Pope Francis has finished his earthly journey and is now buried in the side nave between the chapel of the Salus Populi Romani and the Sforza chapel of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. His mortal remains are to remain there, “awaiting the day of resurrection,” in accordance with the wish he expressed in his written testament on June 29, 2022.
World leaders from 160 nations as well as members of the royal families of Europe joined a congregation of 200,000 Romans and pilgrims, many of them young people, to pay tribute to Pope Francis at the requiem Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday morning, April 26, under a blue sky and warm sun. It is estimated that 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and more than 4,000 priests concelebrated the Mass at which the main celebrant was Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals.
An additional 200,000 people lined the streets of Rome from the Vatican to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, some four miles away, and applauded as the small funeral motorcade drove past. For Romans, to applaud at a funeral is a way of saying “Job well done!” They were saying “well done” to the pope of the poor, the discarded and the oppressed for his great concern for them throughout his 12 years and 39 days as pope.
Francis has always been known as “the pope of surprises,” and he surprised people one last time at his funeral by opting to use a white popemobile, not a hearse, to transport the coffin to his final place of resting in St. Mary Major Basilica. He had described Easter as “a celebration of life” on the day before he died, and his decision to use the popemobile was also a celebration of life; he had used this same popemobile during his visit to Mexico in 2016, and the following year, the Mexican government gave it as a gift to the Vatican to commemorate 25 years of diplomatic relations.
Before Francis sprung his surprise, another surprise happened that he would surely have rejoiced at: His funeral Mass provided an opportunity for President Donald J. Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to talk face to face without the presence of others. They did so before the Mass inside St. Peter’s Basilica, in what appears to have been a very different atmosphere from that of their contentious meeting last February at the White House.
There was a third surprise at Francis’ funeral: It was revealed in a statement from the ecumenical patriarchate, which reported that at Mass this morning, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople “was accorded a position of special honor, next to the high altar and in front of the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church…in accord with canon 3 of the Second Ecumenical Council, which was held in Constantinople in the year 381, and which stipulates that in the order of the hierarchs, the Archbishop of Constantinople is second only to the Bishop of Rome.”
It was a significant ecumenical gesture and affirmation. In 2013, for the first time since the Great Schism in 1054, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the first among equals of the leaders of the Orthodox churches, attended the inauguration of the bishop of Rome. Since then, Francis and Bartholomew developed a very close relationship, and Francis had intended to join him in Turkey in May for the commemoration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.
At the funeral Mass today, Cardinal Re was the main celebrant. He presided over the conclave of March 2013 that elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope; he was also the one who asked the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires if he accepted his election and what name he would choose. Today, Cardinal Re delivered a homily that celebrated the life of the 88-year-old pope
In it, he recalled that Pope Francis “had great spontaneity and an informal way of addressing everyone, even those far from the church” and also had “a charisma of welcome and listening.” He said Francis was “rich in human warmth” and “gave of himself by comforting and encouraging us with a message capable of reaching people’s hearts in a direct and immediate way.” He described him as a missionary pope, who spread “the joy of the Gospel” and was convinced that “the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open” and a “field hospital.”
The crowd broke into applause when the cardinal recalled Pope Francis’ efforts on behalf of refugees and migrants and his visits to advocate for them at Lampedusa, Lesbos and the U.S.-Mexico border and the pope’s call to “build bridges, not walls”—a subject where Francis differed with President Trump, who was seated in the front row of the section for dignitaries.
The cardinal triggered several rounds of enthusiastic applause from the crowd when he spoke of Francis’ efforts for peace and his denunciation of wars.
He ended by recalling how Pope Francis used to conclude his speeches and meetings by saying, “Do not forget to pray for me.” Today, the cardinal concluded his homily by reversing that request and said: “Dear Pope Francis, we now ask you to pray for us. May you bless the church, bless Rome and bless the whole world from heaven as you did last Sunday from the balcony of this basilica.”
In his final testament, Pope Francis wrote: “I wish that my final earthly journey conclude precisely in this ancient Marian shrine, where I go to pray at the beginning and end of every Apostolic Journey to faithfully entrust my intentions to the Immaculate Mother and to give thanks for her gentle and maternal care.”
He indicated where the tomb should be and instructed that “[t]he tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, and bearing only the inscription: Franciscus.”
The morning after he was elected pope, Francis went to pay the bill at the Casa Internationalis Paolo VI for his stay there before the conclave. In his testament, he revealed that “the expenses for the preparation of my burial will be covered by a benefactor and the sum will be transferred to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major.”
Today, Pope Francis’ wish came true when his mortal remains were buried, as he requested, near the famous Marian icon that he so revered.
