The Vatican was making the final preparations on Friday for the funeral of Pope Francis, since the last of the great crowds of mourners were presented through the Basilica of San Pedro to see their open coffin.
It is expected that many of the 50 heads of state and 10 monarchs attending the ceremony of Saturday in the Plaza de San Pedro, including the president of the United States, Donald Trump and the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, arrive today later in Rome.
The Italian and Vatican authorities have placed the area around St Peter’s under adjusted safety with blocked drones, snipes on ceilings and waiting combat planes.
More control points will be activated on Friday night, police said.
The great multitudes of people on Friday morning packed through Della Coniliazione, the wide avenue that leads to the Vatican, for the third and last day of the Pope’s state.
More than 128,000 people have already queued to present their last respect for Francis, whose coffin will be closed at 8 pm (11 PM PKT) in a ceremony attended by the Senior cardinals.
For a second consecutive night, the Vatican kept the San Pedro Open beyond the hours scheduled to accommodate the queues, just closing the doors between 2:30 am (5:30 am Pkt) and 5:40 am (8:40 am pkt) today.
“The night is the most intimate moment, the Lord always manifests at night,” said Nicoletta Tomassetti, 60, who visited the basilica in the early hours of Friday morning.
“It was very emotional, in prayer, I asked the Pope some things and I know he will give them to me,” he said AFP
The first Latin American Pope of the Catholic Church died Monday at age 88, less than a month after spending weeks at the hospital with severe pneumonia.
Miracles Luna, a 74 -year -old retired doctor from the Dominican Republic who attended the State in the state on Thursday, said he thought he was “one of the best potatoes we have in the Catholic Church.”
“It was very merciful, identified with people, poor people, so for me, for us, it’s the best.”
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The Argentine pontiff, who for a long time had suffered a failed health, challenged doctors’ orders to appear in Easter, the most important moment in the Catholic calendar.
It would be his last public appearance.
The condolences have flooded around the world for the Jesuits, an energetic reformer who defended those of society in his 12 years as head of the 1,400 million Catholics in the world.
He used his last speech to criticize those who agitate “contempt … towards vulnerable, marginalized and migrants.”
At least 130 foreign delegations are expected at its funeral, including the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, and Prince William of Great Britain, and an air exclusion zone will be in force.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, offered his condolences on Thursday night, after a remarkable delay that some attributed tense ties with the Vatican, since Francis had repeatedly criticized Israel’s behavior in Gaza.
Brief but intense
The Pope’s coffin was placed before the altar of San Pedro for his three days of lying in the state, with Francis dressed in his papal clothing, a red quasuble, white groin and black shoes.
The Italian Civil Protection Agency estimates that “several hundred thousand” will descend in Rome on what was already ready to be an occupied weekend due to a holiday on Friday.
After the funeral, Francis’s coffin will lead to a rhythm on foot to be buried in his favorite church, the papal basilica of Santa María Maggiore.
The funeral car will pass through the Fori Imperiali of Rome, where the ancient temples of the city are located, and then the Colosseum, according to the officials.
Large screens will be established along the route where to see the ceremony, said Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi.
The Pontiff was a helpless champion, and a group of “poor and needy” will be in Santa Maria Maggiore to welcome the coffin, said the Vatican.
Francis will be buried on the ground, his simple grave marked with just one word: Franciscus.
People can visit the grave since Sunday morning, while all eyes turn to the process of choosing Francis’s successor.
Cardinals around the world have returned to Rome for funeral and conclave, when a new pontiff will be chosen.
