Pope Francis requested a simple funeral in his will
Pope Francis requested a “simple” funeral in his will, reflecting a legacy devoted to humility.
Before he became Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the archbishop of his hometown Buenos Aires.
On April 26, Argentina’s capital city held an outdoor Mass remembering their humble priest after his official funeral in Rome, some 6,900 miles away across the Atlantic Ocean.
Thousands took to the streets in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, which stands along the central Plaza de Mayo near the Casa Rosada presidential palace.
Francis, who came from a middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, became known as the Jesuit priest who rode the city’s public transit and was a card-carrying fan of his hometown soccer club. He was the first Jesuit, Argentine and South American pope.
“He was a common man among us, just another porteño,” someone from Buenos Aires, Jorge Macri, the city’s chief of government, wrote in an op-ed titled, “La ciudad de Francisco,” the city of Francis, in the newspaper La Nación.
Macri said Francis “moved around by bus or subway, always on hand, always with the watchful eye of a pastor who knows his flock.”
Francis was laid to rest at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome on Saturday afternoon after a funeral service he deliberately simplified. More than a quarter-million mourners and dozens of world leaders and dignitaries packed St. Peter’s Square for the funeral. After a Mass, Francis’ coffin was placed on an open-air popemobile and transported to the burial site outside the Vatican by a motorcade that traversed the streets of Rome, lined by cheering crowds.
Francis died Easter Monday at 88 from a stroke, after weeks of battling respiratory ailments and an extended stay at Gemelli Hospital in Rome. The day before, an ailing Francis greeted a thrilled crowd in an impromptu popemobile outing into St. Peter’s Square.
See the crowd gathered for Pope Francis in Buenos Aires
Thousands gathered in Francis’ native Buenos Aires on Saturday to pay their respects, carrying signs, photos and Argentine flags.
