Aged 83, and living at the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pope Francis is offering spiritual leadership to a world undergoing a dark night of the soul.

On Friday last week, more than 11 million people in Italy, and many millions more across the world, watched as Francis prayed in a deserted St Peter’s Square for an end to the coronavirus. With the light failing and the rain coming down, the Pope walked alone into the piazza, limping slightly and looking a little weather-beaten and weary as he held the Blessed Sacrament aloft, and gave his Urbi et Orbi blessing to a city in quarantine and to a world where one third of its inhabitants are in lockdown.

It will be remembered as one of the iconic images of Francis’ papacy, a moment when the successor of St Peter experienced the weakness of human power, and pleaded with God to come to our aid.