Pope Francis laid to rest after tens of thousands attend Vatican funeral | Religion News

Pope Francis has been buried in Rome after solemn funeral rites, lasting one hour in the Plaza de San Pedro in the Vatican, reaching its turbulent ends of 12 years of the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world.

The Argentine pontiff, who died earlier this week for a stroke and a heart trial at the age of 88, was buried on Saturday in the Basilica of St Mary Major in the Italian capital.

While the sunny skies greeted multitudes in Rome, tens of thousands packed the square to attend the ceremony, officiated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista, with many complaints from the first hours outside the square.

The security around the Vatican had no precedents, since the Italian authorities deployed more than 2,500 police and 1,500 soldiers, closing the airspace over the city of the Vatican and parked a clumsy ship on the coast, Italian media reported.

The applause and cheers are classified when Francis’s wooden coffin, embedded with a large cross, was transported by 14 white glove fault carriers through the main doors of the Basilica of San Pedro to the funerary service outdoors.

Among the mourners were the real global leaders, including the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who had often faced Francis for his immigration contrasts.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, the leaders of the European Union, Prince William of the United Kingdom and the members of the Spanish Royal Family were also present.

The Ukrainian president, Volodyymyr Zelenskyy, who initially said he could not be in new Russian attacks, was present after all. According to the reports, Hele a meeting with Trump before the ceremony, his first face to face from a heated crash of the Oval office in February.

Al Jazeera understands that a second meeting between Trump and Zenskyy is expected after service.

The former president of the United States, Joe Biden, also attended, throughout other world leaders, including the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, the president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and General Joseph Aoun del Lebano.

‘A Pope among the people’

While world leaders watched from cost, Cardinal Giovanni Battista replied a moving funeral home, describing Francis as a relentless lawyer for human peace and dignity.

“Faced with the fury wars of recent years, with their inhuman and innumerable deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly criticized his voice exploring peace and asking for honest reason and negotiation to find possible,” Battista.

He also praised Francis’s historic papal letter about climate change and highlighted his many visits to places like Lampedusa and Lesbos, where the Pope with migrants and refugees in the arrest fields.

“His gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced people are innumerable,” Battista re said to the crowd.

He spent Francis as “a Pope among people, with an open heart to all”, known for his informal and spontaneous style and his ability to achieve “at least among us.”

A humble final resting place

When informing of the Vatican, Jonah Hull de Al Jazeera described him as a “completely beautiful service” that was “very well received by the harassed crowd”, pointing out how spontaneous applause the historical moment exploded.

After the service, Francis’s coffin made a 4 km (2.5 miles) trip through the center of Rome, with up to 300,000 people who border the caravan route. His burial in the main basilica of St Mary, instead of San Pedro, was a deeply personal decision taken by Francis himself in his last testament, Hull reported.

“It has a deep personal meaning for Pope Francis and the Jesuit faith, of which he was part,” said Hull.

Earlier this week, more than 250,000 people met, some for hours, to present their final respects, while Francis’s body was in state in the Basilica of San Pedro. The Vatican kept its doors open during the night to modify the crowds.

Its final resting place, a simple grave in a historical novel that has no remains of papal heroes in centuries, reflects the humility and independence defined by Francisco’s papacy.

After the funeral, a group of people, including migrants, homeless individuals, prisoners and transgender people, greeted Café del Pope with white roses on the steps of the major basilica of San María.

Natacha Butler de Al Jazeera, who reports live from the Vatican, reflected on the nature in motion of Francis’s final trip: “In many ways, it is symbolic that he is leaving behind the heads of state, royalties, world leaders, and comes here to a common neighborhood in the heart of Rome, is where Hey, close to people, among people.”