Latest Updates: Mourners Bid Solemn Farewell to Pope Francis
Apr 26, 2025
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Latest Updates: Mourners Bid Solemn Farewell to Pope Francis
The pontiff will be laid to rest after a funeral Mass in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Dozens of world leaders were attending, including President Trump, who met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the White House said.
Thousands of Catholics and several world leaders are bidding farewell to the late pope in Vatican City.Vatican Media via Associated Press
Roman Catholics filled St. Peter’s Square on a bright morning in Vatican City on Saturday to give Pope Francis a last farewell at his funeral. The open-air Mass was attended by royalty and heads of state — and ordinary people far from the spotlight, for whom Francis, who sought to make the church more inclusive, had a special affection.
The solemn ceremony was unfolding against a backdrop of geopolitical turmoil and war. The White House said that President Trump had met alongside the funeral with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and had “a very productive discussion.” It was their first in-person meeting since a contentious meeting at the Oval Office in late February.
Francis, who died on Monday at 88, last year approved guidelines to make his funeral a less grand affair than those of his predecessors. The centuries-old rites, however, still involved Catholic pageantry, an audience of world leaders, scores of red-robed cardinals, Gregorian chants and large crowds filling the square outside St. Peter’s Basilica.
At the Mass, the pope’s body was placed in a simple wooden coffin before the mourners as a choir sang a psalm. Between the songs, the clerics led prayers in different languages — English, Spanish, Italian — as crowds around the square watched the service on large TV screens.
Among those assembled were President Trump; former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and President Javier Milei of Argentina, where Francis was born. A group of refugees and homeless people, two groups for whom Francis advocated throughout his 12-year papacy, also planned to attend, according to the charity St. Egidio.
Here is what else to know:
Simplified ceremony: The changes Francis introduced for a papal funeral last year reflect his view of the pope as a humble pastor rather than a powerful figure, although the rites will still be on a grand scale.
Francis’ burial: After the Mass, a vehicle will transport Francis’ wood coffin to St. Mary Major, a papal basilica in Rome that the pope loved. A group of “poor and needy” people will greet his body at the steps, the Vatican said. Then, he will be buried during a private ceremony in a tomb with a one-word inscription “Franciscus.”
The crowd broke into applause at several points during the homily. One was when Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re mentioned Pope Francis’ trip to Lampedusa, a southern Italian island that has become a symbol of the refugee crisis.
Pope Francis arriving in Juarez, Mexico, during a trip in 2016. In his funeral Mass homily on Saturday, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re recalled one of the late pope’s many “gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons.”Eric Gay/Associated Press
The life and legacy of Pope Francis — a pontiff who defied easy definition and led the Roman Catholic Church through a dozen years of different phases and contradictions — are not easy to fit into a single homily.
But that was the task for Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, on Saturday.
“He was a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,” Cardinal Re said beside Francis’ coffin from the steps of St. Peter’s Square. “He was also a pope attentive to the signs of the times and what the Holy Spirit was awakening in the church.”
As the cardinals arrayed around him prepared to head into a conclave next month to choose Francis’ successor, Cardinal Re, 91, avoided obvious political overtones. But by highlighting Francis’ pastoral and inclusive approach, and his humble style, Cardinal Re’s tribute sought to remind the tens of thousands of faithful at St. Peter’s Square, the dozens of assembled heads of state and dignitaries, and — perhaps most important — the cardinals responsible for picking Francis’s replacement what made him such an esteemed figure inside and outside the church.
“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,” Cardinal Re said.
He said that Francis had spread the faith with a sense of joy, a “great spontaneity and an informal way of addressing everyone,” and a spirit of “welcome and listening.” But Francis also “truly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time of globalization.”
With President Trump seated a few yards away, Cardinal Re recalled the late pope’s trip to the border between Mexico and the United States, one of his many “gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons,” when Francis spoke of the need to “build bridges, not walls.”
Cardinal Re said that Francis’ pastoral style and “resolute personality” had immediately made a mark on the church, and that the pontiff had been “eager to be close to everyone, with a marked attention to those in difficulty, giving himself without measure, especially to the marginalized, the least among us.”
The Cardinal spoke of Francis’ rise through the hierarchy to become pope and said his decision to take the name Francis, after the medieval saint dedicated to caring for the poor, “immediately appeared to indicate the pastoral plan and style on which he wanted to base his pontificate.”
He described Francis as a simple pastor who until his last day followed in the footsteps of Jesus, who loved his flock “to the point of giving his life for them,” because he believed it was better to give than to receive.
Cardinal Re walked through Francis’ milestones in the church, his protection of the environment, his work healing wounds between religions, including a document on human fraternity that he signed with Muslim leaders in the United Arab Emirates, and his frequent calls to stop war and conflict. He recalled how Francis physically reached out to the world’s peripheries, seeking to heal wounds and spread seeds of faith.
“The outpouring of affection that we have witnessed in recent days following his passing from this Earth into eternity tells us how much the profound pontificate of Pope Francis touched minds and hearts,” Cardinal Re said.
He said the enduring image of Francis would be that of Easter Sunday, the day before his death when, despite being obviously ailing, he came to a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver his blessing and then greeted the crowd.
Recalling that Francis often ended talks with an invitation to pray for him, the cardinal concluded, “Dear Pope Francis, we now ask you to pray for us.”
As the homily began, many in the crowd sat down, seeking respite from the heat in the piazza, which has built through the morning after a chilly start.
Reporting from Rome
President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine met privately on Saturday, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement. He said that the two leaders “had a very productive discussion” and that more details would be forthcoming.
Pope Francis meeting members of the Roma community in Slovakia in 2021. His choice of readings for his funeral Mass speaks to his efforts to reach out to people previously excluded by the church.Petr David Josek/Associated Press
The Bible readings that Pope Francis chose for his funeral Mass on Saturday speak volumes about the priorities of his leadership, with each of the three passages highlighting a different aspect of his pastoral vision.
And in what appeared to be a conscious nod to continuity and tradition, the same three passages were also read at the funeral in 2005 of Pope John Paul II, a colossal figure in 20th-century papal history.
The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles 10: 34-43, is part of a pivotal moment in the early church when Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples and a man whom Catholics consider the first bishop of Rome, learns through a vision that the good news of the Gospel message is not just for the original followers but for a wider world.
“This is the universality of the gospel and a welcome to all,” said Gemma Simmonds, an author and senior research fellow at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology in Cambridge, England.
“That is very much what Pope Francis wanted to emphasize,” added Ms. Simmonds, who is also a sister in the Congregation of Jesus, a Catholic religious order for women. “He was constantly talking about going beyond the conventional boundaries of the church and speaking to people that the church had originally excluded.”
The second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, 3:20–4:1, argues that a Christian’s true citizenship is not on Earth but in heaven. The passage explains death as a transformation of the human body, which it calls the “lowly body,” through Jesus, into what Paul calls the “heavenly body.”
The third Gospel reading, John 21: 15-19, recounts a conversation between Jesus and Peter after Jesus’ resurrection, in which the disciple is restored to faith and given the leadership role in the early church. Three times in the passage, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Jesus also asks Peter to “tend my sheep” and “feed my lambs.”
According to the biblical account, the conversation takes place after Peter betrayed Jesus in the run-up to his crucifixion by denying that he knew him. Experts said that in choosing that Gospel reading, Francis — as he had during his ministry — was making a deliberate reference to human vulnerability and the need for God’s grace.
“I see all of these readings as a traditional affirmation of the Christian message of forgiveness and hope and affirmation and the messages that Pope Francis emphasized in his papacy,” said Tina Beattie, a professor emerita of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton in London.
The Sistine Chapel Choir will be the featured ensemble at Pope Francis’ funeral.Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Pope Francis often broke from tradition, but the music at his funeral is not.
While composers through the eras, from Palestrina to Mozart to Andrew Lloyd Webber, have written elaborate settings of the Roman Catholic liturgy, it is ancient custom that the main funeral Mass for a pope be sung largely in Gregorian chant.
Also known as plainsong or plainchant, this has been the official musical language of the church for over 1,000 years: austere, somber, unaccompanied and monophonic, meaning that everyone sings the same vocal line, as opposed to more complex polyphony.
“For truly solemn occasions, the best way to express the continuity of the church’s musical tradition is just to have simple chant,” James D. Wetzel, the director of music at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan, said in an interview. “The church promotes the golden age of Renaissance polyphony, Mozart, Duruflé, modern settings. But pride of place is given to chant.”
So at Francis’ funeral, the main components of the Requiem Mass that anchor the service — like the opening Introit (“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine”), Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei — and sections including the litany of names of saints are being chanted in Latin. The Sistine Chapel Choir, the Pope’s personal choir, is the featured ensemble.
But the plainchant melodies at Francis’ funeral will be known to churchgoing Catholics. The music’s sober, unadorned style fits with the ways in which he simplified the elaborate papal funeral rites.
There will be occasions during the funeral for choral singing other than plainchant, but the Vatican, in keeping with its standard practice, has not identified the composers, or if any new music has been written for the occasion. The church has a tradition of priest-composers, including directors of the Sistine Chapel Choir, whose settings may have been selected. It is likely that the psalm “Sicut cervus” (“Like the deer that yearns for running streams”) will be performed in Palestrina’s luminous setting, one of the great examples of Renaissance polyphony.
By intention, however, there will be no obvious musical innovations.
“This is the time for the oldest traditions,” Mr. Wetzel said. “Even with Pope Francis, who was not afraid of surprises or upsetting the apple cart, the music sung at his funeral will be entirely Catholic, with a capital C.”
Reporting from Vatican City
The dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re, has begun to celebrate the Mass.
Reporting from Vatican City
From above, the cardinals’ section on one side of the coffin made for a brilliant red rectangle opposite the black rectangle of dignitaries in suits. The whole square looks like a patchwork. Purple, white, black, depending on the type of clergy.
Vatican Media, Reuters
Reporting from Vatican City
Fourteen pallbearers carried the pope’s coffin from the basilica to the church’s steps, where they placed it on a carpet on the edge of the stairs. The pallbearers bowed to the coffin and took their places. The master of liturgical ceremonies placed an open gospel on the simple wooden coffin. Behind the coffin, the cardinals, in brilliant red vestments, streamed out of the basilica.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, had a notable role in Francis’ selection as pontiff in 2013: He asked the newly elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio which name he would choose as pope.
In the movie “Conclave,” which dramatized the death of a pope and the tensely political process of choosing his successor, the dean was named Cardinal Lawrence and portrayed by a principled yet questioning Ralph Fiennes.
Unlike in the movie, however, Cardinal Re will not run the conclave to select the next pope. He will not even attend, since only cardinals below the age of 80 can cast a ballot for the pope in the Sistine Chapel, though he will still play an important role in the run-up to the gathering.
Reporting from Vatican City
Francis’ coffin was laid in front of the altar. On its left is the giant statue of St. Peter, the Roman Catholic Church’s first pope.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines and others considered to be potential next popes are taking their seats.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press
Reporting from Vatican City
The master of liturgical ceremonies placed an open gospel on the simple wooden coffin. The slight breeze began to lift the pages.
Eric Lee/The New York Times
Reporting from Rome
Mourners are still streaming across bridges on foot, hoping to get a spot somewhere near one of the large screens beaming the proceedings live. The problem is it’s such a bright sunny day, you can’t see much.
Reporting from Vatican City
Pallbearers have begun carrying the pope’s coffin through a corridor of cardinals, dressed in red vestments, out of the basilica and onto the steps of the church.
Reporting from Vatican City
There is sustained applause in the crowd as the pope’s coffin is borne slowly toward the ceremony.
The crowd in the piazza breaks into applause as images of the arrival of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine are flashed on the big screen.
Vatican Media, via Reuters
Reporting from Vatican City
The Rev. Joseph Jaros from the Czech Republic sat alone next to rows of chairs spotted with prayer books. Asked what he thought about Pope Francis, he was suddenly speechless. “It’s a complicated question,” he said with a smile. “The situation in the church is very difficult.”
Reporting from Rome
Arriving dignitaries were escorted past before the pontiff’s closed coffin. President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, stopped to pay their respects. President Javier Milei of Argentina, Francis’ home country, came out of St. Peter’s Basilica to meet clerics and take a place near the front.
Reporting from Vatican City
As bells tolled a death knell, silence fell over the piazza, quiet except for the sound of seagulls, dignitaries inside the basilica paid their last respects to Francis before the coffin was brought out and the funeral began.
Francis’ simple coffin, which was placed low to the ground instead of on an elevated bier, lying in state this week.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
Pope Francis’ burial requests included a word not typically associated with a papal funeral: simple.
In his will, he wrote that “the tomb must be in the earth; simple, without particular decoration.”
He sought to overhaul, and at times rejected, papal pageantry and the formality long associated with the Roman Catholic Church. He chose his papal name from St. Francis of Assisi, who dedicated his life to the poor. He rode in a Ford Focus, wore basic black shoes and took meals in a communal cafeteria. For his living quarters, he opted for a guesthouse next to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City instead of the more ornate papal apartments.
And he set to work on simplifying papal funerals.
In April 2024, Francis approved a liturgical book that included a new set of rules emphasizing that “the funeral of the Roman pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful person of this world,” Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of apostolic ceremonies, said when the book was published.
This week inside St. Peter’s, where tens of thousands of faithful came to pay their last respects, Francis’ body lay in a coffin that was placed low to the ground instead of on an elevated bier. Instead of nesting the coffin inside two additional coffins before burial, as was done for popes in the past, Francis is being laid to rest in one.
The departure from earlier papal burials is “totally in line with how Pope Francis led,” said Mathew Schmalz, a professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. He added of Francis, “He wanted a papacy that was more reachable, that was down to earth and was able to engage with Catholics in their daily lives.”
Of course, for a pope, simplicity is relative. While some of the funerary pomp and ceremony has been scaled back, Francis was still the religious leader to over a billion Catholics, and some traditions that date back centuries will endure. His funeral is being attended by dignitaries from around the world, and crowds have gathered in and around St. Peter’s Square for the funeral.
Whereas many popes have been buried at St. Peter’s, Francis will be interred at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a 17th-century chapel dear to him in Rome. His tomb, according to his will, is inscribed with a single word: “Franciscus.”
“The first Jesuit pope means a lot. He was such a wonderful man.”
Faith Hug, a 20-year old Jesuit University student from Roseville, Minn.
From left, President George W. Bush, his wife Laura, former President George H.W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton at the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.Pool photo by Danilo Schiavella
Exactly 20 years ago this month, President George W. Bush landed in Rome to pay his respects to a deceased pope, John Paul II. He was the first sitting president to attend a papal funeral. But he was not alone: He had asked his predecessor, Bill Clinton, to ride along on Air Force One, along with Mr. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush.
Together, the three presidents sped to St. Peter’s Basilica. Kneeling, they prayed side-by-side before the pope’s body. It was a remarkable display of American bipartisan unity, the kind of kinship among political rivals that feels unimaginable today. And things played out differently when President Trump landed in Rome on Friday night to attend Francis’ funeral.
He was accompanied by his wife, Melania, and a clutch of senior aides. But his predecessor, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, flew in on their own.
Considering that Mr. Trump had recently stripped Mr. Biden of his security clearances, and regularly denounces him, it is understandable that they did not share a ride to Rome. When former President Jimmy Carter died in December, Mr. Trump said he had passed away “a happy man” in the knowledge that “he wasn’t the worst. President Joe Biden was.”
Mr. Biden has often talked about his Roman Catholic upbringing. He saw Pope Francis briefly at a summit meeting in Italy last June, weeks before the disastrous debate with Mr. Trump that led to his decision to drop out of the presidential race. Mr. Biden had talked about returning to Rome to get the pope’s blessing just before leaving the White House, but canceled the trip because of the Los Angeles wildfires in January.
Asked on Air Force One on the flight to Rome on Friday evening whether he planned to talk with Mr. Biden at the funeral, Mr. Trump sounded surprised that his predecessor was attending. “It’s not high on my list,” he said. “It’s really not.”
The contrast with the 2005 papal funeral was stark. Mr. Bush was eager to ensure that Mr. Clinton was part of the full presidential party. Not only did the two men attend the funeral together, the former president sat in on the highly classified presidential daily brief on the flight over.
But the joined-at-the-hip act ended in the evening. Mr. Bush went to sleep early, around the time Mr. Clinton was just heading out. One night during the visit, Mr. Clinton was dining in a private room at a small, highly rated Italian restaurant when he realized that many of the White House reporters who had covered him as president were eating at a big table in the main dining room.
Naturally, he called us in to join him for dessert and espresso, and told stories until the early hours of the morning.
Reporting from Vatican City
With just under an hour to go before the funeral begins, St. Peter’s Square is nearly full, and thousands are crammed into the broad street leading up to it from the Tiber.
At Francis’ open-air funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square, members of foreign delegations are being divided into groups.James Hill for The New York Times
Pope Francis’ funeral will be a solemn occasion, steeped in Roman Catholic pageantry, to bid farewell to a pontiff who led the church for over a decade. But with dozens of foreign delegations attending — some from countries that are overtly hostile to one another — the funeral’s seating arrangements have also presented a possible nightmare for Vatican planners.
On the list of confirmed guests: a Russian minister and Ukraine’s president. A minister from Iran and an ambassador from Israel. President Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., along with the leaders of countries Mr. Trump has hit with tariffs and accused of mistreating the United States.
Vatican protocol offers a solution to the potential geopolitical awkwardness: the alphabet.
At Francis’ open-air funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square, members of foreign delegations are divided into groups, like monarchs and heads of government, and will be seated in their group in alphabetical order based on their country’s name in French, according to a list released by the Vatican. Reigning monarchs go first, followed by heads of state, heads of government, royals and on down the line to include ministers and other dignitaries.
Only the heads of state of Italy and the pope’s native Argentina will get privileged seats. The delegation with the country’s president, Javier Milei, will sit closest to the square, the Vatican said, followed by Italy’s.
For the Vatican, all countries are equal before the alphabet. But that doesn’t mean there’s no chance of awkward moments.
According to the Vatican’s list, the president of the United States — les États-Unis in French — is likely to be between the leaders of Estonia and Finland, two countries that share a border with Russia and may look warily upon Mr. Trump’s courting of Moscow as he seeks to end the war in Ukraine.
The guest list the Vatican released, if followed for seating, could lead to geographically disparate pairings like those at some international summits. President Halla Tomasdottir of Iceland is supposed to be side by side with President William Ruto of Kenya. Leaders from Belize and Austria may also sit together as they say their last goodbyes to Francis.
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Jill Biden, the former first lady, have arrived in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis. The former president, a Catholic, saw the pope as an ally. In January, before leaving office, he awarded Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Eric Lee/The New York Times
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is in Rome for the funeral, a spokesman, Serhiy Nikiforov, said.
Security officers at the entrance to St. Peter’s Square on Thursday.James Hill for The New York Times
Thousands of police officers were on the streets of Rome on Saturday morning as the Italian authorities ramped up security for Pope Francis’ funeral, which at least 100,000 people are expected to attend, Italian officials said.
The nearly 170 government delegations expected, including more than 10 monarchs and some 50 heads of state, have added to the security restrictions. Hundreds of officers have been deployed to follow motorcades as they travel to and from St. Peter’s Basilica.
Most streets leading to the Vatican were closed to regular traffic, and more than a dozen bus lines were diverted. Helicopters could be heard flying near St. Peter’s Square.
Some 3,000 volunteers would help those attending the funeral and support law enforcement agents, a spokesman for Italy’s Civil Protection Department said. Hundreds of emergency health workers are on hand to provide medical assistance.
The area is expected to be packed. Huge screens were set up at various points leading to the square to allow those further away to follow the funeral.
As is the case when there are large gatherings at St. Peter’s, like the Sunday Angelus prayer, entering the square requires passing through several security checks, including X-ray machines and metal detectors.
The Italian news media reported that snipers would be placed on rooftops during the proceedings, and specialized police units would patrol the Tiber River. Police forces were also stationed along the route from St. Peter’s to the Basilica of St. Marie Major, or Santa Maria Maggiore, where the pope will be buried after the funeral.
A large all-male section of priests and friars sits to the left of the altar in St. Peter’s Square. Some are dressed in their priestly white or black gowns. Others are in sleevless down jackets and baseball caps or bucket hats. One has wrapped himself in the flag of the pope’s native Argentina.
