Among the Meek and the Mighty, Catholics Bury Their ‘People's Pope'

Yomiuri Shimbun

27-04-2025

Salwan Georges/The Washington Post
Pope Francis's coffin is carried during his funeral at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on Saturday.
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 also a different group of guests – an honor guard of migrants, prisoners, the homeless and transgender faithful who offered white roses to the coffin of 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. The throngs radiated far beyond St. Peter's Square, with crowds thick down Via della Conciliazione, the Mussolini-era thoroughfare connecting Vatican City with Rome. They sat on ledges of Vatican office buildings, stood with obstructed views behind newsstands and on platforms normally used for restaurant service.
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 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 at the funeral to be around 250,000 people – far larger than the 50,000 people who attended Pope Benedict XVI's funeral in 2023, and nearing the 300,000 who attended John Paul II's in 2005. Another 150,000 onlookers viewed the coffin during its procession through Rome to Francis's burial site, the Vatican said.
'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 to be buried outside the high walls of Vatican City. His funeral procession moved through the streets on the 3.4-mile route to St. Mary Major, one of the four papal basilicas in and around the Italian capital that serves as the epicenter of world's largest Christian faith. The circuitous procession traversed the Tiber River and symbols of the city's ancient power, the Roman Forum and Colosseum, as clusters of onlookers snapped images with their phones.
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 arrived at the entrance of St. Mary Major to be greeted by white-rose-bearing mourners. The final honor guard included 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. The guests were not brought into the church with the coffin, or for the burial.
The presence of marginalized people, though, symbolized 'Pope Francis's fight on their behalf,' said Tamara Castro, 48, a transgender woman from Argentina currently living in Rome who has been aided financially by Vatican charities. She was among those who held roses for Francis's arrival. 'He was a person who was very generous with us; he opened the door for us, he was always there.'
The Vatican's live stream cut out soon after the casket, set to be interned in a niche previously used for storage, was taken inside for a private burial, the costs of which Francis personally arranged to be covered by an undisclosed benefactor to avoid expenses for the church he served.
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. During the funeral's homily, Battista Re highlighted the pope's journey to Lampedusa – an Italian island that has become a symbol of Europe's migration crisis and repeated Francis's call to 'build bridges, not walls,' a statement that echoed a criticism the pope had issued against Trump in 2016. 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.
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 the Rev. 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.'
The private burial rites Saturday were presided over by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo, and attended by cardinals, other clerics and Francis's relatives, and involved a blessing of the niche with holy water and ritual sealing of the coffin. A reproduction of the pectoral crucifix favored by Francis was affixed to the center of the niche, according to a video of the burial provided by Vatican.
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.'