Heartbreaking farewell: Sister Genevieve, French nun who broke protocol to see Pope’s body
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In an image beamed around the world, Sister Genevieve stands at a corner to say her goodbye to Pope Francis.
PHOTO: AFP
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VATICAN CITY – Images of Sister Genevieve’s slight frame, standing in solemn prayer just feet from Pope Francis’ body, were beamed around the world.
The 82-year-old French nun was not supposed to be there, paying tribute to the friend she met when seeking justice for a victim of Argentina’s brutal dictatorship.
After Pope Francis’ body was laid in state
The general public had yet to be admitted to the basilica, but Sister Genevieve broke protocol and slipped in and stood there for several minutes, wiping away tears.
Pope Francis and Sister Genevieve met 20 years ago after she travelled from Rome to Buenos Aires for the burial of her aunt, Sister Leonie Duquet, also a French nun.
At first, she was unimpressed by the then bishop of Buenos Aires, but years later they would strike up a friendship and work together to help the poor and marginalised.
‘Piercing stare’
Sister Leonie was a victim of Argentina’s dictatorship.
She was thrown to her death into the sea in one of the infamous “death flights” on the night of Dec 14, 1977 alongside another French nun, Sister Alice Domon, and 10 activists.
Argentine rights groups estimate that up to 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared under the 1976-83 Argentine military dictatorship, with many of them tortured and thrown into the sea.
Sister Leonie’s body washed ashore and was buried in a mass grave, but in 2005 it was found and identified.
Pope Francis, then bishop of Buenos Aires, approved her re-burial on the grounds of the city’s Santa Cruz church, where she was detained.
“I cried almost from the start to the end of the mass… I couldn’t accept that a part of the church was on the dictatorship’s side,” Sister Genevieve said in a video posted on YouTube about her friendship with Pope Francis.
When French President Emmanuel Macron went to Argentina on a state visit in November, Sister Genevieve signed a letter asking him not to forget the French victims of the dictatorship.
Mr Eric Domergue, whose brother Yves disappeared in 1976 before his body was found and identified in 2010, knew Sister Genevieve at the time she was seeking a Catholic burial for her aunt.
He remembered Sister Genevieve’s “piercing stare and permanent smile”.
“Genevieve is always attentive, asking about the family members of disappeared French people, and Argentines too,” he said.
From fear to friendship
Sister Genevieve wrote a letter to the future Pope Francis in 2005 when she felt let down by the lack of top church officials attending her aunt’s funeral.
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, as he was still known then, was attending a synod of bishops at the Vatican, but he called her immediately.
Sister Genevieve was not convinced by his explanations.
Eight years later, she stood at St Peter’s Square when Francis emerged on the basilica’s balcony as the new Pope.
“I put my hands to my head and thought, my God, what will happen? I was afraid, that’s the truth,” she said in the video.
But she was won around by Pope Francis’ message about a church for the poor.
Their friendship started to blossom after Pope Francis invited Sister Genevieve to a mass at the Santa Marta residence where he lived in the Vatican.
Pope Francis even visited the caravan where Sister Genevieve lives at a fairground on the Tyrrhenian coast.
They became closer still during the Covid-19 pandemic when Sister Genevieve asked Pope Francis to help the Luna Park fairground workers who were left with no income, and to meet a group of Latin American trans-prostitutes.
Once he resumed public audiences after the pandemic, every week Sister Genevieve would bring a group of people from the LGBTQ community to see Pope Francis.
“I always wrote to him a little message to tell him who was coming,” Sister Genevieve said. AFP
