Poor and powerful pray at funeral of Pope Francis

By CathNews New Zealand

April 29th, 2025

Pope Francis was “a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone”, said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re as he presided over the funeral Mass of the Pope at St Peter’s Square on April 26. Source: Catholic News Service.

The number of people at the Mass was estimated at between 200,000 and 400,000. After the Mass, the burial took place at Rome’s Basilica of St Mary Major after the casket was driven in a motorcade through the centre of the city. The Vatican and local authorities estimate 150,000 people lined Rome’s streets to wave goodbye to Pope Francis’ coffin.

Security around the Vatican was tight, not only because of the number of mourners expected, but especially because of the presence of kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers from more than 80 countries and official representatives from scores of other nations.

The Gospel reading at the funeral was John 21:15-19, where the Risen Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” And when Peter says yes, Jesus tells him, “Feed my sheep.”

“Despite his frailty and suffering toward the end, Pope Francis chose to follow this path of self-giving until the last day of his earthly life,” said Cardinal Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, in his homily. “He followed in the footsteps of his Lord, the Good Shepherd, who loved his sheep to the point of giving his life for them.

“The outpouring of affection that we have witnessed in recent days following his passing from this earth into eternity tells us how much the profound pontificate of Pope Francis touched minds and hearts,” Cardinal Re said.

Within the Church, the cardinal said, “the guiding thread” of Pope Francis’ ministry was his “conviction that the Church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open”.

For Pope Francis, he said, the Church was a “field hospital”, one “capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds”.

With US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Olga Lyubimova, Russian minister of culture, seated near the altar, Cardinal Re said that “faced with the raging wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and countless deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions”.

”’Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times, and his service of faith as successor of the Apostle Peter always was linked to the service of humanity in all its dimensions,” the cardinal said.

At the end of the Mass, Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome, offered special prayers for the city’s deceased bishop, Pope Francis. Then Eastern Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops gathered around the casket and led funeral prayers from the Byzantine tradition.

FULL STORY

Poor and powerful pray at funeral for Pope Francis, a pope ‘with an open heart’ (By Cindy Wooden/CNS)