World leaders and rank-and-file Catholic faithful bade farewell to Pope Francis in a funeral Saturday that highlighted his concern for people on the peripheries and reflected his wish to be remembered as a simple pastor. Though presidents and princes attended the Mass in St. Peter’s Square, prisoners and migrants welcomed Francis’ coffin at his final resting place in a basilica across town.
According to Vatican estimates, some 250,000 people flocked to the funeral Mass at the Vatican and 150,000 more lined the motorcade route through downtown Rome to witness the first funeral procession for a pope in a century. They clapped and cheered “Papa Francesco” as his simple wooden coffin traveled aboard a modified popemobile to St. Mary Major Basilica, some 6 kilometers (3.5-miles) away.
As bells tolled, the pallbearers brought the coffin past several dozen migrants, prisoners and homeless people holding white roses outside the basilica. Once inside, the pallbearers stopped in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary that Francis loved. Four children deposited the roses at the foot of the altar before cardinals performed the burial rite at his tomb in a nearby niche.
Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early on Friday, while a hospital said another 20...
An 83-year-old retired priest has been arrested for defying a newly enforced ban on pro-Palestinian group...
Musicians Pani and Sebastian Enequist sport once-suppressed Inuit face tattoos, hunt seals for food in remote...
