A funeral that changes the history of Catholicism

There were three days when Pope Francis’s lifeless body was in an open coffin in the Basilica of San Pedro. In a solemn procession, about 250,000 people went on to give it a farewell, As confirmed by the Vatican. And if we start making accounts, the burning chapel of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, congregated 195,000 people in 2022.

“In the background, the coffin. In the middle, everything human: those who believe, those who doubt, those who only look, those who cry. And the Vatican in silence, with a feeling of orphanhood, of vacuum,” said journalist Laura Ayala, who was part of those 250,000 people and who agreed her vacation in Rome with a farewell that has been taking dyes of historical for several days.

You may be interested: complete programming of the funeral and burial of Pope Francis: Thus you can follow the itinerary from Colombia

The three days of burning chapel ended this Friday before the funeral. After that, the coffin of the first Latin American Pope was closed in a private ceremony headed by Cardinal Camarlengo, Kevin Farrell: “He covered his face with a white silk veil, sprayed him blessed water and deposited a bag with coins and medals coined during his pontificate. He also read the prayer, a kind of official obituary that is also deposited in Within a metallic tube.

After sealing, the wood and zinc coffin was located in the square, before the altar.

His face will never be seen again. The last ones who saw him were those 250,000 faithful who attended San Pedro between Wednesday and Friday, in days that came to extend to the morning in the morning.

Another Colombian, Mónica Penagos, 61 years old and resident in Italy said that this step towards Francisco’s coffin made her cry a lot: “The truth is that I cried a lot, it was my beautiful old man, it was our Pope, the Pope of the migrants,” he noted.

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Whole families, nuns, priests, doctors, migrants, tourists and even soccer players such as those of the Rome team, including their compatriots Paulo Dybala and Leandro Paredes, went to give that last goodbye to Francisco, but the funeral is still missing.

Francisco’s burial began very early this Saturday in the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor de Rome and will be the first of a pontiff out of the Vatican from Leo XIII in 1903.

From 3:00 in the morning Colombian time The funeral mass presided by the Italian Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the Cardenalicio school began.

224 cardinals and 750 bishops and priests participated in the ceremony.

If you wake up this early Saturday and turn on the transmission that was made For the Vatican channels on YouTube, and for some international chainsmay notice several peculiarities: the delegations that attend this funeral will be sitting in alphabetical order, to the right of the altar and the coffin looking towards the basilica.

In the first row was Milei, as president of the homeland of the late Pontiff, and the Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

Next, the ten monarchs in exercise and the fifty heads of state follow. The cardinals are on the left side.

The Vatican confirmed the presence of 50 heads of state elected plus the 10 reigning monarchs and added that “so far – vie in the afternoon – 130 delegations (foreigners) are confirmed for the funeral of Pope Francis.”

Therefore, the Italian authorities imposed an aerial exclusion zone on Rome and deployed anti -Didish units with signal inhibition systems to prevent any suspicious activity.

Several combat planes are on alert to intervene and police helicopters fly over the city’s historic center. Snipers were deployed on the roofs of the Via della Coniliazione, which leads to San Pedro Square, and in the nearby Janicle hill.

You can read: Fifty Heads of State and Ten Kings will attend the funeral of Pope Francis this Saturday

The delegation who will travel from Colombia to the Vatican is made up of Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia; The first lady, Verónica Alcocer (who, according to what sources of presidency said to El Colombiano, will pay her own per diem); and Alberto Ospina, ambassador of the Republic of Colombia before the Holy See.

Among the confirmed leaders were the president of the United States, Donald Trump and his wife Melania; the president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his wife Janja; the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa; the president of France Emmanuel Macron who will travel with Foreign Minister Jean Noël Barrot and Interior Minister Bruno Retilleau; Prince William (on behalf of King Carlos III) and Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prince Alberto II of Monaco and his wife Charlène.

After an hour and a half of Mass, according to the schedules shared by the Vatican, the funeral courtship that will travel the streets of Rome will begin until its last abode. The coffin part of the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor and will be visible to the agolmed public after metal barriers along the route. Giant screens broadcast their progress.

For about 30 minutes, the procession travels slowly for about four kilometers the streets of Rome and will pass in front of emblematic sites such as imperial forums and coliseum. It is estimated that about 200,000 people will seek to say goodbye to the pontiff.

The mortal remains of Jorge Mario Bergoglio will arrive in Santa María la Mayor, one of the four papal basilic of Rome. A group of disadvantaged people will host him as a symbol of his pontificate.

Cardinal Camarlengo Kevin Farrell will preside over the burial, which will be private.

Francisco’s tomb was made in the image of simplicity he proclaimed in his 12 years of pontificate: marble and with “Francis” as the only registration. A reproduction of the pectoral cross that the Pope carried in life will accompany the whole.

The Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, Where this grave will rest, it is an imposing church of the V century that is in the heart of Rome and Francisco used to go to this temple on the eve of his trips abroad or his return.

The grave will be located in a side nave of the Basilica, near the altar of San Francisco.

Francisco ruled out to be buried in the crypt of the Basilica of San Pedro, as has usually happened for more than three centuries, although with some exceptions.

Seven other pontiffs are also buried in Santa María la Mayor, the last Clemente IX, in 1669.

Also famous characters such as the architect and sculptor Bernini.

The Pope explained to the Spanish Vaticanist Javier Martínez-Brocal that the grave was “a room they used to keep the candlesticks”, located near the sculpture of the Queen of Peace.

“I saw him and thought: ‘That is the place,” said the pontiff very attached to the cult of the Virgin Mary and especially Salus Populi Romani, an icon attributed to Saint Luke that represents the Virgin with the Child Jesus in her arms.

You can read: This is Santa María la Mayor, the Pope Francis’s prayer shelter that will become his grave

The tradition tells that the apostle used a piece of wood from the table that was used at the Last Supper or some built by Jesus that Mary preserved after her crucifixion.

This place, of course, will become a visit and pilgrimage. The faithful can visit the grave from tomorrow Sunday, although during this week the row of visitors was already long to know the space of Francisco’s tomb.

In Santa María la Mayor there are other important relics of Catholicism as supposed wooden fragments from the cradle of the child Jesus, preserved in a crib -shaped rock crystal.

The Church was built around the year 432 at the request of Pope Sixtus III in the hill of the Esquilino.

A temple preceded him, funded by the rich Roman Patricio Giovanni, supposedly after an appearance of the Virgin to him and Pope Liberio (352-366) who requested the construction of a church.

The place was allegedly indicated by the Virgin with a snowfall on August 5. That was the place, with so much history, chosen by Francisco to be buried.

When all the ceremonies pass that orphanage today, of which the faithful speak so much after Francisco’s death, he will feel in Rome and his surroundings. And the time, which always comes to relief, will advance until May 6, when the ecclesiastical protocol should begin the conclave so that the figure of a new Pope emerges after the white smoke.

Yes indeed, Francisco, Pope 266 in historywill be remembered in the heart of the Church and all humanity.