Even in death, Pope Francis’ The moral voice has come around the world.
With 40,000 packaged on Saint-Pierre square in the Vatican city, 250,000 others in the surrounding streets and millions more watching on television and online, world leaders, world leaders including President Donald Trumpremembered Francis’ Central messages During his funeral on Saturday.
“” Build bridges, not walls “ was an exhortation that he repeated several times, “said Cardinal Giovanni Battista during the homily for The late Pope. “His gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced people are countless. His insistence to work on behalf of the poor was constant. »»
And the war “always leaves the world worse than before: it is always a painful and tragic defeat for everyone,” said Re.
Francis often moved against geopolitical tides. He urged more compassion for immigrants and refugees at a time when the White House and other governments are crampon. He called at the end of the war in Gaza and denounced climate change and operating capitalism – when these crises were only intensifying.
Under a hot and blue sky with the watching world, the homily was a recall of the often lonely voice of Francis in a world characterized by a hard economic and military power. It also recalled tacit questions, at least that day, on the question of whether the replacement of the deceased pontiff will continue these progressive notes or will return to a more conservative penchant.
THE relatively simple funeral For Francis, who died Monday at 88, attended some 170 heads of state and other dignitaries. Trump was sitting among the Volodymyr Ukraine Zelenskyy, the Emmanuel Macron of France, the president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva and the British prince William.
Francis’ coffin was taken on a last trip to the so-called Popemobile in the streets of Rome, from monuments such as the Colosseum, to the Basilica St. Mary Major, where he had chosen to be buried.
People who border the streets came from around the world.
“I could not have been nowhere else today. For me, Pope Francis was a wonderful pope, a gift that the Lord gave us,” said Katherine Gilligan, 59, who visited Rome last week in Jacksonville, Florida, and decided to postpone his return to François’ death. “He loved us and taught us piety. It will be difficult for there to be another pope like him. ”
At the Basilica St. Mary Major, his coffin was filled, according to his wishes, by dozens of poor and needy from Rome, including prisoners, migrants, homeless and transgender.
It was just a reflection of a pope who did things a little differently. He had even adjusted his own funeral plans: while the previous popes were buried in three nested coffins, made of cypress, lead and oak, Francis asked him to be buried in a single single wooden coffin bordered by zinc.
Even so, it was an event by Epic Majesty. From the Arc dome of the Saint -Pierre basilica, one of the largest churches in the world, in the striking image of a square divided between a mass of red on one side – the cardinals and the bishops – and the black on the other – assistant to the dignitaries.
In life, Francis had refused to live in the Vatican golden apostolic palace, choosing his much more pleated guest house instead, Casa Santa Marta, where he died after a period of well -published illness.
Francis had a lot of criticism, the two conservatives who thought that he focused too much on the progressive causes and the more liberal audiences who thought that he was not going far enough with his reforms.
Be that as it may, the absence of its frequent and frank interjections on global affairs will leave a vacuum to fill. And although he spoke with inactive freedom to more important world personalities, his funeral was always a deeply political event.
Re reminder of re that Francis preferred the bridges to the walls evoked the criticism of the deceased Pope to the promise of Trump in the first period to build an American border wall.
“A person who only thinks of the construction of walls, wherever it is, and not to build bridges is not Christian,” he said at the time.
One day before his death, Francis met vice-president JD VANCE After having strongly reprimanded the Trump administration for repressing immigration and reduced international aid. In February, he said that a “major crisis” took place in the United States, referring to “a mass deportation program”.
Perhaps inevitably with so many powerful personalities, the funeral served as a forum for the geopolitics of the real world. Trump was seen locked up in a discussion seated with Zelenskyy, two of the games that Say they are trying to negotiate a peace agreement Alongside Russia Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian leader said on x after That it was a “good meeting”. But there was little immediate sign that Francis’ death would resolve a crisis that he was unable to affect in life.
Nevertheless, Despite the scandal in the church And uncertainty withoutThere was a lot of Francis platform with which few would disagree.
Think about this when closing the homily: “embracing humanity that seeks the truth with a sincere heart and holds the torch of hope high.”