The Vatican reports that there are around 200,000 people present on Sint-Pietersplein and beyond to attend the Pope’s funeral mass. That mass is led by 91-year-old Giovanni Batista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals. He remembered Francis as a “pope of the people”, with a heart for everyone.
During the sermon about Francis’ life, a loud applause from the believers on Sint-Pietersplein more often sounded. Especially with the passages about his pastoral commitment, the fraternity he argued between all people, and the risks he took by traveling to Iraq in 2021, to assist the Iraqi population after the serious trials under the terrorist state that ISIS had founded.
Francis always finished his sermons with ‘don’t forget to pray for me’, Re. Now he asked Francis to pray for the believers. “May you bless the church, bless Rome and bless the whole world from heaven, as you did last Sunday from the balcony of this basilica in a final embrace with all the people of God.”
That this celebration is the funeral of the leader of the Catholic World Church is strengthened by the multilingualism. The Gregorian singing, the Requiem with which the celebration started, was in Latin, the sermon about Francis’ life in Italian, and then followed in, among others, in Arabic, Portuguese and German.