'Build bridges, not walls': Francis' funeral brings together the powerful and the pious
Dozens of world leaders, at least 11 reigning monarchs and tens of thousands of mourners were on hand to give Pope Francis a final send-off.
The funeral of the 266th pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church began bathed in gorgeous golden Roman light. After a two-hour ceremony filled with pageantry, tradition and a few new takes on old rituals, it ended as Pope Francis' wooden coffin was interred outside Vatican walls in the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Dozens of world leaders, at least 11 reigning monarchs and tens of thousands of mourners were on hand to give Francis a final send-off. The Vatican City backdrop was ornate. But the service itself wasn't. That was what the first pope from Latin America who changed the church requested. He wanted it as "simple" as possible.
Choirs have sang Latin hymns. Prayers were recited in various languages including Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic, a reflection of the church's global reach. The Roman Catholic Church has some 1.4 billion adherents. The center of that gravity is in Latin America, Asia and Africa, where 7 out of 10 Catholics now live, according to the latest statistics released by the Vatican's Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae.
An estimated 400,000 people listened to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re deliver his homily near the Vatican; 50,000 of those inside St. Peter's Square itself. Re is the dean of the College of Cardinals that will elect the new pope sometime in the next few weeks in a process known as the conclave. He spoke movingly of a religious leader − and man − who "touched hearts and minds." Pope Francis sought, Re said, to "build bridges, not walls" between people.
"He established direct contact with individuals and peoples, eager to be close to everyone, with a marked attention to those in difficulty, giving himself without measure, especially to the marginalized," he said.
The tens of thousands of mourners who lined up to slowly file past the pope's coffin as it sat in front of the Papal Altar at St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican over the past week would appear to prove Re's assertion. After the funeral, St. Peter's great bells pealed in mourning. Tens of thousands more people lined Rome's streets as the pope's coffin was transported from the Vatican to his final resting place at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, about 3 miles away, in a chamber sealed off to the public. They crammed the square near the Vatican and the roads around it to catch a glimpse of the procession with his coffin that had been placed on an open-topped "popemobile."
Much has been said and written about the pope's warmth and humility. Of how he avoided the pomp and circumstance that comes with being the pope, from where he slept to how he dressed. Of how he sought a legacy for his papacy that would be defined by caring for migrants, the downtrodden, the environment − and everything and everyone in between not born to wealth and security.
Francis called for the end of the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. He denounced climate change and was not shy about chastising governments or even individual leaders for what he viewed as a lack of a moral compass on the issues of the day, from migration to exploitative economic practices.
During the Mass over which he presided, Re said the late pontiff was someone who was "deeply sensitive to today's challenges, Pope Francis truly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time."
Many attending his funeral concurred.
"In him I saw a holy man who saw the lonely and the needy," a mourner named Sister Beatrice told the BBC. "He is a man of peace and he accepts everybody no matter their race, language or where you come from. For me we have lost a great man. I pray that who we choose as the next pope takes up the legacy he has laid for the church."
Whether he knew it or not, the funeral of the man that many called the "people's pope" in the end brought together some of the world's most powerful with some of its most marginalized.
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held what the White House described as a "productive" meeting on the sidelines of the service. It was their first in person get-together since the two leaders clashed in the Oval Office over how to end the war in Ukraine that started with Russia's invasion. Zelenskyy said the meeting had the "potential to become historic," hinting an elusive peace deal could be in reach.
Unlike 91 other popes, Francis decided not to be buried in the Vatican's grottoes. In doing so, he became the first pope in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican. In fact, some of the last mourners permitted to say farewell to his coffin as it was buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, Italian media reported, were from a group of the poor and marginalized − migrants, prisoners, the homeless, transgender people − who he regularly visited.
Pope Francis requested his tomb be modest and unadorned. It was to reflect the humble spirit of his papacy. His tombstone bears only a single inscription with his name written on it in Latin: "Franciscus."