Francisco, the Argentine Pope and the first in Latin America, finally rests in the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor de Rome, as he had decided, after a funeral that concentrated the main global leaders and hundreds of thousands of faithful who came from all over the world to say goodbye.
The pontiff, who reached the top of the curia from “the end of the world”, as Vatican journalists liked to say, told in his farewell with all people’s fervor for having put the poor and disadvantaged in the heart of the powerful Catholic Church.
The protocol gesture of the heads of state and government, together with the main world monarchs, contrasted with the congoja and emotion of the faithful in the streets of Rome.
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His burial, the first of a Pope outside the walls of the Vatican from Leo XIII, in 1903, will end 12 years of a pontificate marked by the defense of migrants, the constant orders for peace in war areas, the internal struggles with the ultraconservatives and the fight against pedophilia in the church.
The funeral became a global event, crossed by geopolitical tensions, such as the conflicts of Ukraine and Gaza. Also for significant absences, such as that of the Russian Vladimir Putin and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had had friction with the Vatican for the thousands of Palestinian dead.
Of course, both leaders, Putin and Netanyahu, had enough reasons not to attend. The two have an arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court for crimes in Ukraine and Gaza.
China, the powerful Asian giant where Francisco’s church pointed out to expand Catholicism, also did not have an important representation. President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party always maintained ideological differences with the Vatican.
-last trip. The funeral began on Saturday after a mass in several languages in the Vatican Square of San Pedro, from where he left his coffin to the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, in the center of Rome, to receive burial.
The event had started early, when at 5.30 they opened the Plaza de San Pedro for people to enter. Four hours later the leaders arrived, among them the US President Donald Trump stood out, accompanied by his wife, Melania.
Among the other heads of state were Javier Milei, the Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, and the kings of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia. The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, also attended the ceremony and apart from this met with Trump in a spontaneous encounter.
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 followed and half a hundred heads of state, such as Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa and Honduran Xiomara Castro. The cardinals were located on the left side.
At 8 o’clock the funeral mass began, chaired by the Italian Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the Cardinal College, with the participation of 224 cardinals and 750 bishops and priests.
The delegations were located in ranks in alphabetical order, to the right of the altar and the coffin looking towards the basilica. Before dozens also of world dignitaries, Cardinal Dean Giovanni Battista RE stood out the “innumerable” efforts of Jorge Bergoglio in defense of migrants and refugees, from the Mediterranean to Mexico.
“He was a Pope in the midst of people with his heart open to all” and paid “special attention” to “the last of the earth, the marginalized,” said the purple in the homily.
At 12.30 the coffin departed to the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor in a Papamóvil that toured Rome, passing in front of emblematic places such as the Colosseum and the Imperial Forums.
The public crowded after the fence while the vehicle advanced through the eternal city. Many cried moved by the death of the religious leader, who knew how to empathize with people. Inhumation took place at 13.30, during an intimate ceremony chaired by Cardinal Camarlengo, Kevin Farrell, in the presence of relatives of the Pontiff. It is estimated that there were about 200 thousand people in the square and another 300 thousand during the tour.
