by InTrieste
Under a cloudless Roman sky, the funeral of Pope Francis drew a rare assembly of world leaders and religious figures to St. Peter’s Square on Saturday morning, marking the final chapter in the life of a pontiff who reshaped the Catholic Church with his humility, reformist zeal, and global appeal.
As the bells of St. Peter’s tolled in mourning, dozens of heads of state and dignitaries filed into the square, seated according to the Vatican’s meticulous diplomatic protocol — and a centuries-old quirk of language: the French alphabet.
Though Latin is the liturgical language of the Church, it is French — the historical lingua franca of diplomacy — that determines the seating order of foreign delegations at papal funerals. That meant, for example, that U.S. President Donald Trump was placed not under “U” for United States, but “E” for États-Unis, seated near French President Emmanuel Macron but far from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In the front row of the dignitary section, Argentina’s President Javier Milei occupied a prominent position — a poignant image, given his past insults toward the pope, whom he once called an “imbecile” before reconciling with him after winning the presidency in 2023. The late pope, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was Argentina’s most revered son.
Italy, as host nation, was given pride of place as well. President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sat alongside reigning monarchs including Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic and longtime admirer of Pope Francis, was also in attendance, though positioned further back in the VIP section, in accordance with diplomatic precedence.
The scale of the funeral matched the gravity of the moment. Police estimated that more than 200,000 mourners filled St. Peter’s Square, with up to a million people lining the streets of Rome for the solemn procession that followed. At a deliberate, walking pace, the cortege made its way through the Eternal City to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Pope Francis will be laid to rest.
Security in Rome was at its highest level, with snipers on rooftops, roadblocks around the Vatican, and airspace restrictions in effect throughout the day.
Saturday’s funeral marked not only the end of a papacy, but the closing of an era. Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first to choose the name of the saint of the poor, left behind a church transformed — more inclusive, more outward-looking, and more attuned to the margins of society.
As incense rose and choirs sang solemn hymns, the world said farewell — not just to a pope, but to a man who, in death as in life, brought the powerful and the humble together in a spirit of unity and grace.
