I am writing this just after seeing Pope Francis's funeral, one of the most watched events so far this year.
We will surely remember the scenes we saw. What we will have made of it is another matter.
Certainly, the more they say things have been simplified, the more things appear to have somewhat been made more complicated and elaborate. The funeral is a case in point.
The more the dead pope insisted on not spending money and keeping everything simple, the more those after him added and increased.
A new location where to be buried turned up to be in full view of a ceiling of gold brought over (looted) from the New World.
As happens every time a pope dies, people praise the dead man till you start thinking there is no one quite like him. He will be a hard act to follow. Then again a new pope cannot be a carbon copy of his predecessor.
Rising up to meet the new challenges of each new papacy will require a new approach every new pope.
The funeral over, the focus will be on the coming papal election, the conclave. All the speeches made till today, we realise, lead up to the coming conclave.
We are still some days away and actually anything can happen but I have now read most of what has been written and have a good idea of the state of play.
We used to think the main battle in recent conclaves was between conservatives and progressives. That's no longer the case. Through his long pontificate, Francis packed the College of Cardinals with carbon copies of himself.
Then, for the first time in history dioceses which produced many popes and which usually carried a cardinal's hat, like Milan, the greatest diocese in Europe, and Venice and Paris, etc will not be represented in the conclave.
Instead, the coming conclave will have many newcomers from the furthest corners of the world, many not knowing each other.
This used to be the winning card of the members of the Curia until Francis broke up many cosy networks, introduced women at the head of some organisations and changed so much that the Curia lost its power.
Ironically, this is what is making 'our' Mario Grech a formidable candidate - his job as Synod secretary brings him in touch with many.
Two names are being mentioned with insistence - Secretary of State Parolin and Korea's Tagle. Even betting in Britain has latched on to these two names.
But there is another name coming up strongly - Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna.
Let me go back some years. In 2022 I watched as Roberta Metsola took her first timid steps as the Acting President of the European Parliament.
I watched as she accompanied Ursula von der Leyen to the Roman church of Santa Maria degli Angeli for the funeral of David Sassoli, whose successor Metsola is.
Till then I had not heard about the celebrant, Cardinal Zuppi. But his beautiful flowing Italian and his grasp of the state of Europe made me see him as a revelation.
He and Sassoli had been colleagues in the Communita di Sant'Egidio, an important lay organisation like Communione e Liberazione and which actually brought about the end of a civil war in Mozambique.
Zuppi was sent by Francis to lead the diocese of Bologna where he still goes from place to place by bike.
He was also elected to head the Italian bishops and above all he was charged by the pope with many discreet missions to Russia and Ukraine.
The last I saw him was on Friday acting as a guide to President Macron and wife when they paid their respects to the pope.
Zuppi is from Rome where his father was employed with the pope and his mother was a niece of a cardinal.
Some conclave blogs say Zuppi will start with some 35 votes, still far too low as a start. Then it's all up for grabs.
Some arguments militate against him - his being an Italian after a hiatus of some popes.
Some have said it will be a long conclave, as when there is no clear frontrunner, whereas in the cases of Pacelli, Montíni, Ratzinger the election was quite a shoo-in.
After Woytla it was said the Church would not have a populist like him, then came Bergoglio, another populist, and between them Ratzinger, an elite theologian.
The present Secretary of State would incarnate the Curial approach. Tagle would take the papacy to yet another untapped corner of the world.
And X, a yet unnamed candidate, would have to come in from the cold.
But do not forget what happened just before the funeral - how Trump and Zelinskyy grabbed two church chairs and for around 20 minutes engaged in serious discussion while Starmer and Macron stood aside.
The world today is in a delicate state and needs mediation if it is to not go up in smoke.
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