Pope Francis’ funeral recap: Remarkable scenes as world leaders and 250,000 mourners say final farewell

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been asked at a press conference on Saturday if he has a special message ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral.

“This will be an important day for people of the Catholic faith, but for many others as well, because of the respect that the Holy Father was held throughout the world,” he said.

“Pope Francis’s funeral will be attended by world leaders and including from Australia, representative of the government and the opposition, as well as Her Excellency, our governor general and Ambassador designate,” Mr Albanese said.

“But I think the thing about Pope Francis that resonates with people is, isn’t that, as much as his funeral will be attended by leaders of the world, he’s someone who stood for compassion and stood for the underprivileged and the marginalised.”

“He’s someone who really reached out and touched people with his faith, his compassion, his dignity and his determination to not leave people behind and to speak up for the powerless is something that he did.

“So I’ve spoken about Australia assisting his visit to Papua, New Guinea, where he was determined, as much as he was not well, to visit a Highlands community there in PNG. And that says everything about the character of Pope Francis, and that is why he’ll be dearly missed.”

Amid the 90,000 flocking to pay their respects to Pope Francis at St Peter’s Basilica, an octogenarian nun, carrying a green backpack, quietly broke strict Vatican protocol to approach the coffin of the late Pontiff.

As hordes continued to follow the Holy See’s instruction to pray and cry in silence as the late Pontiff lay in state, 81-year-old Sister Genevieve Jeanningros, who comes from the order of the Little Sisters of Jesus, moved beyond the red rope to farewell Francis, with whom she shared a friendship for more than four decades.

The pair’s relationship stretched back to Francis’ home country of Argentina, where Genevieve’s aunt, a French nun was kidnapped and murdered in 1977 during the military dictatorship of Alfredo Astiz.

The tragedy led French-Argentine Sister Jeanningros to get involved with defending human rights while maintaining links with Argentina, where she met Francis when he was still Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Buenos Aires’ archbishop. The pair bonded over their ties to victims of the repression, according to EDATV.NEWS.

Pope Francis even gave her the nickname “L‘enfant terrible” for her rebellious spirit, with Sister Jeanningros known to bring homeless people and transgender women to the Vatican’s general audiences each week, where the Pontiff received them with open arms.

It was little wonder neither the Swiss Guards nor the gendarmes moved to stop Sister Jeanningros from approaching Francis’ simple wooden coffin, where she prayed and cried for 20 minutes in a profound show of faith that went viral.

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After around 250,000 people visited St Peter’s Basilica to pay tribute to Pope Francis as he lay in state, his coffin has been sealed ahead of his funeral.

In a private ceremony attended by senior members of the Catholic church, Cardinal-Camerlengo Kevin Farrell paid tribute to Pope Francis, highlighting his most significant achievements personally and as pope.

Archbishop Diego Ravelli then positioned a white silk cloth over Pope Francis’ face as holy water was sprinkled over his body.

A simple lid on Francis’ wood and zinc coffin was then positioned to complete the sealing.

More than 100,000 mourners filed into St Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis, viewing his open coffin in the final visiting hours ahead of his funeral.

Soon after 7pm local time on Friday the Vatican ended a TV broadcast of the visits that had been running nearly continuously, ahead of a private ceremony to seal his casket.

As Italian and Vatican police prepared to close the long queue through the central nave of the church, the last visitors shuffled in.

The 88-year-old pope, who had led the Church since 2013, died on Monday in his rooms at the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse after suffering a stroke as he was recuperating from weeks of pneumonia.

About 250,000 people from all over the world have lined up to say farewell since his body was brought to St Peter’s on Wednesday to lie in state, the Vatican said.

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US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have landed in Rome ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral which will take place from 10am local time (6pm AEST).

The Trump’s landed on Friday evening (local time) in what is the President’s first overseas trip since returning to office.