They are especially annoyed by the dropping of the plan for a new metro line, because it is now unclear how those enormous crowds will cross the centre of the city from the basilica of St Peter to that of St John Lateran.

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"It is not in soul-searching... that we encounter the Lord, " he told hundreds of cardinals, priests and bishops in St Peter's Basilica.

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But on the day of his historic resignation - in the shadow of St Peter's Basilica - it was hard to find anybody speaking badly of him.

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