According to Vatican News, the many people whom Mantovani befriended and who tried to help him, recently convinced him to move into a homeless shelter after he’d had numerous bouts of pneumonia. The 64-year-old died in a shelter by Rome’s main train station.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, presided over the funeral Mass at the Rome parish of St Pius X; Cardinal George Pell, who lives near where Mantovani would sleep, concelebrated, as did Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

Also in attendance were: volunteers from Natale 365, which runs the shelter where he was staying; Italian state police from the station on the square where Mantovani often slept; and members of the Community of Sant’Egidio, who run the Vatican’s newest homeless shelter and coordinate the distribution of food to the homeless in many areas of the city.

The funeral was celebrated the day after Pope Francis publicly mourned the death of Edwin, a Nigerian who had been sleeping near St Peter’s Square, and whose death was attributed to Rome’s overnight cold temperatures.

“Let us think of what this man, 46 years old, felt in the cold, ignored by everyone, abandoned, even by us,” the pope said Jan. 24 after reciting the Angelus prayer. “Let us pray for him.”

Carlo Santoro, a member of the Sant’Egidio Community, noted – as Pope Francis did – that at least 10 homeless people had died in Rome in the past few months. “The number of dead is probably higher; these are just the ones we know about and whose funerals we organised.”

The economic problems exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic are increasing the number of homeless in the city, while the number of beds in shelters has declined because of the need to ensure social distancing.

In early January, the Rome diocesan Caritas and the Italian Red Cross said they had opened a testing centre and temporary shelter where homeless people could be monitored for COVID-19 before being referred to a more permanent shelter.

Photo: A Missionaries of Charity nun stands in the doorway as men enter a centre run by the order for an evening meal at the Vatican in 2017 (CNS Photo) 

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Some measures in the Budget go some way towards addressing this responsibility, the commission stated. The commission’s comments on some of these areas follow:

Housing the Homeless

There has been significant failure by governments in recent years to assist those unable to provide housing for themselves by building adequate numbers of well-maintained state houses for state tenants to address the overall shortage. It’s disappointing that the Budget confirms that in the next four years more than to $1 billion of Housing NZ resources will be used to build houses for sale rather than to provide for those in greatest need.

The Government decision to contribute to the overall housing stock by providing 2600 more houses per year in Auckland is welcomed. However, this is insufficient in an escalating homelessness crisis that needs 15,000 additional houses each year in Auckland, let alone the major deficit of more than 40,000 houses that has accrued over recent years.

The Budget’s additional funding for housing rental support will assist individual families but not increase the supply of safe and affordable housing. We hoped to see some provision for warrants of fitness for private rental housing to assure families of an adequate standard of housing to help reduce health risks, especially to children.

Caring for Families

The extra funding for Vulnerable Children is welcomed but it is disappointing
that it does not establish a programme of Government targets to start to eliminate child poverty in line with the call of the Children’s Commissioner. Also, the poorest families are unlikely to benefit from the increased funding for Working for Families because of the decision not to extend this to beneficiaries.

The best way to lift living standards is to give families the means to help themselves by providing the structural support to create good jobs with decent wages and conditions. The Government should commit to paying the Living Wage to all state employees and ensure all their contractors do likewise, setting an example for all to follow.

Investing in Prisoner Rehabilitation

Extra funding for building prisons in the Budget does not seem to be matched by funds to enable the Department of Corrections to create a coherent, integrated and well-funded long-term strategy to improve prisoner health and literacy such as recommended in the  December 2016 Salvation Army report Beyond the Prison Gate. Long-term strategies offer better economic investment in the correctional process as they promote healthy rehabilitation, reduce reoffending and achieve successful reintegration into society rather than through the construction of more prisons which may only meet short-term requirements.

Protecting our Environment

Given that climate change is the biggest global challenge of our time we hoped to see this directly addressed in the Budget. In particular, additional funds for tourism infrastructure should be matched by funding to protect our waterways from the pollution that can cause major health problems in our communities. With the projected global water shortage in the coming years we hoped to see a moratorium on the current export of bottled water for large profits by companies, and charge them a realistic fee which could be put towards improving our overall water integrity and resource.

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Eight homeless people – two women and six men – made their way to the pope’s residence at Domus Sanctae Marthae for an early birthday breakfast, the Vatican said Dec. 17.

The people, who hailed from Italy, Moldova, Romania and Peru, were accompanied by Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner.

“Pope Francis met with the them, greeting them affectionately one by one. The homeless gave the Holy Father three bouquets of sunflowers,” which he immediately placed in the residence’s chapel, the Vatican said Dec. 17.

People from around the world also tweeted messages using the hashtag #Pontifex80 or sent email’s according to their preferred language, including Latin.

According to the Vatican press office, more than 70,000 birthday emails were sent to Pope Francis, the majority of which were sent in English, Spanish, Polish and Italian. The Vatican also noted that over 1,000 birthday greetings were sent to the pope in Latin.

Prisoners from the “Due Palazzi” prison in Padua, northern Italy, also had a chance to wish the pope a happy birthday via Skype.

Father Marco Pozza, the prison’s chaplain, told Vatican Radio that he had arranged a Skype video call between Pope Francis and several inmates, guards and personnel from the prison.

The prisoners thanked the pope “for your daily witness, which nourishes our hopes and our dreams,” Father Pozza told Vatican Radio.

Thanking them for their “tenderness and closeness,” the pope gave his blessings to the inmates, personnel and their families.

“God bless you all. I pray for you. I am close to you and I give you the Lord’s blessing,” the pope said.

The pope also received birthday greetings from his predecessor, retired Pope Benedict XVI who sent “a handwritten and very affectionate message that was particularly appreciated,” the Vatican press office said in a statement.

Pope Benedict also called Pope Francis and sent him “three small gifts which the Holy Father received as three very personal and significant signs for both of them,” the Vatican said.

After his breakfast with the homeless, the pope concelebrated morning Mass with cardinals living in Rome.

“The past few days one word that seems a bit awful keeps coming to mind — old age. It’s scary, at any rate, scary,” he said at the end of the Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the apostolic palace.

But, he said, like he told the cardinals a few days after his election in 2013, “‘old age is where wisdom resides.’ Let’s hope this goes for me, too. Let’s hope this is the case!”

With “the silent passage of time,” as Ovid called it, old age charges right at you. It’s a blow. But when one thinks of it as a stage of life that is for giving joy, wisdom, hope, one begins to live again,” he said.

“Pray that it will be like this for me — tranquil, religious and fruitful, and also joyful. Thank you!”

In his homily, the pope told the cardinals how important it was to remember the past in order to move forward in life better.

Looking back one can see the beautiful people and gifts one has received from God and also one’s sins, which remind us how important God is for our salvation, he said.

One can say in prayer before God, “I am a sinner but you can save me. You will carry me ahead,” the pope said.

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