Buenos Aires, Argentina (AP) – the man who will become Pope Francis, always bought his shoes in the same small shop. And now, the remarkably ordinary shoes that surprised and fascinate millions, brought pride in his old Buenos Aires neighborhood – and his cobblestone.
Simple black shoes – a sharp contrast to the hot ruby red slippers of Francis’s predecessor, former Pope Benedict XVI – are among the personal effects of the Pope who attracted attention as his death this week triggered emotions around the Roman Catholic world.
The seemingly comfortable moccasins offer a powerful reminder of humility, simplicity and lack of Francis ceremony, which helped him connect with ordinary people wherever he went.
Third generation Kakavir
The men in the misty family were the first cobblestone in the Flores neighborhood of the middle -class Western Buenos Aires. Their store, Muglia Shoes, discovered in 1945, just a few years after Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglyio by Italian immigrant parents.
There was not much competition, so when young Bergolo went in to buy shoes, Juan Jose Milia’s grandfather sold him the first couple. At that time, Bergolia was his 20s, serving as a Jesuit priest in the Basilica of San Jose de Flores just around the block.
“My father, my grandfather, they told me stories about how Father Jorge came from the church around the corner to buy these shoes, they were the ones he liked, he wore them all the time,” Muglia, 52, told the Associated Press on Thursday.
“They are simple, this is the type of shoes that waiters like to wear today, said fog, holding a pair of handmade lace moccasins.” They can last for you years and years. “
When the Milia took after his father’s death, he added a poster of Elvis Presley, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a vinyl gramophone to give a hipster note.
Time
The shelves now show more fashion boats for boats and bright patent skin numbers.
But much of the store remains the same, including the walls with pine tree, shelves from floor to ceiling of boxes of shoes with cream -colored shoes and, of course, leather black moccasins with welcoming, non -gaining soles that Francis repeatedly purchased, inspiring local Catholic priests to do the same.
“The priests came here from all the basilicas in the city, some young priests even came from Rome to buy them,” Maglia said.
They are sold for about $ 170 today-much more than the price Francis saw-due to Argentina’s escaped inflation.
When Francis became Pope in 2013, Maglia said he offered to send Pontif to St. Peter with a new pair of her favorite shoes. However, he recalled that Francis said that his legs had become too swollen in his old age and had to find a more personalized fit, on which he could depend on Rome.
Papal shoes
Instead of accepting typical papal shoes – red velvet or silk – like a pope, Francis did not deviate from his roots on Flores.
He chose normal black shoes with an orthopedic outsole – far from the Byzantine era, when worshipers usually kissed a decorative cross embroidered on the papal shoe, and from the era of Pope Benedict, whose order of the leather slippers in the socular tomato, to the red anesta magazine magazine The OSKARA brand’s shark to name the former acute -branded accessory.
Over the years, beyond the casual priest or parishioner who descended into Muglia shoes, few have ever wondered about the brand of ordinary shoes of Francis.
But this changed when Francis died on Monday at the age of 88, creating a rage of interest in Flores’ roots. Throughout the world, Francis was remembered for the breakdown of the hereditary pumping of the papacy to make it more accessible-changing the velvet nose that the pope, which Papi was wearing after the Renaissance for a simple white Case and preferred Ford’s focus on the usual papal limousine.
As the word spread to his original shoes and the local journalists flooded the neighborhood, the fog said that curious clients had bombed him with requests. He placed a framed portrait of Francis in his window.
“It was a world of people,” Millya said. “They came from everywhere.”
Remembers a neighborhood
In Flores, the mourning for Francis feels personal. Residents remember him as someone who lived sparingly, visited and advocates for the most, and can often be found to share the drinking of the signature of Argentina Yerba Mate with old friends and strangers.
The newspaper stands right down the block of Muglia shoes, 69-year-old seller Antonio Plate reminded how he and Francis made small conversations “like all two Argentines, few of that, some policies mixed with football.”
“He was a wonderful man, these are beautiful memories,” said Plateau, his eyes escaped. After becoming Archbishop and Cardinal, Francis still did half an hour of driving to Flores from the center of Buenos Aires every Sunday before the church.
He always bought the two main Argentine daily documents, said Plateau, and read the news with a cup of coffee in the quiet cafe on the other side of the street, now a mattress shop clogged by traffic.
Although the crowds that poured into Flores after learning about the death of Francis largely sharpened until Thursday, they left a mass of bouquets and handwritten notes to their beloved Pontif in the 531 iron windows, the modest house, where Francis grew up as the oldest of five brothers.
“My vision is going, but my memory is long,” said Alicia Gigante, 91 years old, a neighbor and friend of the Francis family, who stopped at the House on Thursday morning, leaning against her daughter for support.
“I will remember him for a long time, always his kindness, his smile, and this greeting as you called the bell and he came out on the street,” she said with her voice. “He, there, always the same, would caress you and bless you.”