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Pope Francis has been remembered as “a pope among the people” during a funeral mass in St Peter’s Square in Rome attended by world leaders including US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump and Zelenskyy spoke for a few minutes before the funeral began, according to a senior Ukrainian official. It was the first time they had seen each other in person since their bruising public row in the Oval Office in February.
Applause broke out when Zelenskyy, dressed in the black military-style garb that has become his wartime staple, stepped into St Peter’s Square.
Scores of global leaders attended the mass including French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Argentina’s right-wing president Javier Milei and Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In a tribute to the late Pontiff, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 91, recalled Francis’ commitment to migrants, refugees and the marginalised, and how he “truly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time of globalisation”.
Francis was guided by “the conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open”, Re said, recalling the late pope’s 47 overseas journeys, including a 2021 trip to Iraq and a visit to the US-Mexico border, where he performed a mass.
“He often used the image of the church as a field hospital after a battle, in which many were wounded; a church determined to take care of the problems of people . . . a church capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds,” the cardinal said.
Royals including the UK’s Prince William and the monarchs of Spain, Sweden and Denmark attended the mass, as well as heads of international institutions such as the UN and the European Commission. Former US president Joe Biden was also present.
The Holy See estimates that about 200,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square for the funeral mass, including 220 cardinals and roughly 750 bishops and priests.
The pontiff will be laid to rest later on Saturday at Santa Maria Maggiore, his favourite Rome church, after a 5.5km funeral procession through the city, passing some of its most famous monuments, including the coliseum. He will be the first pope in more than a century to be buried outside the walls of Vatican City.
While the burial will be a private ceremony, the church will open soon afterwards so mourners can pay respects to the deceased pope, who will lie under a marble tombstone inscribed “Franciscus”.
An estimated 250,000 people passed through St Peter’s Basilica over the three days Francis lay in state before his coffin was sealed on Friday evening, according to the Vatican.
Francis last year simplified the papal death rites. Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of apostolic ceremonies, said at the time that the changes were intended to emphasise that “the funeral of the Roman pontiff is that of a pastor and a disciple of Christ, not a powerful person of this world”.
During his 12 years on the papal throne, Francis sought to make the Catholic church — which has 1.4bn followers worldwide — more compassionate and accessible, while addressing contemporary problems such as climate change.
His death this week at the age of 88 prompted an outpouring of grief from admirers but also dissent from critics, including influential members of Trump’s Maga movement.
The burial marks the start of a nine-day formal mourning period, after which up to 135 eligible cardinals under the age of 80 will be locked in the Vatican for a conclave to select the new pope.
Early frontrunners include Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the late pope’s secretary of state, Cardinal Luis Tagle from the Philippines and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu.
Re’s funeral homily will be interpreted by many Catholics as spiritual guidance to the cardinal electors on the qualities they should seek in a new pope.
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome and Christopher Miller in Kyiv
