He was an aspiring poet, spoke of his immense loneliness, and lived off alms near St. Peter's Colonnade. Practically a ghost among ghosts. José Carlos de Sousa passed away after a long illness, and his funeral was celebrated near the Vatican by two cardinals: the Polish almoner Konrad Krajewski and Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, a Brazilian like the deceased homeless man. José Carlos didn’t ask people for money to buy alcohol but rather for notebooks, which he filled methodically while sitting under the porticoes of the buildings on Via della Conciliazione, bundled up and surrounded by cardboard. In words full of pity for himself and the world, he wrote: "On the street and anywhere else, I hardly ever speak. I just watch, listen, think, and sometimes write so I’m not alone on this earth”. He didn’t bother anyone; in fact, he would stand in a corner and give directions to tourists lost in search of Michelangelo’s Pietà or the entrances to the Museums. "He didn’t present himself well, but under the colonnade, he was like an angelguiding the faithful to the Basilica”, it was said during the homily.