Max Angeloni - Fotografo professionista

GLORY to the cell in highest

Pope Francis Has Died. Everyone to St. Peter’s.

Everyone rushed to tell a story without understanding it, without truly living it. It felt like a holiday, an ordinary day. What mattered most was taking a selfie, making a video call, getting photographed or interviewed by one of the countless TV crews present.

We hear talk of a silent and grieving crowd. In reality, it felt more like Easter Monday in the countryside.

Few truly grasped what had happened—what was happening. Few were there to return St. Peter’s embrace.

It’s no coincidence that in recent years we’ve lost the essence of photojournalism: the ability to silently tell the truth of things—without words, without opinions, without political or religious bias. Just emotion and fact.

But evidently, these are no longer the times for that. Understanding and knowledge are no longer prerequisites for storytelling. It’s enough to say you were there on that day, to attach a photo, identical to thousands of others, with a few trivial lines, to give a generic interview before returning to one’s own contradictions.

Understanding the moment is no longer important. Documenting it is no longer important. What matters is simply being there.

Or rather… what matters is showing others that you were there. What that moment actually represents has become entirely irrelevant.