Rome had spent months prepping up for the Roman Catholic Church Jubilee. It built tunnels, opened up squares and scrubbed moldy fountains. Now thousands of pilgrims were flocking from all over the world for the occasion — a year of penance and forgiveness that takes place every quarter century.
The only thing missing was the pope.
For the past three weeks, Pope Francis, leader of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Catholics, has been in seclusion on the 10th floor of the Gemelli hospital, where he is being treated for pneumonia and other infections. He has missed his regular Wednesday general audiences, where he greets visitors and pilgrims, and his Sunday Angelus prayer, and on Ash Wednesday he entrusted his homily to a cardinal.
A brief audio recording of the pope faintly giving a blessing in Spanish was all the faithful received on Thursday, as they gathered for a rosary for Francis in St. Peter’s square.
“We were hoping we could see him,” said Dinora Ramirez, a pilgrim from Honduras, who prepared to cross St. Peter’s basilica’s holy door as tears filled her eyes. “Our hearts are aching.”
Doctors speak of a “guarded prognosis” for the pope. They have offered mostly terse reports about his condition, which has alternated between crises and stable moments, leaving ample room for conspiracy theories to flourish about his health and his intentions to resign, and even false reports of his death.
But the one undisputed reality is the pope’s prolonged absence.
It is especially notable for a pope who has made a point of being among the people, frequently venturing into crowds, embracing the faithful and engaging in impromptu conversations. And it is even more deeply felt as thousands of pilgrims have been coming to Rome hoping to catch a glimpse of Francis, and as Roman Catholics prepared for Easter celebrations.
On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, about a dozen cardinals in red biretta caps and shoulder capes walked in a procession among olive trees and umbrella pines along Rome’s Aventine Hill, then entered the Santa Sabina basilica for Mass. As the warm afternoon light filtered through the windows, Pope Francis’ homily — prepared, a Vatican official said, before his illness — echoed in the basilica.
But Francis did not deliver it. An Italian cardinal, Angelo De Donatis, read the pope’s words, imposed ashes on the friars’ balding heads and swung the censer as the choir chanted.
“The pope is not here and you can feel it,” said Mario Maurer, 27, a theology student at the Mass. He had come to Rome on a pilgrimage for the Jubilee.
“There is a cardinal who can read the text, and that’s OK,” Mr. Maurer said. “But the pope is a whole other category.”
Standing outside Santa Sabina as he paused his tour of Rome’s infinite churches, Mr. Maurer said the pope’s absence was palpable not only during the Mass but also in the city, of which he is the bishop. “It’s this void that is here, but also in Rome itself,” he said.
In his sermon, Pope Francis offered a message in keeping with his long-established themes, lamenting “the return of old identity ideologies that theorize the exclusion of others, the exploitation of the earth’s resources, violence in all its forms, and war between peoples.”
For some of the faithful who attended, that, at least, was a consolation.
“He made us feel his presence through the homily, which was in the spirit of Pope Francis, about peace, pollution,” said Giuseppina De Palma, 67.
The Vatican official did not rule out that going forward, Francis might hold off preparing texts if he is aware that he is not going to deliver them, saying it might not make sense to do so.
For some Catholics, the pope’s absence at a moment when the global order is under exceptional pressure was particularly disorienting.
“I wish he would tell us more about how to proceed,” said Luz Viviana Flores Maciel, 21, who is originally from Mexico. “The world is upside down, and we are like a nation without a leader.”
For three weeks, the Vatican has also not shared any photos of Francis.
In the past, before the advent of technology and mass media, the physical appearance of popes was much less familiar, even if that did nothing to diminish their authority. But now it is highly unusual for the world to go for weeks without seeing images of the church leader (although there has been a flurry of AI-generated counterfeits circulating on social media).
To try to feel Francis’ presence, some pilgrims have hiked to the Gemelli hospital to pray beneath his windows. Others have chosen not to dwell on his absence.
“Pope Francis would agree that we should focus on the presence of Jesus, rather than anyone of us,” said Jonah Berger, 24, a Dutch Catholic who attended the Ash Wednesday Mass.