is in a nave in between two confessional booths. The confessional booth to the left of it offers confessions in Spanish and Italian, the two languages Francis spoke the most.
A few feet away, Mass begins in a side chapel.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language).
DETROW: It's a chapel where Francis came to pray before and after every major international trip - trips where he carried out religious missions like showing support for Catholics in countries where they make up a minority of the population, and trips with more political aims, like when he pressed global leaders to do more to support immigrants or counter climate change - the kinds of trips filled with moments and statements that can still stir emotions decades later.
ANDRE: Look, right now, the hair on my arms is standing.
DETROW: Outside Saint Mary Major, Andre is recalling how Pope John Paul II insisted on continuing to make public appearances even as his Parkinson's disease grew worse and worse. Andre was also inspired by John Paul's opposition to Communism. He grew up in Romania.
ANDRE: And he was Polish. He was working to undermine the Communist regimes, his...
DETROW: He meant a lot to you?
ANDRE: ...Ideology - he was aligned with the way we felt there because we wanted that regime gone. It was inflicted on us by the Soviets, so we had nothing to do with it. So that's strong.
DETROW: The selection of the next pope begins Wednesday.
GONYEA: That's NPR's Scott Detrow, who's in Rome to report on the upcoming conclave. Scott, can you just walk us through what's happening on that front this weekend?
DETROW: You know, Don, a lot of it kind of mirrors the political process that you and I are used to covering. Cardinals have been meeting on a regular basis to talk through the big issues facing the church. And just like when lawmakers meet on Capitol Hill, there are always reporters outside gathered around trying to get quotes about how the meeting went. There's a lot of speculation right now, particularly in the Italian press, about who the front-runners are. But we know from previous conclaves that those predictions, no matter how confident they are - they can change pretty quickly when all of the cardinals are gathered behind closed doors.
GONYEA: And for folks who maybe aren't following this all that closely or who aren't Catholic, just walk us through what happens next.
DETROW: Yeah, the official mourning period for Francis wraps up tomorrow. These meetings of cardinals will continue, and they can have a pretty big impact on the outcome. Back in 2013, then-Cardinal Bergoglio impressed his peers with a powerful speech about what the church should be focused on. A few days later, he was Pope Francis.
So on Wednesday, the conclave begins. It begins with a Mass and other formal ceremonies. That first day, there's just one ballot, one evening ballot. Cardinals are not allowed to talk while they're in the Sistine Chapel, but we know from - you know, from everybody who saw "Conclave," among other things, we know that once the vote takes place, once they hear who got votes for pope, there's going to be a lot of conversations elsewhere that evening about what this contest actually looks like.
GONYEA: And just briefly, what are you going to be up to the rest of the week?
DETROW: Yeah, of course, the big difference from those political conventions that we're used to covering is that here, we aren't able to watch the floor proceedings, you know? So I'll be talking to people in and around Saint Peter's Square about the big issues the church is facing, the ways that a pope can affect people who aren't Catholic, who aren't religious at all. And of course, I will be staring at that chimney on the top of the Sistine Chapel. If black smoke comes out, that means the ballot was inconclusive. If white smoke comes out, that means they have selected a Pope.
GONYEA: Right. White smoke equals Pope - that's NPR's Scott Detrow in Rome. Scott, thank you.
DETROW: Thanks, Don.
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