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Saturday, May 31, 2025

Catholic faithful pay their final respects to Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica

by

Newsdesk
37 days ago
20250423
The body of Pope Francis, who will lie in state for three days, sits in St. Peter's Basilica before the doors are open to the public, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

The body of Pope Francis, who will lie in state for three days, sits in St. Peter's Basilica before the doors are open to the public, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Francisco Seco

Thou­sands of peo­ple filed through the cen­tral aisle of St. Pe­ter’s Basil­i­ca to pay their fi­nal re­spects to Pope Fran­cis on Wednes­day, the start of three days of pub­lic view­ing ahead of the pon­tiff’s fu­ner­al.

Throngs of or­di­nary faith­ful made their way slow­ly to the 16th-cen­tu­ry basil­i­ca’s main al­tar, where Fran­cis’ sim­ple wood­en cas­ket was perched on a slight ramp, as four Swiss Guards stood at at­ten­tion. Over the com­ing days, tens of thou­sands of peo­ple are ex­pect­ed to pass through the basil­i­ca, which is stay­ing open un­til mid­night to ac­com­mo­date them.

Car­di­nals, mean­while, met in pri­vate to fi­nal­ize prepa­ra­tions for Sat­ur­day’s fu­ner­al and plan the con­clave to elect Fran­cis’ suc­ces­sor.

Fran­cis died on Mon­day at age 88, cap­ping a 12-year pon­tif­i­cate char­ac­ter­ized by his con­cern for the poor and mes­sage of in­clu­sion, but al­so some crit­i­cism from con­ser­v­a­tives who some­times felt alien­at­ed by his pro­gres­sive bent

Wednes­day opened with the bells of St. Pe­ter’s tolling as pall­bear­ers car­ried Fran­cis’ body from the Vat­i­can ho­tel where he lived in­to the basil­i­ca in a pro­ces­sion through the same pi­az­za where he had de­liv­ered what be­came his fi­nal good­bye. Fran­cis made a sur­prise pope­mo­bile tour through the faith­ful on East­er Sun­day, af­ter be­ing as­sured by his nurse he could de­spite his con­tin­ued frail health from a bout of pneu­mo­nia.

Car­di­nal Kevin Far­rell, who is run­ning the Vat­i­can tem­porar­i­ly un­til a new pope is elect­ed, led the pro­ces­sion down the cen­tral aisle to the al­tar, with clouds of in­cense pre­ced­ing him and the choir chant­i­ng the Litany of Saints hymn. In pairs, car­di­nals in red cas­socks ap­proached the cas­ket, bowed and made a sign of the cross, fol­lowed by small groups of pur­ple-robbed bish­ops, black-clad ush­ers, priests and nuns — and then the doors were thrown open to the pub­lic.

Heads of state are ex­pect­ed for Fran­cis’ fu­ner­al, but the three days of pub­lic view­ing in the basil­i­ca al­low or­di­nary Catholics to grieve the Ar­gen­tine pope. The view­ing ends Fri­day at 7 p.m., af­ter which Fran­cis’ cas­ket will be closed and sealed.

Sim­pli­fied rit­u­als re­flect Fran­cis’ wish­es

Fran­cis’ death and fu­ner­al in­au­gu­rates a care­ful­ly or­ches­trat­ed pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion in the 1.4 bil­lion-strong Catholic Church, with car­di­nals gath­er­ing over the com­ing days be­fore en­ter­ing in­to a con­clave, the se­cre­tive rit­u­al vot­ing in the Sis­tine Chapel to elect a new pope. There are 135 car­di­nals un­der age 80 and el­i­gi­ble to vote, and the new pon­tiff will like­ly come from with­in their ranks. The con­clave is not ex­pect­ed to be­gin be­fore May 5.

South Ko­re­an Car­di­nal Lazarus You He­ung-sik, who heads the Vat­i­can’s of­fice for priests, pre­dict­ed a short con­clave, but ac­knowl­edged the tran­si­tion is full of un­cer­tain­ties.

“We’ll see what the Holy Spir­it says,” he said Wednes­day. Asked if the next pope could come from Asia, where the Catholic Church is grow­ing, he in­sist­ed: “For the Lord, there’s no East or West.”

Papua New Guinea’s first and on­ly car­di­nal, John Ri­b­at, pre­pared Wednes­day to leave for Rome to par­tic­i­pate in the vote, pleased to rep­re­sent the poor South Pa­cif­ic is­land na­tion of 12 mil­lion peo­ple and more than 800 lan­guages in a Col­lege of Car­di­nals that Fran­cis great­ly di­ver­si­fied over 12 years.

“The im­por­tant thing is that … Papua New Guinea is part of the church, the glob­al church. And to be able to have a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from here to be in the con­clave, it is a big thing,” Rib­art told the Aus­tralian Broad­cast­ing Corp. He said he hoped the next pope would be some­one who could lead the church in “a way that is truth­ful and binds every­one to­geth­er.”

Fran­cis first lay in state in the Do­mus San­ta Mar­ta ho­tel in a pri­vate view­ing for Vat­i­can res­i­dents and the pa­pal house­hold. Im­ages re­leased by the Vat­i­can on Tues­day showed the pope in an open cas­ket, wear­ing the tra­di­tion­al point­ed head­dress of bish­ops and red robes, his hands fold­ed over a rosary. The Vat­i­can’s No. 2, Car­di­nal Pietro Parolin, was pic­tured pray­ing by Fran­cis.

Once in­side the basil­i­ca, Fran­cis’ cas­ket wasn’t put on an el­e­vat­ed bier — as was the case with past popes — but placed on a ramp, fac­ing the pews. It was in keep­ing with Fran­cis’ wish­es for all the rit­u­als sur­round­ing a pa­pal fu­ner­al to be sim­pli­fied to re­flect his be­lief that the pope’s role is that of sim­ple pas­tor, not world leader.

“For me, Pope Fran­cis rep­re­sents a great pas­tor, as well as a great friend to all of us,’’ said Mi­cale Sales, vis­it­ing St. Pe­ter’s Basil­i­ca from Brazil.

Ital­ian po­lice have tight­ened se­cu­ri­ty for the view­ing and the fu­ner­al, car­ry­ing out foot and horse pa­trols around the Vat­i­can, where pil­grims con­tin­ued to ar­rive for the Holy Year cel­e­bra­tions that Fran­cis opened in De­cem­ber. The faith­ful who walk through St. Pe­ter’s Holy Door dur­ing such years are grant­ed in­dul­gences, a way to help atone for sins.

“I think he spread a pos­i­tive mes­sage around the world, say­ing there shouldn’t be any vi­o­lence, there should be peace around the world,’’ said Amit Kukre­ja, from Aus­tralia.

Plan­ning for the con­clave is now un­der­way

The fu­ner­al has been set for Sat­ur­day at 10 a.m. in St. Pe­ter’s Square, and will be at­tend­ed by lead­ers in­clud­ing U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volod­myr Ze­len­skyy.

Car­di­nals are con­tin­u­ing their meet­ings this week to plan the con­clave and make oth­er de­ci­sions about run­ning the Catholic Church.

His­to­ry’s first Latin Amer­i­can pon­tiff charmed the world with his hum­ble style and con­cern for the poor but alien­at­ed many con­ser­v­a­tives with cri­tiques of cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change.

Fran­cis had some reser­va­tions about his fi­nal pope­mo­bile tour through St. Pe­ter’s Square on East­er, Vat­i­can News re­port­ed on Tues­day. But he over­came them, the news agency said, and was thank­ful that he had greet­ed the crowd. He died the next morn­ing.

“The death of a pope is not a small thing, be­cause we’ve lost our leader,’’ Julio Hen­rique from Brazil said just out­side the basil­i­ca. “But still, in a few days, we will have a new leader. So … the thing of hope re­mains. Who will as­sume Pe­ter’s throne?”

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Pope Fran­cis

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