Pope to visit quake-hit villages as Italy mourns nearly 300 dead
Crescendo of grief in wake of devastation
POPE FRANCIS has said he plans to visit an area in Italy struck by a deadly earthquake to bring the people there the “comfort of faith”.
Francis led prayers on Sunday for the inhabitants of an area struck by Wednesday’s powerful earthquake that killed at least 291 people in Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
Italy’s central Apennine mountains are a seismically-active region that has suffered other earthquake tragedies in the past.
Francis told that crowd at his weekly Sunday address at St. Peter’s Square: “Again, I tell those dear populations that the church shares their suffering.”
He said he plans to visit as soon as possible but did not specify a date.
It follows a state funeral held at the weekend, in which mourners in Italy prayed, hugged, wept and even applauded as coffins carrying victims of the country’s devastating earthquake passed by at a state funeral on Saturday, grieving as one nation after three desperate days of trying to save as many people as possible.
In the central town of Ascoli Piceno, they gathered to bid farewell to 35 of the 291 people confirmed dead so far after the quake that struck a swathe of countryside early on Wednesday at the foothills of the central Apennine mountains.
The coffins of 35 people had been brought to a community gym – one of the few structures in the area still intact and large enough to hold hundreds of mourners.
The local bishop, Giovanni D’Ercole, celebrated mass beneath a crucifix he had retrieved from one of the damaged churches in the picturesque area of medieval stone towns and hamlets.
Emotions that had been dammed up for days broke in a crescendo of grief. One young man wept over a little girl’s white coffin.
Another woman gently stroked another small coffin. Many mourners were recovering from injuries themselves, some wrapped in bandages. Everywhere people knelt at coffins, tears running down their cheeks, their arms around loved ones.
“It is a great tragedy. There are no words to describe it,” said Gina Razzetti, a resident at the funeral. “Each one of us has our pain inside. We are thinking about the families who lost relatives, who lost their homes, who lost everything.”
As all of Italy observed a day of national mourning, with flags at half-staff, Bishop D’Ercole urged residents to rebuild their communities.
“Don’t be afraid to cry out your suffering – have seen a lot of this – but please do not lose courage,” he said in his homily. “Only together can we rebuild our houses and our churches. Together, above all, we will be able to restore life to our communities.”
President Sergio Mattarella and prime minister Matteo Renzi joined grieving family members, stopping to speak to some of them. When the coffins were brought out of the gym, the mourners applauded, a traditional Italian way of honouring people who die in tragedy.
The bishop recalled the heartbreaking story of nine-year-old Giulia Rinaldo, whose embrace apparently allowed her younger sister Giorgia to survive.
“The older one, Giulia, was sprawled over the smaller one, Giorgia. Giulia, dead, Giorgia, alive. They were in an embrace,” Bishop D’Ercole said.
It is a great tragedy. There are no words to describe it Gina Razzetti, a resident at the state funeral on day of national mourning..