The pages of a large Gospel, lying on the unadorned wooden coffin, fluttered in the breeze. Cardinals in red and bishops in purple stood in ranks nearby, and millions of mourners filled St. Peter’s Square and surrounding streets for the vast spectacle that was Pope John Paul II’s funeral in 2005.

I was standing atop the square’s colonnade with other journalists who had come from around the world to cover John Paul’s death and the aftermath. The image of those riffling pages below seized my attention.

Most of us on that colonnade presumably knew the symbolism: the wind-ruffled Gospel represented the presence of the Holy Spirit. Or so we had learned while boning up on the pageantry of the funeral and the conclave to come.

Actual footage of that image shows up in the opening scenes of the dramedy “The Two Popes,” which began streaming Friday on Netflix. The film — “inspired by true events,” as an opening title reads — depicts the election of John Paul’s successor, Benedict XVI; Benedict’s shocking resignation; and the election of the current pontiff, Francis.