Chats and Snippets

My experience at St Peter’s Square during the Conclave, May 2025

Smoke Signals

Smoke signals have generated visual and olfactory messages across the ages. The smell of smoke in the air carries comfort or fear, but until the conclave, I had never experienced the joy of smoke. To be honest, I had never expected to. 

Living a brisk six-minute walk from St Peter's Square, it had seemed indolent not to participate in such an historic event, and so I cleared my calendar and released my time to watch for the white smoke that would announce a new Pope. I was curious. I was open. I was not prepared.

The walk to St Peter's is as familiar to me as the walk to my local supermarket, yet every visit is different. Some evenings, I meander towards the square when the air is cool and all is quiet. When I first moved to Rome eight years ago, I read R.A. Scotti's engaging book Basilica: The Splendour and the Scandal, and I learned a lot about the city that would become the home of my heart.

Scotti's vivid account tells us of the wild brilliance, hypocrisy, greed, courage, corruption,  creativity, bloodshed, heartache, jealousy, grit,  joy and faith that is etched in every stone. The Renaissance St. Peter's was built from the earth and the ruins of ancient Rome when the city had crumbled into decay and violence. Like Constantine's original Basilica, built in 300 AD, the new St Peter's was intended to unite fractious, fragmented Christians, inspire wonder, and consolidate papal power– as well as to honour Christ.  It's a mess of a building. It's a genius building. It is a building that exposes the worst and the best of human endeavour. It draws me to it. Faithless me. Me, a careful atheist. Me, who feels the wonder of science. Me, who knows right from wrong without needing the guiding hand of a god I don't believe in. Me, who feels a spiritual awakening when I watch the sun setting behind the Basilica, or see seagulls flying in a starless sky above the empty square. 

As you face the Basilica, hidden away on the left near Bernini's colonnade is a contemporary sculpture by the Canadian Timothy Schmalz. Installed in 2019, it was the first new sculpture in the classical Christian landscape for over four hundred years. Sanctioned by Pope Francis, its installation was not without controversy. The sculptor and the Pope were similarly inspired by words from Hebrews chapter thirteen. "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares"

Schmalz's Angels Unaware tells the story of migrants and refugees, from all walks of life, of all faiths and belief systems, from across the ages. Desperate men, women and children stand clustered on a six-meter-long boat reaching out for sanctuary and growing out of the centre, as if to lift them to safety, is a pair of angel's wings. I have been there on several evenings when somebody comes across the sculpture unsuspectingly, and I have held them in my arms when they cry. Amid the splendour of the square, the photographs, the selfies, the insta fodder, the sculpture rips us back to our raw humanity: to the point of the whole thing.

 Despite the pomp and ceremony of the conclave, it is underpinned by a similar rawness and simplicity. The people of Rome gather with patience and humility, as they have gathered for hundreds of years.

On Wednesday, after the doors of the Sistine Chapel had been sealed, I left my flat to gather with the faithful, the secular and the curious to bear witness to the first vote of the conclave. Standing at the crossroads at the end of my street, some of us split left to walk under the archway into Vatican City, while others went about their way along the embankment past Castel Sant'Angelo or crossed the river, perhaps on their way home, or to meet a friend and share a meal—just regular, jostling Roman life. The ease with which Rome shifts from daily life to major events is glorious. No fanfares, no hawkers, no signs announcing historic event this way please,  no flummery, no fuss. Just be there.

I joined the crowd in Via della Conciliazione and scanned for the chimney. I wasn't sure I had made out the Sistine accurately among the kerfuffle of Vatican buildings. Scrunching my eyes, I tried to match the chimney displayed on a vast screen with the tiny real-life chimney in the distance. A woman behind me confirmed I was looking in the right place. In the grandeur of the Vatican, it was a homely chimney that would release a portentous message.

It didn't seem as if there were forty-five thousand of us. It seemed intimate. Calm. Unflustered. We waited patiently for several hours while one hundred and thirty-three men deliberated on a choice that would have far-reaching implications. In time, the sun dipped towards the Basilica and a black cloud smeared the sky behind the Sistine Chapel, merging with the black smoke billowing from the chimney. The communal groan was cursory. So be it. We'd all expected that result and quietly set off home. 

The next morning, I woke to a hot sunny day, and slathering myself in sunscreen, I wandered down to the square. The results from the two morning votes probably wouldn't be announced until lunchtime. Nevertheless, I wanted to be there just in case the early vote was fruitful. The crowd was thinner, it was a working day and probably people wiser than me knew to hold back. Cold white light shone from a bank of scaffolding stuffed with the world's press, but the light in the square was as warm as the people who filled it. I found a place much closer to the front than yesterday and a comfy barrier on which I could lean as I dug in for the next three hours or so. The mood was light. Easy. The lunchtime smoke was black. No matter. Turning towards home, I bumped into Julie, a CBS news scout, who asked for my views on how the vote might impact women. My sharp feminist mind, always alert to political gender injustice, was bewilderingly foggy. Today was not the day to feel the weight of thousands of years of oppression and injustice. Today was not the day to feel the despair I carry. I don't know why, but hopefulness overwhelmed me, and I let it in. 

A drone flew overhead, and a procession of pilgrims passed by singing the names of the saints. I don't believe in miracles, but maybe I'm wrong. It's surely miraculous that while the world is turning upside down– while all that is so obviously kind and good is being defiled– while children are being slaughtered– homes are being destroyed – crops are withering in dry earth– and while in the golden crescent, the birth of civilization, villagers are turning on villagers fighting for access to water – Romans still gather in their thousands fearlessly and thoughtfully to bear witness to the arrival the next man deemed holy enough to walk in the fisherman's footsteps. 

On that day, strangers smiled at strangers, there was no selfish jostling, space was freely given, voices were calm, and all eyes were trained on the slender metal chimney. As the afternoon drew on and we waited for the results of the early evening ballots, the crowd thickened, reaching back to the river. A flock of seagulls swept low over the gathering, looping forwards and backwards, their wings beating a rhythm into the still air before rising high above us and disappearing over the Basilica.

Then there was a gasp, and looking up, I saw white smoke billowing into the clear blue sky…unexpected …shocking. My body shook. The purity was overwhelming. Then, as the crowd took in the surprisingly early message, a crescendo of happiness rose into the air, no hysteria, no shrieking, no performance,  just pure delight expressed by thousands. The bells of Rome rang out, sending the message across the city. The same bells we heard every night at six o'clock during lockdown, reminding us we were not alone. 

Within moments,  the crowd thickened like a soup. From my comfy position, the balcony on which the new Pope would emerge was obscured by the obelisk: the anachronistic Egyptian edifice hauled from Caligula's brutal circus, to satisfy a pope's aesthetic whim. Threading my way through the throng was easy. No one was fighting for a place; the space between each body was filled by communal good intention. In time, I stood in the heart of the crowd with the red velvet curtains in view– if I stood on tiptoe and dipped my head from side to side like a bird. Finding the gaps between raised hands waving their phones to catch the first sighting of the new pontiff was challenging.

I chose to put my phone away. Years of living in the Okavango Delta had taught me that no lens can feel the whole. The wide, wild Okavango lives inside me, and now a piece of St Peter's history lives inside me. The crowd in which I stood, armed with 21st-century technology, watched over by drones and Roman seagulls, was no different from the previous two hundred and sixty-six gatherings of people waiting quietly for the appearance.  The stories told by the press miss out on the spaces between the jubilations. The quiet time. The reflective time when so much is happening unseen. 

On that day, India and Pakistan were toying with war. The UK and the USA had clinched a trade deal, Gaza was obliterated, Khartoum lay in ruins, the squirrels of Afghanistan were freer than its women and obdurate ignorance was releasing mortal diseases back into the world to wreak havoc. In my eyes, God's mysterious work remained remarkably shoddy, but the power of human joy, kindness, love, optimism and glorious imagination remained unfettered. Standing in the square, I felt it all. I was filled with love, hope, and wonder, and it entered my soul. My mind was free of cynicism and mistrust. It was open like a child. Released from pain, I was no longer standing in the shadows of my past. I felt the essence of my joy.  

Humans make connections fluidly. In the heart of so many thousands, I formed a bond with five strangers– three Italians and two  American undergraduates. As I have never forgotten the faces of the midwives who have helped me to deliver my six babies, I will never forget the two men and three women with whom I shared that timeless space. We supported one another as we sought the gaps between the heads, sharing the best spaces, urging the smallest girl to stand in front, we smiled at each other as curtains were drawn on the windows flanking the papal balcony, and the crowd roared in anticipation. When next I glimpsed the Basilica through the throng, the cardinals were standing on their balconies, swaying like poppies in the breeze. Waiting. 

 I have felt the power of male lions roaring beside me vibrate through my bones – I have heard the roar of wildfire sweeping across the savannah towards my home – I have trembled, unprotected during elemental storms– but I have never heard anything like the sound made by the crowd that evening as finally the tiny figure emerged onto the balcony. Hope has a sound. It is unifying. It is generated by the godless and the faithful, and it leaves an indelible mark. 

I know I will feel sad again. I know I will feel anger again. I know I will be let down and disappointed yet that evening, as the sun hung low in the sky, I was strengthen and healed in a place I didn't know was broken, by the love, the warmth and the conviction carried in the steady, clear voice that resonated across St Peter's Square, down Via della Conciliazone, over the Tiber and across the Globe.

La pace sia con tutti voi. 

Peace be with you all. 

He meant it. 

 Here is the epilogue to Entangled Life. I love it. I hope this inspires you to read the 8 glorious and surprising chapters sandwiched between these two snippets.

Click on the link to read Amy Fleming’s article: Michael Morpurgo on why teaching kids to love writing is more important than grammar

The Bristol University website is on the Helpful Thinkers page, but I’ll pop it up here too: Helpful site for grammar and punctuation offered by Bristol University.

Here is the link to the book: Endless Forms: the Secret World of Wasps by Seirian Sumner.