Royalty, presidents, prime ministers and a legion of trustworthy are paying their final respects to Pope Francis at a funeral mass in St. Peter’s Sq. in Rome to honour his typically turbulent papacy.
Applause rang out because the pontiff’s easy picket coffin, inlaid with a big cross, was introduced out of St. Peter’s Basilica and into the sun-filled sq. by white-gloved, black-suited pallbearers.
The funeral has drawn everybody from dignitaries together with world leaders and royalty, to prisoners and migrants, reflecting his priorities as pope. Bells tolled because the final of the leaders from greater than 150 nations took their locations. Dignitaries included U.S. President Donald Trump, who clashed with Francis on quite a few events over their starkly contrasting positions on immigration.
The open-air ceremony has drawn 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and greater than 4,000 different monks. It was anticipated to final 90 minutes, whereas Pope John Paul II’s funeral in 2005 lasted three hours.

Tens of hundreds of odd mourners hurried towards the Vatican from the early hours. Many camped out to attempt to safe spots on the entrance of the group for the ceremony.
Francis, who was from Argentina, died on Monday at age 88 following a stroke, ushering in a meticulously deliberate interval of transition for the 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church, marked by historical ritual, pomp and mourning.
Over the previous three days, round 250,000 folks filed previous his physique, which had been specified by a coffin earlier than the altar of the cavernous, Sixteenth-century St. Peter’s Basilica.
Dignitaries included the presidents of Argentina, France, Gabon, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Poland and Ukraine, together with the prime ministers of Britain and New Zealand, and lots of European royals.
Liberal Chief Mark Carney introduced earlier this week that he wouldn’t attend the Pope’s funeral and mentioned Gov. Gen. Mary Simon would represent Canada.
The Vatican mentioned some 250,000 mourners have been anticipated to fill the huge, cobbled esplanade and principal entry path to the basilica to comply with the ceremony, which is being presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, a 91-year-old Italian prelate.
The primary non-European pope for nearly 13 centuries, Francis battled to reshape the Roman Catholic Church throughout his 12-year reign, siding with the poor and marginalized, whereas difficult rich nations to assist migrants and reverse local weather change.
Members of the Canadian delegation arrived in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral as Cardinals sealed his coffin for the ceremony.
“Francis left everybody a beautiful testimony of humanity, of a holy life and of common fatherhood,” mentioned a proper abstract of his papacy, written in Latin and positioned subsequent to his physique.
Traditionalists pushed again at his efforts to make the Catholic Church extra clear, whereas his pleas for an finish to battle, divisions and rampant capitalism usually weren’t heard.
A shorter funeral service
The Pope shunned a lot of the pomp and privilege normally related to the papacy throughout his reign, and can carry that want for larger simplicity into his funeral, having rewritten the frilly, book-long funeral rites used beforehand.
Forward of Pope Francis’s funeral, CBC’s Heather Hiscox describes the somber setting exterior Santa Maria Maggiore basilica in Rome, which will probably be his closing resting place, and connects with Canadian vacationers as they mirror about their time in Vatican Metropolis.
Francis additionally opted to forego a centuries-old follow of burying popes in three interlocking caskets manufactured from cypress, lead and oak. As an alternative, he has been positioned in a single, zinc-lined picket coffin, which was sealed closed in a single day.
In an extra break with custom, he is the primary pope to be buried exterior the Vatican in additional than a century, preferring Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Main, some 4 kilometres from St. Peter’s, as his closing resting place.
His tomb has simply “Franciscus,” his identify in Latin, inscribed on the highest.
A copy of the straightforward, iron-plated cross he used to put on round his neck hangs above the marble slab.
His funeral motorcade will drive him by town for one final time, permitting Romans to say their farewell.
Italy has closed the airspace over town and known as in further forces, with anti-aircraft missiles and patrol boats guarding the occasion in one of many largest safety operations the nation has seen because the funeral of John Paul II.
As quickly as Francis is buried, consideration will change to who may succeed him.
The secretive conclave to elect a successor is unlikely to start earlier than Might 6 and may not begin for a number of days after that, giving cardinals time to carry common conferences beforehand to sum one another up and assess the state of the Catholic Church, beset by monetary issues and ideological divisions.
Order, isolation and secrecy are the ideas that can govern the centuries-old technique of electing the following pope. Andrew Chang explains who a few of the front-runners are to succeed Pope Francis and what the cardinals may think about when selecting a brand new chief for the Roman Catholic Church.
Photographs offered by Getty Photographs, The Canadian Press and Reuters.
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