‘He was our grandfather’: crowds gather in Rome for the Pope's final farewell

A young nun, Sister Chiara, had brought 40 adolescents to Rome to celebrate the “jubilee of ­teenagers” and the (postponed) canonisation of Carlo Acutis: “Francis was a man who was very concrete,” she said. “He taught us how to live the gospels because he had this passion for mercy. We all felt like he was our father or” – she laughs – “our grandfather.”

At 10am the crowds applauded as white-gloved undertakers brought the casket out into the sun of St Peter’s Square. Even a few bishops took photos on their phones as cardinals swung incense around the casket accompanied by elegiac choral music.

Although sombre, the funeral felt occasionally edgy. When, in his ­homily, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re mentioned Pope Francis’s concern for refugees and his visit to the island of Lampedusa, applause spread through the crowd. It almost felt as if that applause – repeated when “peace” and “mercy” were mentioned – was a public reprimand to President Trump and his attempt to shred the rules-based international order.

For this was also a political event, a unique throwing together of the ruling elite of the globe. There were informal diplomatic encounters as well as, prior to the funeral, a 15-­minute sit-down between President Trump and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The photograph of the two – sitting strangely close and huddled as if whispering – is likely to prove the most remembered image of the whole funeral.

The Vatican had been assiduous all week in reminding people of the Pope’s love of the underdog. He had, we were told, used his last speech to inveigh against people fomenting “contempt … towards the vulnerable, the ­marginalised and migrants”. It was revealed that he had recently donated €200,000 to help a juvenile prisoners’ pasta-­making business.

But the funeral was more about ­pageantry and theatricality: it wasn’t just the ecclesiastical attire – from the red-and-gold chasubles to the silk mitres, from the purple sashes to the red stoles. Even the static Swiss guards seemed carnivalesque, with their baggy yellow-and-blue outfits and feathery, red mohicans on bulbous helmets.

That velveteen pageantry had been going on all week, ever since the ­camerlengo (an interim administrator) Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced early on Monday that the 266th pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had “returned to the house of the Father”.

The pope’s signet ring ­depicting a fisherman was immediately destroyed and a rosary placed in his hands. His residence was sealed with ribbon and wax.

Francis had insisted that his coffin not be raised on a bier, and be made simply of zinc and wood.

At the conclusion of the funeral his casket was placed into a pick-up version of the popemobile. The four-mile procession to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore – past the Roman Forum and the Colosseum – was six or seven people deep all the way.

Each time the cortege passed a church or monastery, a ­single bell tolled, an insistent sign of grief. Crowds clapped and held phones above their heads to capture the moment.

The resident of one flat overlooking the route blared out ­requiems, from Mozart to Fauré. Many others waved white hand­kerchiefs from their windows.

Opposite the basilica was a 10-metre sign saying simply “Grazie Francesco”. The coffin entered below the balcony, with its burgundy and gold-braid drapes, and the 266th pope was interred in a niche that, until recently had simply been used to house candlesticks. The headstone was just one word: “Franciscus”.

In many ways the events of the week have been – somehow ­symptomatic of Francis’s whole pontificate: a bid for simplicity amidst all the grandeur.