Many were puzzled by a woman who appeared to breach Vatican protocol as she made her way through a crowd of cardinals, bishops, and local and foreign clergy packed inside St. Peter’s Basilica, then stopped and gazed at Pope Francis’s casket for longer than expected.
She was a French nun of Argentine origin, a longtime friend of the Pope, named Geneviève Jeanningros, seven years younger than him. She was the only person granted access by the Vatican's protocol office to approach the ropes marking the area close to the casket, as shown in the attached video.
Wearing a green backpack, she reached the casket and stood silently for several minutes, during which she wiped away tears with a piece of paper. It seemed she was unaware that she had breached a strict Vatican protocol rule that limits initial farewells to the deceased Pope to cardinals, bishops, and religious figures, both local and international. However, according to the widely read Argentine newspaper Clarin, “her insistence on standing by Francis’s casket was driven by a deep desire to honor an old friend.”
Latin-language media reported that Geneviève Jeanningros had a long-standing relationship with the Pope that dates back to when he was simply Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The Spanish newspaper El País cited an unnamed source saying the same.
At that time, she was known as the niece of Léonie Duquet, a nun who disappeared in 1977 during Argentina’s dictatorship and was later found in a mass grave alongside Esther Ballestrino, who had been Francis’s boss when he worked as a young man in a chemistry lab.
She was a French nun of Argentine origin, a longtime friend of the Pope, named Geneviève Jeanningros, seven years younger than him. She was the only person granted access by the Vatican's protocol office to approach the ropes marking the area close to the casket, as shown in the attached video.
Wearing a green backpack, she reached the casket and stood silently for several minutes, during which she wiped away tears with a piece of paper. It seemed she was unaware that she had breached a strict Vatican protocol rule that limits initial farewells to the deceased Pope to cardinals, bishops, and religious figures, both local and international. However, according to the widely read Argentine newspaper Clarin, “her insistence on standing by Francis’s casket was driven by a deep desire to honor an old friend.”
Latin-language media reported that Geneviève Jeanningros had a long-standing relationship with the Pope that dates back to when he was simply Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The Spanish newspaper El País cited an unnamed source saying the same.
At that time, she was known as the niece of Léonie Duquet, a nun who disappeared in 1977 during Argentina’s dictatorship and was later found in a mass grave alongside Esther Ballestrino, who had been Francis’s boss when he worked as a young man in a chemistry lab.
