Mourners packed into St Peter’s Square, many kneeling on the black cobbles, matching spiritual grief with physical suffering as the sun beat down on the Vatican funeral of Pope Francis.
At the farewell for a pontiff who blurred the line between religion and the real world, it was no surprise that politics hung in the air.
As tens of thousands of Catholics poured through Rome towards the Vatican, there was a clear divide among the faithful: between those who bade Francis farewell and those who mourned his loss.
Pope Francis modernised Catholic liturgy in the West, but it was his championing of causes often associated with “liberals” – notably the rights of homosexuals, the trans community, migrants, and the old-fashioned economics of charity and fairness – that marked his rule.
John Maher, a visitor from Cardiff, said that Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, “was a proper theologian”. Benedict was a conservative who held tradition dear within the church and took less interest in secular and political matters, preferring to shy away from the church’s left and liberation theology.
Mr Maher said Francis, a Jesuit from Argentina who lived through South American dictatorships, had taken a more inclusive approach.
“I don’t think Pope Francis was in the same vein. He made quite a few changes in his pontificate, whether we all believe they’re for the good or not,” Mr Maher said.
He preferred not to be drawn on where the last pope “went too far” but replied “don’t get me going” when asked about migrants and homosexual rights which were, perhaps, issues Mr Maher preferred left to politicians.
Two American mourners, both women, were also in Rome for the canonisation of Carlo Acutis, a layman born in London in 1991 who died in Monza in 2006 after a battle with leukaemia.
“I think the Holy Father did a wonderful job for today’s youth,” said one of the Americans. “The message that he brought to the youth of today and to the world was one of unity and one of inclusion and I appreciated that aspect of him.”
Other aspects?
“I think that he exuded Jesus in a very new way that wasn’t necessarily bad,” she replied.
Following the mass with pamphlets printed in several languages, different communities swelled with pride when their home tongue was used during the service. A Maronite woman, wrapped in the flag of embattled Lebanon, sighed audibly when she heard responses in Arabic. Spanish-speaking mourners brightened when the mass switched briefly from Latin to Spanish, in a service intended to set a tone for the coming votes for a new pope.
Cardinals under the age of 80 will soon gather for the conclave to elect a new pope. Their decision may either carry Francis’s legacy forward – or mark a return to a more conservative line.
