Royalty, presidents, prime ministers and a legion of faithful are paying their last respects to Pope Francis at a funeral mass in St. Peter’s Square in Rome to honour his sometimes turbulent papacy.
Applause rang out as the pontiff’s simple wooden coffin, inlaid with a large cross, was brought out of St. Peter’s Basilica and into the sun-filled square by white-gloved, black-suited pallbearers.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re delivered the eulogy and remembered Francis as a “pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone.”
“He had a great spontaneity and an informal way of addressing everyone,” the cardinal said.
One of the most memorable of Francis’s 47 apostolic journeys was his visit to Iraq in 2021, “defying every risk” to be “a balm for the Iraqi people who had suffered so much,” the 91-year-old cardinal said.
The funeral has drawn everyone from dignitaries including world leaders and royalty, to prisoners and migrants, reflecting his priorities as pope. Bells tolled as the last of the leaders from more than 150 countries took their places. Dignitaries included U.S. President Donald Trump, who clashed with Francis on numerous occasions over their starkly contrasting positions on immigration.
Those attending the open-air ceremony included 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and more than 4,000 other priests. It was expected to last 90 minutes, whereas Pope John Paul II’s funeral in 2005 lasted three hours.
Tens of thousands of ordinary mourners hurried toward the Vatican from the early hours. Many camped out to try to secure spots at the front of the crowd for the ceremony.
Francis, who was from Argentina, died on Monday at age 88 following a stroke, ushering in a meticulously planned period of transition for the 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church, marked by ancient ritual, pomp and mourning.
Over the past three days, around 250,000 people filed past his body, which had been laid out in a coffin before the altar of the cavernous, 16th-century St. Peter’s Basilica.
Dignitaries included the presidents of Argentina, France, Gabon, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Poland and Ukraine, along with the prime ministers of Britain and New Zealand, and many European royals.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney announced earlier this week that he would not attend the Pope’s funeral and said Gov. Gen. Mary Simon would represent Canada.
The Vatican said some 250,000 mourners were expected to fill the vast, cobbled esplanade and main access route to the basilica to follow the ceremony, which is being presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, a 91-year-old Italian prelate.
The first non-European pope for almost 13 centuries, Francis battled to reshape the Roman Catholic Church during his 12-year reign, siding with the poor and marginalized, while challenging wealthy nations to help migrants and reverse climate change.
Members of the Canadian delegation arrived in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral as Cardinals sealed his coffin for the ceremony.
“Francis left everyone a wonderful testimony of humanity, of a holy life and of universal fatherhood,” said a formal summary of his papacy, written in Latin and placed next to his body.
Traditionalists pushed back at his efforts to make the Catholic Church more transparent, while his pleas for an end to conflict, divisions and rampant capitalism often weren’t heard.
A shorter funeral service
The Pope shunned much of the pomp and privilege usually associated with the papacy during his reign, and will carry that desire for greater simplicity into his funeral, having rewritten the elaborate, book-long funeral rites used previously.
Ahead of Pope Francis’s funeral, CBC’s Heather Hiscox describes the somber setting outside Santa Maria Maggiore basilica in Rome, which will be his final resting place, and connects with Canadian travelers as they reflect about their time in Vatican City.
Francis also opted to forego a centuries-old practice of burying popes in three interlocking caskets made of cypress, lead and oak. Instead, he has been placed in a single, zinc-lined wooden coffin, which was sealed closed overnight.
In a further break with tradition, he’s the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century, preferring Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major, some four kilometres from St. Peter’s, as his final resting place.
His tomb has just “Franciscus,” his name in Latin, inscribed on the top.
A reproduction of the simple, iron-plated cross he used to wear around his neck hangs above the marble slab.
His funeral motorcade will drive him through the city for one last time, allowing Romans to say their farewell.
Italy has closed the airspace over the city and called in extra forces, with anti-aircraft missiles and patrol boats guarding the event in one of the biggest security operations the country has seen since the funeral of John Paul II.
As soon as Francis is buried, attention will switch to who might succeed him.
The secretive conclave to elect a successor is unlikely to begin before May 6 and might not start for several days after that, giving cardinals time to hold regular meetings beforehand to sum each other up and assess the state of the Catholic Church, beset by financial problems and ideological divisions.
Order, isolation and secrecy are the principles that will govern the centuries-old process of electing the next pope. Andrew Chang explains who some of the front-runners are to succeed Pope Francis and what the cardinals might consider when choosing a new leader for the Roman Catholic Church.
Images provided by Getty Images, The Canadian Press and Reuters.
