Cardinal Pietro Parolin told some 200,000 people in St. Peter’s Square that Pope Francis had made the message of God’s limitless mercy the heart of his pontificate.

Francis has always been known as “the pope of surprises.”

“Pope Francis is the pope of the people,” Rosa de los Ríos told America in Spanish before the funeral Mass. “He is very close to the people.... That’s why he was so loved. People felt he was very close to them.”

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met inside St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of the funeral for Pope Francis on the morning of April 26.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re’s homily for the funeral of Pope Francis.

The day before he died, Pope Francis made one final circuit through St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile. “That’s my last image of him alive,” Gerry O’Connell remembered. “He drove among the people.”