Rome, Italy – About 250,000 mourners in Vatican City fell into hushed silence on Saturday morning as the funeral for Pope Francis began.
The church choir echoed through loudspeakers across the city-state. Some bowed their heads in respect. Others clasped their hands in silent prayer.
Just after 10am (08:00 GMT), the pope’s coffin was brought out of St Peter’s Basilica. Most of the crowd, too far away to catch a glimpse, turned to the large screens dotted around St Peter’s Square.
Police officers, stewards and military personnel who had been directing crowds through cordoned-off streets since dawn finally relaxed as the gentle sound of a prayer song softened the tense morning into a moment of shared peace.
As the readings began in several languages, several groups of teenagers who had come to Rome as part of the Jubilee of Adolescents, a three-day event during the Jubilee, a major Catholic event held every 25 years, sat down on the cobblestones of Via della Conciliazione, which leads up to the piazza.
Others moved towards the fringes of the street as they sought shade from the warm midday sun.
One voice of love and prayer
Pauline Mille, a French doctoral student who had arrived early in the morning with her parents, said it was a moving ceremony and it was “nice to hear people singing in harmony and spending time together” as they celebrated the pope’s legacy.
Lebanese American Elie Dib travelled to Rome with his wife and young son to attend the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, which was postponed due to Francis’s death on Monday.
Dib told Al Jazeera he was “blessed to be part of the prayer and the funeral service today to pray for his soul” and was impressed to see people of many different nationalities speaking “in one voice of love and prayer”.
His son, Antony, who was sitting on his father’s shoulders draped in a Lebanese flag, said that although he was sad the pope had died, he was “still happy that he is going to heaven”.
In the centre of the square, a group of teenagers from Mexico with their hands placed on each other’s shoulders knelt with their heads bowed.
As the ceremony came to a close, the crowds filtered out of the Vatican as stewards handed out free water to the elderly.
The popemobile carrying Francis’s coffin drove out of the city-state and through the streets of Rome, past many of its famous landmarks, such as the Colosseum, to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, a few kilometres away.
Messages of love that still ‘carried great weight’
As the roughly 50 heads of state, 12 reigning monarchs and other VIP guests who had been seated in a section next to St Peter’s Basilica were ushered out of private exits in a series of motorcades, tens of thousands of mourners began the roughly one-hour journey by foot to the pope’s final resting place.
Fiorello Maffei, a 58-year-old who lives in London, returned to Italy for the now postponed canonisation of Carlo, a Londoner himself born to Italian parents who died of leukaemia at the age of 15. Maffei said he had found Francis’s funeral “very touching” and full of simple words and messages of love that still “carried great weight”.
He said this epitomised Francis, who didn’t overcomplicate his messages during communication with people, adding that it pleased him that world leaders such as United States President Donald Trump had to listen to these messages of peace.
Two priests from Benin who attended the funeral with clergy from South Africa said that although they felt sad during the service, they were also filled with hope and were grateful for the legacy Francis has left behind.
As they watched the pope’s coffin being driven through Rome on a large TV screen positioned near the banks of the Tiber, they said Francis had preached a message of peace and inclusion and had welcomed migrants and refugees with an “open heart”.
Maffei said he believed Francis would have enjoyed seeing so many people walking through Rome and tackling the uphill stretch by Largo Magnanapoli.
“Walking like this is difficult. It is a time for reflection and meditation, and that’s just what he would have wanted,” Maffei said.
At the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, a church much loved by the pope, who visited it more than 100 times over the course of his 12-year papacy, the crowds began to thin as no public ceremony or special event had been organised for his burial.
On Sunday, the pontiff’s tomb was opened to the public.
The simple white resting place, inscribed with simply one name – Franciscus, his name in Latin – reflects Francis’s request in his will to be buried “in the ground, without particular decoration”.
