An ocean of people for the Pope of the ‘least’
VATICAN CITY – First the powerful’s farewell, then people’s, finally the least’s, the most important to him and for this very reason appointed to pay him the last “goodbye” before burial, in the spirit of the Gospel: “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…”. It’s the funeral of Pope Francis, who made humility his modus vivendi: from the renunciation – in life – of residing in the papal apartment, to the resting – in death – in a simple coffin, on the floor, in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore instead of in the Vatican.
On Saturday morning, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Rome to celebrate the Pontiff. About 500 thousand followed the funeral, in St. Peter’s and along the route that, after the Mass, took the coffin to Santa Maria Maggiore by the “popemobile”.
To give the Holy Father their final greeting, as we just said, ordinary people alongside the “big” from all over the world: 249 delegations were present at the funeral presided over by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who recalled Bergoglio’s commitment to the “least”, in particular refugees, displaced persons. Migrants, just like his family members, Italians who emigrated to Argentina.
“It is significant that his first trip as Pope was to Lampedusa, an island that is a symbol of the tragedy of emigration with thousands of people drowned at sea. He was a Pope who lived among the people with a heart open to everyone…”, said Cardinal Re during the homily.
After the Mass, the long funeral procession, from St. Peter’s Square to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, his favourite church ever, where he often went to pray. And for the entire journey, thousands of people to accompany the Pontiff on his last journey aboard the “Popemobile”.
Finally, the arrival at the church he loved so much: in the churchyard, waiting for him, the “last ones”, the least, for whom this cardinal who arrived from the “end of the world” always had extra attention. Thus, after the funeral reserved for the powerful of the Earth, the final embrace of a group of poor people, migrants, transgender people and prisoners, his people, welcomed him to Santa Maria Maggiore, each of them with a white rose in their hand, symbol of the bond that Francis had with “Little Teresa”, Teresa of Lisieux, the Saint to whom he turned to entrust with a problem asking her “not to solve it, but to take it in hand and help me accept it. And as a signal I almost always receive a white rose…” Bergoglio himself used to say.
Today, a few hours after the opening of visits to the tomb of the Pontiff, while in St. Peter’s Square over 200 thousand young people who had come for the Jubilee of Adolescents participated in the Mass in suffrage, there were already thirty thousand people who had passed by to pay homage to the humble tomb of Bergoglio. On the tombstone, next to the name Franciscus, a white rose.
From the Tide of Faithful in East Timor to the Embrace of Buenos Aires
EAST TIMOR – The Pope had been there last year, on one of his last trips. On Saturday, on the occasion of the funeral in the Vatican, the people of that small island in South Asia, one of the most Catholic in the world, paid homage to him with a Mass and prayer vigil attended by hundreds of thousands of people. For the occasion, the “popemobile” used by Francis in September 2024 was used to tour the streets of Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste: the vehicle transported flowers and photos of Francis to the altar of Tasi-tolu, the scene of a papal liturgy during the apostolic trip of September 2024. From one side of the world to the other: in a climate of deep emotion and respect, a large crowd in Buenos Aires, Argentina, bid farewell to Pope Francis with a Mass and a “symbolic embrace” around the historic Plaza de Mayo. The funeral Mass for the eternal rest of Francis began at 10 a.m. on Saturday (3 p.m. in Rome) on an altar set up outside the Metropolitan Cathedral (where Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine of Italian origin, was archbishop since 1998), a few hours after the funeral celebrated in the Vatican. The celebration was presided over by the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Monsignor Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, who emphasized that Francis, “like every good father, was a father to all, but he had a particular attention for the most fragile, showing a predilection for the last, the marginalized, the sick, the discarded of this society; a shepherd’s heart, in the image of the heart of Jesus, always ready to listen and forgive, inviting us in turn to commit ourselves to those who suffer”.
In the photo below, the Mass in East Timor; in the photos above, some moments of the Pope’s funeral in St. Peter’s Square and the white rose on his tomb (photo: Twitter X – @VaticanNews)