Tens of thousands of people poured into St. Peter's Square starting at dawn Saturday to honor Pope Francis with a farewell ceremony reflecting his priorities as pope and wishes as pastor: Presidents and princes will attend his funeral Mass at the Vatican, but prisoners and migrants will welcome him into the basilica across town where he will be buried.
As many as 200,000 people are expected to attend the funeral, which Francis choreographed 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 priest and not “a powerful man of this world.”
It was a reflection of Francis’ 12-year project to radically reform the papacy, to stress pastors 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 coffin before it was sealed Friday night.
Despite Francis’ focus on the powerless, the powerful will be at his funeral. US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, the UN chief and European Union leaders are joining Prince William and the European royals leading official delegations. Argentine President Javier Milei had the pride of place given Francis’ Argentine nationality, even if the two didn’t particularly get along. The pope also alienated many Argentines by never returning home.
The white facade of St. Peter's Basilica glowed pink as the sun rose early Saturday and hordes of mourners rushed into the square hours before the funeral. Giant television screens were set up along the surrounding streets for those who couldn't get close. The Mass and funeral procession — with Francis' casket carried on the open-topped popemobile he used during his 2015 trip to the Philippines — is also being broadcast live around the world.
Some mourners spent the night camped out in surrounding piazzas, and the mood was almost festive as helicopters whirled overhead. Many had planned to be in Rome anyway this weekend for a special Holy Year Mass honoring young people, and groups of scouts and youth church groups nearly outnumbered the gaggles of nuns and seminarians.
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.
Francis is breaking with recent tradition and will be buried in the St. Mary Major Basilica, near Rome's main train station, where a simple underground tomb awaits him with just his name: Franciscus. As many as 300,000 people are expected to line the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) motorcade route that will bring Francis’ casket from the Vatican through the center of Rome to the basilica after the funeral.
The Vatican said 40 special guests would greet his casket on the piazza in front of the basilica, reflecting 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 in explaining the choice.
With his burial, preparations can now begin in earnest to host 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 organizing the secret voting in the Sistine Chapel.
Italy is deploying more than 2,500 police and 1,500 soldiers to provide security, which also includes stationing a torpedo ship off the coast, and putting squads of fighter jets on standby, Italian media reported.
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 doors open through the night to accommodate them.
“He was an excellent, humble person who changed many laws and always for the better,” said a pilgrim from his native Argentina, Augustin Angelicola, as he waited in line. “Now it is a sad thing for the whole world that all this has happened. We did not expect it, it had to happen, but not so soon.”
But even with the expanded hours, it wasn’t enough. When the Vatican closed the doors to the general public at 7 p.m. on Friday, mourners were turned away in droves.
