Huge crowds pack Vatican

AFP | Vatican City

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The Vatican was making final preparations yesterday for Pope Francis’s funeral as the last of the huge crowds of mourners filed through St Peter’s Basilica to view his open coffin.

Over 128,000 people have already paid their last respects to Francis, whose coffin will be closed at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) in a ceremony attended by senior cardinals.

Many of the 50 heads of state and 10 monarchs attending Saturday’s ceremony in St Peter’s Square, including US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, were expected to arrive later yesterday in Rome.

Italian and Vatican authorities have placed the area around St Peter’s under tight security with drones blocked, snipers on roofs and fighter jets on standby.

Further checkpoints will be activated yesterday night, police said. Vast crowds of people yesterday morning packed Via della Conciliazione, the wide avenue leading to the Vatican, for the third and final day of the pope’s lying-in-state. “Whatever happens, we have to get inside,” said Ian Delmonte, 35, from the Philippines.

“We love the pope, we feel blessed to see him a last (time),” added Michelle Alcaide, 35, also from the Philippines, as she queued.

For a second night in a row, the Vatican kept St Peter’s open past the scheduled hours to accommodate the queues, only closing the doors between 2:30am (0030 GMT) and 5:40am yesterday.

“Night is the most intimate moment, the Lord always manifests himself at night,” said Nicoletta Tomassetti, 60, who visited the Basilica in the very early hours of yesterday morning.

“It was very emotional. In prayer, I asked the pope for some things and I know he will give them to me,” she told AFP.

The Catholic Church’s first Latin American pope died on Monday aged 88, less than a month after spending weeks in hospital with severe pneumonia.

“It was like saying goodbye to a father” who “loved me and will continue to love me as and more than before,” Filipa Castronovo, 76, an Italian nun said after seeing the coffin yesterday.

For a second night in a row, the Vatican kept St Peter’s open past the scheduled hours to accommodate the queues, only closing the doors between 2:30am (0030 GMT) and 5:40am yesterday. “Night is the most intimate moment, the Lord always manifests himself at night,” said Nicoletta Tomassetti, 60, who visited the Basilica in the very early hours of yesterday morning.