The Vatican will make final preparations Friday for Pope Francis’ funeral as the last of the huge crowds of mourning people via the St Pete basilica to see his coffin open.
Many of the 50 heads of state and 10 monarchs attend the Saint-Pierre square ceremony, including American president Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, are expected to arrive in Rome on Friday.
The Italian and the Vatican authorities have placed the area around St Peter’s under tight safety before the funeral, with blocked drones, elite shooters on roofs and fighter planes waiting.
Other checkpoints will be activated on Friday evening, police announced.
Tens of thousands of people have already laid out for hours to pay tribute to Francis, whose coffin will be closed at 8:00 p.m. at a ceremony attended by the senior cardinals.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo who directs the daily affairs of the Vatican until a new pope is elected, will preside the so-called “rite of the sealing of the coffin”.
The first Latin American pope of the Catholic church died on Monday at the age of 88, less than a month after spending weeks in hospital with severe pneumonia.
Véronique Montes-Coulomb, a tourist from Toulouse in France, who attended the state of lengthening on Thursday in St Peter’s, said that she had been at mass on Easter Sunday, the last public outing of the pontiff.
“We saw the pope pass through the” potemobile “; he seemed relatively healthy, and we were surprised to learn that he was dead on Monday morning,” she said AFP.
The Argentinian pontiff, who had long suffered from faulty health, challenged the orders of doctors by appearing at Easter, the most important moment of the Catholic calendar.
Condolences have flooded around the world for the Jesuit, an energetic reformer who defended those on the sidelines of society during his 12 years at the head of the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world.
He used his latest speech to rale against those who arouse “contempt … towards vulnerable, marginalized and migrants”.
At least 130 foreign delegations are expected during its funeral and an area without theft will be in force.
‘In short but intense’
The Pope’s coffin was fixed in front of the altar of St Peter for his three days of elongated state, with Francis dressed in his papal clothes – a red chasure, a white miter and black shoes.
“It was a brief but intense moment next to his body,” said Italian Massimo Palo, 63 years old AFP After his visit.
“He was a pope among his herd, among his people, and I hope that the next papacies will be a bit like hers,” he added.
The Italian Civil Protection Agency estimates that “several hundred thousand” people will descend to Rome on what was already being a busy weekend due to a holiday on Friday.
After the funeral, the coffin of Francis will be led at a pace of walking to be buried in his favorite church, the papal basilica of Rome of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The pontiff was an outsider champion, and a group of “poor and needy”, will be there to welcome the coffin, said the Vatican.
He will be buried in the ground, his simple grave marked in a single word: Franciscus.
People will be able to visit the tomb on Sunday morning.
After that, all eyes will turn to the choice process of Francis’s successor.
Cardinals around the world have returned to Rome for funerals and conclave when a new pontiff is elected.
In the absence of a pope, the cardinals met every day to agree on the next steps, with another meeting due on Friday at 9:00 am.
They have not yet announced a date for the conclave, but it must start no less than 15 days and not more than 20 days after the death of a pope.
Only those under the age of 80 – currently some 135 cardinals – are eligible to vote.
The Italian cardinal Pietro Parolin, who was the number two of Francis, is the favorite, according to the British bookmaker William Hill.
They placed it in front of the Philippine Luis Antonio Tagle, the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Manila, followed by Cardinal du Ghana, Peter Turkson, and Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna.
