Around 61,000 people presented are adjusted to the Pontiff’s coffin in the first 26 hours in the Basilica of San Pedro, says the Vatican.
Tens of thousands of people have aligned in the city of the Vatican to take a final look at Pope Francis while laying in the state for the second day and the Italian authorities intensified the security arrangements before their weekend funeral.
Francis died 88 on Monday morning in his rooms in the house of guests of Santa Marta del Vaticano, after having left the hospital after five weeks of being treated by double pneumonia.
Around 61,000 people had presented the lined wooden coffin of the deceased of the late Catholic leader in the first 26 hours since Francis began to bed in the state in the Basilica of San Pedro on Wednesday morning, said the Vatican.
Such was the demand to see him that the authorities extended the visiting hours on Wednesday from midnight (22:00 GMT) to 5:30 am (03:30 GMT) on Thursday.
After a break of only an hour and a half, the doors opened again with the authorities saying that the window could extend again on Thursday night if necessary.
Each mourner was passed through the coffin in seconds, while the authorities prohibited the use of smartphones within the basilica.
A day before, Mourters’s flow was slower since many people tried to take photos and videos.
“It was a letter but an intense moment next to his body,” said Massimo Palo, 63, to the AFP news agency after his visit.
“He was a Pope among his flock, among his people, and I hope that the next Papacies are a bit like his,” he added.
“He was a wonderful Pope,” said Caccamo, a resident of Rome, to the Reuters news agency like Sheyey out of the Vatican.
“I’m going to miss a lot because it’s as if I had lost a piece of me.”
The head of the Pontiff’s medical team said in the interviews published on Thursday that Francis had died quickly because of an unexpected stroke and did not suffer undue pain.
“I entered his rooms and he had his eyes open,” Sergio Alfieri told Corriere della Sera Newpaper.
“I decided that there were no respiratory problems, and then I tried to call his name, but he didn’t answer me.”
“At that time, I knew there was nothing more to do,” said Alfieri.
Funeral preparations underway
The coffin will be sealed on Friday at 8 PM (18:00 GMT) in a previous ceremony by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Camerlengo who directs the daily affairs of the Vatican until a new Pope is chosen.
More than 170 delegations are expected, including the heads of state and the government and other dignitaries, such as the president of the United States, Donald Trump, Argentine president Javier Milei and Prince William of Great Britain, in St. Peter’s Square for the Globe Fundenrer on Saturday.
The Italian Civil Protection Department estimated that “several hundred thousand” people will descend on Rome about what was already ready to be an occupied weekend due to a holiday.
After the funeral, Francis’s coffin will take his favorite church, the papal basilica of Rome or Santa Maria Maggiore.
A group of “poor and needy” will be present in the Basilica to welcome the coffin, said the Vatican.
It will be interest in the ground, its simple grave marked with a single word: Francisco. People can visit it since Sunday morning, announced the Vatican.
Choice for the new Pope
After that, all eyes will resort to the process of choosing Francis’s successor.
“A chapter has been closed in the history of the Church,” Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller said Thursday in an interview published Thursday.
Mueller is one of the 135 cardinals eligible to vote in the secret conclave that will take place next month to choose the Pontiff of the 267 of the Catholic Church.
Before the conclave, which is not expected to begin until at least on May 6, the cardinals who are already in Rome meet every day, mainly for discussion of logistics issues for the daily functioning of the Church of 1,400 million members.
Thursday’s meeting lasted three hours and 113 toks from Cardinals, said the Vatican. The next meeting is expected on Friday morning, but the cardinals will not meet on funeral day.
All cardinals who participate in the meeting make an oath to “scrupulously maintain” the secret about any discussion about the choice of the next Pope.