Catholics bury the ‘people’s pope’
Hundreds of thousands line streets, pack St. Peter’s Square to bid Pope Francis farewell
VATICAN CITY — The Roman Catholic Church bid farewell to the first New World pope Saturday in a funeral attended by monarchs, presidents and cardinals but that aimed to conclude with a different group of exalted guests — an honor guard made up of migrants, prisoners, the homeless and transgender faithful assembled to send off a leader who had placed the marginalized at the heart of his “people’s papacy.”
Under crystal-clear skies in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica, the nearly two-hour requiem Mass was a solemn spectacle of an ancient faith, an elaborate, multilingual ceremony modestly slimmed down at the behest of Pope Francis, who died the morning after Easter at 88. The most notable difference: A single wooden coffin lined with zinc as opposed to the three-tiered caskets of cypress, lead and oak used for previous popes.
The changes, official said, were meant to honor the wishes of the first Jesuit pope, who had taken a vow of poverty and aimed to make the proceedings seem more like the funeral of a pastor than a “sovereign” who had ruled the lofty Holy See. Before the closing of his coffin Friday night, Francis’s well-worn black shoes peeked out from under the elegant ceremonial robes of a man who eschewed the finery of his office, including the red slippers of popes.
As dawn broke Saturday over Vatican City, thousands of Catholic faithful poured into St. Peter’s Square. Some wrapped themselves in national flags — Brazil, Lebanon, Australia — while others carried banners honoring Francis. Heather Salwach, a 34-year-old health-care professional from Philadelphia, heard about the pope’s death just before boarding her flight to Rome. “For me, the flight became a vigil,” she said. She arrived at 6:30 a.m. with her mother to say goodbye to a man she called “the people’s pope.”
“He was our holy father, and as Catholics we feel as if we lost our father. His pastoral approach sometimes got him in trouble, but for me it was beautiful. He was a man of mercy,” she said.
The sprawling crowds spilled over the square through multiple blocks on the streets of Rome and marked the largest funeral-as-global-event since the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, and the most significant in Vatican City since the emotional farewell to Pope John Paul II in 2005.
Papal influence has waned over decades, but the still significant power of the church of 1.4 billion Catholics could be seen in the dignitaries the funeral rites drew, including President Donald Trump, Britain’s Prince William, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, many of whom sat stoically as the sounds of Latin echoed through the square built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Trump sat in the front row of honored guests that included Macron and Zelensky. Unlike most dignitaries who wore black, Trump donned a navy suit with dark blue tie.
In addition to the 164 national delegations, other faiths have sent high-level representatives to Francis’s funeral. The list includes Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jains, as well as leaders of the Eastern Orthodox church, the Anglican Communion, Methodists, the World Evangelical Alliance and others.
The Vatican said Saturday that authorities estimated the crowd size to be around 250,000 people — far larger than the 50,000 people who attended Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral in 2023, although fewer than the 300,000 who attended John Paul II’s in 2005.
“The final image we have of him, which will remain etched in our memory, is that of last Sunday, Easter Sunday, when Pope Francis, despite his serious health problems, wanted to give us his blessing from the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, who presided over the service and led an unusual funeral Mass in which a multitude of clerics were invited to co-celebrate.
“Despite his frailty and suffering towards the end, Pope Francis chose to follow this path of self-giving until the last day of his earthly life. He followed in the footsteps of his Lord,” he added.
Francis, at his request, became the first pope in more than a hundred years due to be buried outside the high walls of Vatican City. And his funeral procession, moving “at the speed of a walking man,” lumbered through the streets of Rome on the 3.4-mile route to St. Mary Major, one of the four papal basilicas in an and around the Italian capital that serves as the epicenter of world’s largest Christian faith. The circuitous procession was set to traverse the Tiber River and symbols of the city’s ancient power, the Roman Forum and Colosseum.
The funeral day was a juxtaposition of the powerful and the weak. Leaving a square possessed of global leaders and monarchs, the white popemobile carrying Francis’s coffin was set to arrive at the entrance of St. Mary Major to be greeted by dozens of white-rose-bearing mourners. The final honor guard was scheduled to include Venezuelan, Kurdish, Egyptian and other migrants, as well as Muslims, transgender people, the homeless and others selected by the Vicariate of Rome as a symbol of the late pope’s mission of inclusion and outreach.
“That they should be the ones to welcome Pope Francis’s coffin in the basilica is because these people are those who represented the focus of his mission,” said Father Giulio Albanese, head of missionary cooperation and communications for the Vicariate of Rome. “They are those who live on the peripheries, geographical and existential peripheries.”
As is customary in Vatican City for papal funerals, the presidents of Italy, which surrounds Vatican City, and Argentina, Francis’s native land, sat in front-row seats to the north of the coffin during the funeral Mass. Reigning sovereigns filled other privileged seats.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived at the Vatican about 9:30 a.m. They entered St. Peter’s Basilica and stood side-by-side at the foot of Francis’s casket, briefly paying their respects, before joining the other heads of state and government leaders gathered in the square.
Trump has not been openly critical of Francis, but his arrival in Rome came as some in his MAGA camp have appeared to revel in the passing of a pro-migrant pope who sought to burst open the door of the church he led to everyone, including LGBTQ+, divorced and remarried Catholics.
Francis and Vatican officials had criticized the Trump administration’s migrant crackdown and aid cuts. But one senior Vatican official and funeral attendee — Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life — said “Francis was stronger” than politics.
“I myself am totally against those who will go: ‘They should stay home, because they hindered him!’ No. Pope Francis [would not be] against this.” He added, “I don’t know why Trump is coming, but certainly Pope Francis’s testimony has touched him.”
Francis was known for defending Israel before the war in the Gaza Strip, but the country’s leaders were stung by his criticism of Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas. Francis described Israel’s actions as, responding to “terror with terror.” Israel opted to skip sending a high-level delegation, dispatching its Vatican ambassador instead.
Despite his failing health over the past year, Francis’s daily work schedule had often included a video call with the parishioners of a church in Gaza, according to Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of Gaza’s Holy Family Church. It would sometimes take three to four hours for the calls to get through, “but he never gave up until he reached us and delivered his message,” Romanelli said this week.
Italy called thousands of medics and security officials into Rome for the funeral. Arriving pilgrims passed makeshift medical tents, police officers, hundreds of civil protection officials, and idled ambulances bearing district names from across the country. One officer showed off a backpack with a bazooka-like attachment for disabling drones. People inside the piazza said security was appropriately tight but that organizers managed to keep people moving forward.
“This is not their first pope death,” said Father Paul Alger, a theology student from Augusta, Georgia.
To an astonishing degree, people of many nations gathered in the square seemed to share a united view of Francis, of a leader who sought to minister to the poor, of his humility, of his embrace of all. “He was a king, but he didn’t live like a king,” said Sister Faith Abugu, a nun from Enugu state in Nigeria. “He didn’t carry himself like a big person. He was available for all.”
“I am not sad at all,” she said. “This is a celebration. He lived a good life.”
Before the pope’s coffin was ceremonially sealed inside St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday night, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, the Vatican’s master of liturgical ceremonies, spread a white silk cloth over Francis’s face. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo or chamberlain, then sprinkled Francis with holy water. A bag containing coins and medals minted during Francis’s pontificate was placed inside his coffin.
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a longtime conservative critic of Francis who served as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal officer under Benedict, said it was perhaps too much to expect the kind of crowds or religious devotion evident during John Paul II’s funeral.
“Now is another time … everybody is against everybody, when only the language of power and brutality [is spoken], and not of friendship, cooperation and respect,” he said.
Müller said it would be for “God” and the “historians of the church” to judge Francis’s papacy, one he frequently criticized. But, he conceded, “a lot of people, observers, said that the last moral authority worldwide has remained the papacy, Pope Francis.”
Lithuanian Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, the co-adjutor archpriest of St. Mary Major, said Francis had long been devoted to the “Salus Populi Romani,” the church’s treasured icon of the Virgin Mary with child. Francis often prayed at the icon, and Makrickas had suggested in 2022 that Francis consider burial at the church. Francis initially declined, believing it customary to be buried in the more lofty St. Peter’s. But he changed his mind, Makrickas said, after claiming to receive guidance from the Virgin Mary.
The pope chose a simple, single Latin word to mark his tomb — Franciscus, Makrickas said. “He meant for his tomb to respect and speak about his life — that is, of simplicity and essential things.”
Martine Powers in Rome, Mohamad El Chamaa in Beirut and Hazem Baloushi in Toronto contributed to this report.
