POpe Francis was buried in Rome on Saturday with a moving and multilingual ceremony which reflected his humble approach to the papacy and world worship which he appreciated as “Pope of the People”.
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the streets around Saint -Pierre square in the Vatican to pay final tribute to a man whose message, from the first days of his papacy in March 2013 to his last on April 21, 2025, was that the church was a house for all – without their race, class, religion or sexual orientation.
The presidents, the cardinals, the key world characters and the royalties attended the mass of the Requiem held in front of the Saint-Pierre basilica as Cardinal Giovanni Battista reassessed a man who spoke to everyone “in particular to the marginalized, the least among us”.
“Rich in human warmth and deeply sensitive to today's challenges, Pope Francis has really shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes for this period of globalization,” said dream to an audience who understood President Donald Trump, former president Joe Biden, the British Prince, the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Ukrainian President Volodyr Zelensky.
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The procedures were broadcast on large screens installed along the Tiber river and throughout the city to accommodate the crowd. The sister Margaret Wyrodek, from Poland, said in time that she wanted to accompany Pope Francis during his last trip because he had accompanied it so much through their own difficult trips. “He was the priest of the whole world,” she said. “He comforted the marginalized, the poor, the mistreated people, the people on the sidelines.”
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis was the former archbishop of Buenos Aires and the first non -European pontiff in more than 1,200 years. He was a man loved for his brilliant humility and how he inaugurated the Catholic Church in a contemporary era by preaching tolerance to those that the Church had long disparaged. “He clearly indicated that everyone is welcome at the table of God,” said Patrick Gallagher, an American gay who has lived in Rome for 15 years. “Because of Francis, I finally felt that I could again become Catholic again.”
Among the people in mourning grouped along the shore next to the Vatican, there were dozens of young people wearing t-shirts and bright green scarves. They had planned to come to Rome for a special pilgrimage which was to lead to a papal audience and the now posed canonization of Carlo Acutis, an Italian of British origin who died of leukemia at the age of 15 in 2006. Acutis became the “holy millennium” for his devotion to the church and inspired a new generation of world Catholics. Instead, they arrived just in time for the pope's funeral. “I am disappointed,” explains Julie Brugnoni, 15, who landed in Rome on Thursday with a delegation of adolescents from the city of Crémone in northern Italy. “I was so excited to meet Pope Francis, because he loved adolescents. Instead, we are here to say goodbye. ”
Adolescents appreciated Pope Francis' commitment to raise awareness of climate change, in particular how he has an impact on the young generations. In 2015, the Pope published a benchmark encyclical Letter to the Catholic Congregation, deplore the deterioration of the environment and global warming, and the warning of “serious consequences for all of us” if such trends were to continue. “He preached that if we want a better world, we must protect the creation of God,” explains Alberto Razzetti, 15.
The group was silent as they watched the procedures on a screen installed on the piazza. Porters dressed in black costumes rise the coffin of Pope Francis on their shoulders. The simple wooden coffin, bordered by zinc and marked with a white cross, symbolized another gap in the tradition of the church.
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Historically, the popes were buried in coffins at three levels in cypress, lead and oak and buried under marble lights decorated in the Saint-Pierre basilica. But Francis, who had made a vow of poverty as a Jesuit priest, generally avoided the external signs of papal luxury. This wish extended to his death. Last year, he modified the rules For papal funerals, simplifying the process and inaugurating a more humble approach in the Catholic Church, something that attacked him more to his disciples.
“It is just another demonstration that the external signs of wealth are not worth anything in this world,” explains Ricardo Montalto, an elderly Italian man who sought refuge under the brilliant sun under an awning of the workshop during the funeral procedures. “Under God, we are all the same, that we are cardinals, migrants or poor.”
The bearers loaded the coffin in a white van, which started a slow trip outside the Saint-Pierre square, followed by thousands of people in mourning. Pope Francis said in his will that he did not want to be buried in the Vatican like most of his predecessors, but in Santa Maria Maggiore, a basilica on the other side of Rome near the central station. The church is a baroque jewel in an area populated by migrants, the homeless and the poor – the people that Francis had long sought to increase. He wanted to pray to the basilica before and after each foreign trip, and often asked to stop there every time he returned home after his stays at the increasingly frequent hospital.
Sister Maria Rose Pellicioli, an Italian nun from a school for the poor outside Rome, waited near the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore for the funeral procession to arrive. She met Pope Francis for the first time 12 years ago when she brought a group of her students for an audience and thinks that her blessing has kept her security and her students since. Coming to say goodbye, she said, was his way of thanking him for everything he had done for the world. For the Pelliciolis, the day was bit bitter. “We have the joy we knew, and the pain we lost. But he returns home, and in this way he stays with us, ”she says.
Pope Francis’s commitment to awareness and inclusion was underlined by an honorary guard of migrants, Muslims, homeless, prisoners and transgender people who were waiting for his arrival at Santa Maria Maggiore. They were among the last to say goodbye while the carriers set up the steps to deposit the coffin in an ordinary marble tomb marked by the simple “Franciscus” inscription.
The real burial, next to a chapel containing a famous Byzantine icon painting from Madonna and the Child, was closed to the public. Outside, the crowd began to move away, thoughts turning to the future world leader 1.4 billion Catholics.
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In the coming days, the college of cardinals will meet in Rome for a conclave to elect François' successor. The following pope could extend the progressive inheritance of Francis or return the church to the more dogmatic tradition embraced by his predecessors.
Francis has appointed around 80 of the 120 cardinals who will choose the next pope, but that does not necessarily mean that they will eliminate someone in his mold. Francis' inheritance is mixed. He opened communion to divorced couples and homosexuality, and He restricted the Latin massthat he considered exclusion. But he ceased to allow women to become deacons. He also worked to ensure that the Cardinal College is better reflecting the modern church by including more representatives from the world South, many of whom are more conservative on issues of homosexuality, women's rights and divorce.
During the funeral, however, the crowd appeared massively in favor of the opening of François to the world, whatever the specific questions of the doctrine of the Church.
“This is why I feel optimistic,” explains Gallagher, the aforementioned American gay who has lived in Rome for more than a decade. “Pope Francis has changed attitudes. I saw how people kissed his kindness, how they celebrated his tolerance and humility. It will remain, it doesn't matter who will come. He changed the [Catholic] Church.”
