The 88-year-old, who had led the Catholic Church since 2013, died on Monday after suffering a stroke.
The choice of a simple wooden coffin was due to Pope Francis’ wish to have “the funeral of a “shepherd, not of a sovereign”, as Catholic Archbishop Diego Giovanni Ravell put it recently. Source: AAP / Domenico Cippitelli / LiveMedia / ipa-agency.net / Sipa USA
More than 200,000 people were expected to attend the funeral outside St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday.
SBS chief international correspondent Ben Lewis, reporting live from the Vatican, said the ceremony was at times so quiet one could have heard a pin drop.
Some 160 foreign delegations attended the funeral alongside world leaders including United States President Donald Trump.
US President Donald Trump was accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump at the funeral of Pope Francis. Source: AAP / marco iacobucci / ipa-agency.net/PA
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also in attendance, and he and Trump had a “very productive” meeting in Rome, a White House official said, before both leaders attended the funeral.
The pair met for around 15 minutes at the Vatican before the event on Saturday and agreed to meet again later the same day for further talks, a spokesperson for Zelenskyy said.
Photos released by Zelenskyy’s office showed him and Trump sitting opposite each other in Saint Peter’s Cathedral, with none of their aides in the vicinity. Source: AAP / Presidential Press Service Handout / EPA
The meeting, their first since in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to fighting between Ukraine and Russia.
In front of hundreds of world leaders attending the funeral, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re called for care for migrants, an end to wars, and action on global climate change — Francis’ favourite political themes.
Pope Francis touched people’s hearts “in a direct and immediate way”, Cardinal Re said at the funeral. Source: AAP / Pool / CatholicPressPhoto
About 250,000 people from around the world had lined up to say farewell since Francis’s body was brought to St Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday to lie in state, the Vatican said.
St Patrick’s Cathedral in Parramatta, Sydney, and St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Adelaide will hold special masses to honour Pope Francis.
A view of the funeral of Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Source: AAP / Gregorio Borgia/AP
Australia’s only cardinal and highest-ranking Catholic official, Melbourne-based Mykola Bychok, said from Rome the event would be “a profoundly sacred moment for the church and the world”.
Cardinal Bychok, who Francis made a Cardinal late in 2024, said the period since the pontiff’s death on Easter Monday had been “a most challenging time”.