VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis was laid to rest inside his favourite Rome church after a funeral mass in St Peter's Square, the Vatican said on Saturday.
The Argentinian pontiff, who died on Monday aged 88, was laid to rest during a 30-minute burial ceremony which started at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) at the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica in the Italian capital.
Footage shared by the Holy See showed cardinals marking his wooden and zinc coffin with red wax seals.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who as camerlengo is running the Vatican's day-to-day affairs until a new pope is elected, sprinkled the coffin with holy water after it was lowered into a tomb set inside an alcove.
A replica of the pectoral cross worn by Francis during his lifetime hung above it. Pope Francis had asked that the tomb, located near the altar of Saint Francis, be simple and unadorned, reflecting the humble spirit of his papacy.
The tombstone bears only the inscription "Franciscus" -- the pope's name in Latin. Its marble is sourced from Liguria, the northwestern Italian region once home to the Argentine pontiff's Italian ancestors.
Francis, born Jorge Bergoglio, had specified in his will the exact spot he wanted to be buried, in the side nave of the beloved fifth-century AD church.
He declared his desire to be entombed in Santa Maria Maggiore in 2023.
Located in the heart of Rome, the basilica already holds the tombs of seven popes.
But the last one to be buried there was Clement IX in 1669. More recently popes have usually been buried in St Peter's Basilica.
One of four papal basilicas in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore also holds the remains of several other renowned figures, such as the architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who designed St Peter's Square and its surrounding columns.
Built around 432 AD under Pope Sixtus III, the basilica holds some of the Catholic Church's most important relics, including an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, attributed to Saint Luke.
Tens of thousands of people lined the route as the popemobile carrying the coffin of the Argentine, who died on Monday aged 88, was driven to his final resting place.
World leaders and Catholic faithful bade farewell to Pope Francis in a funeral Saturday reflecting his priorities as pope and wishes as pastor.
Though presidents and princes attended the Mass in St. Peter’s Square, prisoners and migrants welcomed him into the basilica.
Thousands of people flocked before dawn to the square on a brilliant spring day that was supposed to have been a special Holy Year celebration for adolescents. Perhaps because so many young people were on hand, the somber ceremony still had a festive mood, with mourners taking selfies amid the hymns as Francis' simple coffin was brought out of St. Peter’s Basilica at the start of the Mass.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals, delivered a lengthy, spirited and highly personal homily, or sermon. He eulogized Francis as the people's pope, a pastor who knew how to communicate to the “least among us” with an informal, spontaneous style.
“He was a pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone,” Re said. He drew applause from the crowd when he recounted Francis' constant concern for migrants, including when he celebrated Mass at the U.S.-Mexico border and travelled to a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, and brought 12 migrants home with him.
“The guiding thread of his mission was also the conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open,” Re said.
Francis had choreographed the funeral himself when he revised and simplified the Vatican’s rites and rituals last year. His aim was to emphasize the pope’s role as a mere pastor and not “a powerful man of this world.”
It was a reflection of Francis’ 12-year project to radically reform the papacy, to stress priests as servants and to construct “a poor church for the poor.” He articulated the mission just days after his 2013 election and it explained the name he chose as pope, honoring St. Francis of Assisi “who had the heart of the poor of the world,” according to the official decree of the pope's life that was placed in his simple wooden coffin before it was sealed Friday night.
Despite Francis’ focus on the powerless, the powerful were at his funeral. U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, and European Union leaders joined Prince William and European royals leading more than 160 official delegations. Argentine President Javier Milei had the pride of place given Francis’ nationality, even if the two didn’t particularly get along and the pope alienated many Argentines by never returning home.
The white facade of St. Peter's glowed pink as the sun rose Saturday and hordes of mourners rushed into the square. Giant television screens were set up along the surrounding streets for those who couldn't get close. The Mass and funeral procession — with Francis' coffin carried on the open-topped popemobile he used during his 2015 trip to the Philippines — were also being broadcast live around the world.
Police helicopters whirled overhead, part of the massive security operation Italian authorities mounted, including more than 2,500 police and 1,500 soldiers and a torpedo ship off the coast, Italian media reported.
Many mourners had planned to be in Rome anyway this weekend for the now-postponed Holy Year canonization of the first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, and groups of scouts and youth church groups nearly outnumbered the gaggles of nuns and seminarians.
“He was a very charismatic pope, very human, very kind, above all very human," said Miguel Vaca, a pilgrim from Peru who said he had camped out near the piazza. "It is a very great emotion to say goodbye to him.”
Welcomed by the poor and marginalized
Francis, the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope, died Easter Monday at age 88 after suffering a stroke while recovering at home from pneumonia.
Following his funeral, preparations can begin in earnest to launch the centuries-old process of electing a new pope, a conclave that will likely begin in the first week of May. In the interim, the Vatican is being run by a handful of cardinals, key among them Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals who is presiding at the funeral and organising the secret voting in the Sistine Chapel.
Francis's burial broke with recent tradition and he was laid to rest in St. Mary Major Basilica, near Rome's main train station, with a simple tomb that sported just his name: Franciscus.
As many as 300,000 people lined the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) motorcade route that brought Francis’ coffin from the Vatican through the center of Rome to the basilica after the funeral.
Forty special guests, organized by the Vatican's Caritas charity and the Sant'Egidio community, greeted his coffin at the basilica, a move honoring the marginalized groups Francis prioritized as pope: homeless people and migrants, prisoners and transgender people.
“The poor have a privileged place in the heart of God,” the Vatican quoted Francis as saying while explaining the choice.
A special relationship with the basilica
Even before he became pope, Francis had a particular affection for St. Mary Major, home to a Byzantine-style icon of the Madonna, the Salus Populi Romani, to which Francis was particularly devoted. He would pray before it before and after each of his foreign trips as pope.
The choice of the basilica was also symbolically significant given its ties to Francis’ Jesuit religious order. St. Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, celebrated his first Mass in the basilica on Christmas Day in 1538.
Crowds waited hours to bid farewell to Francis
Over three days this week, more than 250,000 people stood for hours in line to pay their final respects while Francis’ body lay in state in St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican kept the basilica open through the night to accommodate them, but it wasn’t enough. When the doors closed to the general public at 7 p.m. on Friday, mourners were turned away in droves.
By dawn Saturday, they were back and ready to say a final farewell, some recalling the words he uttered the very first night of his election and throughout his papacy.
“We are here to honor him because he always said ‘don’t forget to pray for me,’” said Sister Christiana Neenwata from Biafrana, Nigeria. “So we are also here to give to him this love that he gave to us.”
He was truly the people's pope.
