‘We are sad but our tears have dried up’

THE souvenir sellers were busy enough as the cameras snapped the famous sights in Rome and the normal number of tourists for this time of year wandered around.

It was as though Rome had forgotten its honorary citizen who lay in a cypress coffin on the steps of St Peter's Basilica across the River Tiber.

The Pope's own Cathedral St John Latern, that traces its roots back to Constantine, was empty except for a few curious visitors.