The funeral of Pope Francis is underway in St. Peter’s square, where hundreds of thousands of people have gathered, including 50 heads of state, 10 reigning monarchs and throngs of global media outlets providing coverage of the ritual expected to draws billions of viewers.
Pope Francis’ funeral is taking place on a sunny morning six days after his death, at 88, on Easter Monday. Since Wednesday, more than 120,000 faithful have lined up in St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects.
In keeping with his stated wish to simplify the papal funeral rites, Pope Francis’ body has been lying in a wooden casket at St. Peter’s, having done away with the tradition of three coffins — two made of cypress and oak, and one of lead.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden and former first lady Jill Biden were among the first arrive for the funeral of Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square. U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump also arrived and stopped in front of the pontiff’s closed coffin to pay their respects. Also in attendance is President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Trump and Zelensky met privately before the funeral, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement.
The crowd broke into applause as images of the arrival of Zelensky flashed on the big screen in St. Peter’s.
Delegations are sitting according to alphabetical order — in French. This means that Trump of the U.S. (in French, États-Unis) will not sit next to Zelenskyy but is positioned between the African states of Eswatini and Ethiopia, and not far from French President Emmanuel Macron. Biden is sitting further back.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has “no plans” to attend, the Kremlin said Tuesday. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin so police in Italy — which is one of the 125 ICC member states — would be forced to detain him.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals, is presiding over the funeral liturgy and delivering the final commendation and valediction.
The funeral of Pope Francis began with a short musical chant and psalm spoken in Latin after an open Book of the Gospels has been placed on top of Pope Francis’ closed coffin carried by pallbearers from inside St. Peter’s and placed on a red carpet on the edge of the church steps. The funeral mass for Francis is being sung largely in Gregorian chant.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista in his homily praised Francis for being a “pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone.”
“Pope Francis truly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time of globalization,” Re said.
“His gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons are countless. His insistence on working on behalf of the poor was constant,” the cardinal continued, noting that Francis’ first journey as pope was to Lampedusa, the Sicilian island of Lampedusa that is a first port of call for refugees crossing from north Africa and has become a symbol of the migrant crisis.
The crowd broke into applause when Re mentioned Pope Francis’ trip to Lampedusa.
“Faced with the raging wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and countless deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and inviting honest negotiation to find possible solutions,” Re added.
In his testament, Francis said he does not wants to be buried in St. Peter’s, where most popes are buried, but instead wished for his “final earthly journey” to end in Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica, which is across town roughly 3.5 kilometers from St Peter’s.
“The fact that Francis simplified his burial rites by wanting to be buried in St Mary Major Basilica outside the Vatican and that he’s being laid out in a simple wooden casket rather than the traditional three coffins of predecessors means that, even in death, he is still trying to communicate the values of his papacy: simplicity and humility,” Christopher Lamb, CNN’s Vatican Correspondent, told Variety.
“And we’re seeing the response to this with the big numbers of people who are turning out,” Lamb added.
Francis’ funeral procession, following the service, will be held at walking pace across central Rome and past the Imperial Forums.
The pope’s funeral, according to strict protocol, is to be followed at least a week later by the secretive conclave, in which 135 cardinals from around the world gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect the next Catholic Church leader. The conclave is now expected to begin sometime between May 5 and 10.