VATICAN CITY (RNS) – At a solemn funeral Mass on Saturday (April 26), political and religious dignitaries joined an enormous crowd in St. Peter’s Square to mourn the death of Pope Francis in a ceremony filled with Christianity’s two millennia of tradition while reflecting the Argentine pontiff’s spirit of humility.
At the moment the pope’s coffin was led into the square, a wave of applause rose from those gathered, estimated at some 200,000 people, and they applauded again as the coffin was carried into St. Peter’s at the end of the requiem. As the two-and-a-half hour ceremony went on the crowd continued to swell, filling the square and packing the streets leading into it.
“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,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, in opening remarks from the platform built in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
“With our prayers, we now entrust the soul of our beloved Pontiff to God, that he may grant him eternal happiness in the …