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At that moment, Christian Democratic leaders were meeting to discuss the Moro situation. When word came, Party Secretary Benigno Zaccagnini stood to make the announcement, tears streaming down his face. Many politicians rushed to the scene. Giorgio Napolitano, a prominent Communist leader, spotted Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga, rushed up and kissed him emotionally. Claudio Pontello, a Christian Democratic deputy, could barely contain his anger: "This is the ultimate mockery that they should return him to us this way right on the doorstep [of party headquarters]!"
Bitterness over the position the party took was painfully bared by Moro's wife and four children. "We ask that there be no public demonstration, no ceremony or speeches, no national mourning or state funeral or medal to his memory," said a statement. "Let history judge the life and death of Aldo Moro." As the private funeral procession moved swiftly out of the capital through torrential rain, few passers-by realized that Moro was making his last journey. But when it halted at a stop light, a truck driver jumped down, ran over and kissed the hearse. Near another crossroads, some 50 people, standing silently under umbrellas, tossed white hydrangea blossoms cut from a nearby bush at the passing cortege. In the 12th century Romanesque Church of St. Thomas the Apostle in the small hill town, Don Agostino Mancini, the parish priest since 1930, conducted the funeral Mass and blessed the casket. "The journey of our brother Aldo ends here," he said. Francesca de Paolis, who used to sell Moro the home-made doughnuts he loved, remarked: "He was modest, and so we have tried to honor him in a humble way with our presence." In keeping with a wish Moro had expressed in one of at least 20 letters he wrote from captivity, there was no one present from the Christian Democratic leadership.
Countless Romans, meanwhile, paid homage at the spot where the body was found. Fixed to a corrugated iron fence was a somber portrait of Moro with the caption: ALDO MORO HAS BEEN ASSASSINATED. HIS FAITH IN LIBERTY LIVES IN OUR HEARTS. Below were candles and a rapidly growing pile of carnations, roses, lilies and gladioli. One mother watched as her two sons, 8 and 10, each laid a single rose at the memorial. "They must learn something from this," she said. "It's our only hope." A young woman, said to be one of Moro's daughters, left a bouquet of red carnations with a card signed "Anna." It read: "Father, teacher, I thank you for having educated me with your strong mind..."