The Morning: The pope’s funeral
The New York Times <nytdirect@nytimes.com>
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2025-04-26 13:16
Good morning. The open-air funeral for Pope Francis has just finished in St. Peter’s Square. His body is now on its way to be placed in a tomb. We’ve got a live dispatch from our Rome bureau chief, Jason Horowitz, and other Times journalists on the ground. Melissa Kirsch will be back in your inbox next Saturday.
‘A pope among the people’
VATICAN CITY — A patchwork of clergy in red, white, purple and black vestments. World leaders including President Trump seated on the stairs of St. Peter’s Basilica for an outdoor ceremony. A simple cypress casket. Haunting chants and some 200,000 faithful embraced by Bernini’s colonnade. In a solemn and majestic funeral that ended moments ago, the Roman Catholic Church laid to rest Pope Francis, the first South American pope, whose humble style and pastoral vision both reinvigorated and divided the institution that he led for a dozen years. He was 88. It’s warm and clear here in Rome. A group of refugees and homeless people, like those Francis advocated for around the world, joined presidents, prime ministers and the church’s cardinals — one of whom will be the next pope — to bid the Holy Father farewell.
“He was a Pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said in the homily. “The guiding thread of his mission was also the conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open.” He spoke in Italian. Texts were also read in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese. Before the service, priests from Myanmar talked about how Francis had energized their small church when he visited and elevated their bishop to a cardinal. Pilgrims from Ecuador said he had made them feel seen. Conservative clerics from the Czech Republic said they still weren’t sure what to make of him. But as bells tolled a death knell, the piazza fell silent except for the sound of sea gulls. Pallbearers carried the pope’s coffin through a corridor of cardinals in their brilliant red vestments, and a choir sang a psalm. His plain coffin was laid near the giant statue of the very first pope, Saint Peter. A slight breeze lifted the pages of an open Gospel placed on the casket. The bright sun made it hard for mourners to see the screens broadcasting the service across the vast expanse.
During the “sign of peace,” President Trump shook hands with President Emmanuel Macron of France, as well as several other world leaders in his vicinity. Scores of priests scattered through the crowd to distribute communion. People clapped as the pallbearers carried the coffin back into the basilica. Some held signs: “Thank you Francis.” “Goodbye Father.” Francis requested that the traditional pomp and pageantry be pared back for his final Mass. But for a pope, simplicity is relative. After the service, the popemobile, which carried Francis thousands of time around St. Peter’s Square and to meet the faithful around the world, drove his body to St. Mary Major, a church he loved. The Vatican said a group of “poor and needy” people would greet him at the steps before a private burial in a tomb with a frieze of a cross and the one-word inscription “Franciscus.” As the caravan moved slowly through Rome, huge crowds formed on the sides of the road. It was strange to not see the pope waving back. Read the pope’s obituary. Plus: the homily, the music (mostly Gregorian chant) and the biblical readings from the Mass. World leaders
The mourners
What’s next
Pope Francis’ favorite painting was Caravaggio’s “Calling of St. Matthew,” which hangs in a chapel near where he would stay in Rome before he became pope. The painting depicts Matthew, third from left, in a black velvet hat. Jesus is in the doorway, pointing at Matthew. Based on his expression, Matthew seems to question his appointment, as he points to his own chest in disbelief. “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me,” Francis said shortly after his elevation to the papacy. “This is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff.” See the painting up close, with descriptions from our critic Jason Farago.
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