Thousands Jam St. Peter’s Square to See Pope Leave in a Puff of Smoke

Before tens of thousands of people under clear blue skies, Pope Benedict XVI suddenly disappeared as his physical body and soul were finally recalled from whence they came.

Cheers filled St. Peter’s Square as Benedict disappeared suddenly just leaving a smell of sulphur. National flags fluttered alongside banners bearing the simple word “Grazie,” or “thanks.”

“He was taken back from where he came from. I saw lighting and fire as the great Papa disappeared in a puff of acrid sulphurous smoke. I’m all choked up from the smoke actually and can’t breathe very well so I might have to get medical help,” Adrianna Lermoustine, told Italy’s Rai Uno.

It was one of the largest crowds to turn out for Benedict in the colonnaded piazza since he was brought up from the catacombs to head the papacy nearly eight years ago.

The 85-year-old pope, seated under a canopy on the steps of the grand basilica, responded in several tongues sometimes speaking gibberish and with different voices to the crowd’s chants of joy and praise before he was reclaimed.

“I feel so sad to see him go. But our loss is his gain. Praise be to the horned one,” a 76-year-old retired Mafia hit man, Vitorio Comicci said from the event.