It was the first time in history that a pontiff entered the Senate
The funeral wake of former president Giorgio Napolitano, who passed away last Friday (22nd), in Rome, at the age of 98, began this Sunday (24th), in the headquarters of the Italian Senate.
Italians will be able to pay their respects until late afternoon on Monday (25th), while the funeral – secular and with state honors – will be held on Tuesday morning (26th), in the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies.
Napolitano’s wake has already seen the presence of high-ranking exponents of Italian politics, such as President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and former Prime Ministers Mario Monti, Paolo Gentiloni, Giuseppe Conte and Mario Draghi, as well as Pope Francis , which made a surprise appearance in the Senate.
While the public was queuing, the pontiff’s car parked in front of the building’s entrance and parliamentary assistants rushed to bring a wheelchair to the Catholic leader.
Once he entered the Senate, the Pope stood up to greet Napolitano’s family, including his wife Clio Maria Bittoni and his sons Giovanni and Giulio.
According to the Vatican, Francis, who recently returned from a trip to the French city of Marseille, decided to go to the funeral wake to “express his personal affection” to the family and to “honor the great service rendered to Italy” by the former president.
It was the first time in history that a pontiff entered the headquarters of the Italian Senate.
Napolitano was the eleventh president in the history of the Italian Republic and the first to be re-elected for a second term, creating a precedent that will be followed by his successor, Sergio Mattarella.
A former deputy of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he was at the helm of the state from May 2006 to January 2015, when he resigned due to old age.
Throughout this period, he was a figure of institutional guarantee and stability in one of the most complicated moments of Italian republican history: the euro crisis, when Napolitano pushed for the resignation of the then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and supported a technical government led by economist Mario Monti.
He was also President of the Chamber of Deputies (1992-1994), Minister of the Interior (1996-1998) and Minister of Civil Protection (1996-1998), as well as having been a parliamentarian for almost 40 years.
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Source: Terra
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