NBC News reports:

Even in death, Pope Francis’ moral voice rang out across the world.

With 40,000 packed into Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square, another 250,000 in the surrounding streets and millions more watching on TV and online, world leaders, including President Donald Trump, were reminded of Francis’ central messages during his funeral Saturday.

“‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said during the homily for the late pope. “His gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons are countless. His insistence on working on behalf of the poor was constant.”

And war “always leaves the world worse than it was before: It is always a painful and tragic defeat for everyone,” Re said.

Francis often railed against the geopolitical tides. He urged more compassion for immigrants and refugees at a time when the White House and other governments are cracking down. He called for an end to the war in Gaza and denounced climate change and exploitative capitalism — when those crises have only intensified. [Continue reading…]

People reports:

In one of the final moments from his funeral, Pope Francis’ coffin was welcomed by members of marginalized groups near and dear to his heart.

Before he died on Monday, April 21, the head of the Catholic Church had already arranged his final wishes — which included allowing “poor and marginalized people” to be the last to pay their respects, the Vatican said.

At the end of his funeral procession through Rome on Saturday, April 26, a group of about 40, consisting of “poor people, homeless, prisoners, migrants and transgender individuals,” gathered at St. Mary Major Basilica, making them the last to say goodbye to the pontiff before his burial.

Each person was given a single white rose.

“I find this a very moving choice, because Pope Francis is being received by the Mother he loved so much … and by his favourite children, who will surround him on this final journey,” Bishop Ambarus said of the choice, according to the Vatican. “I think it’s something truly beautiful.”

The church said that according to Ambarus, almost all of the migrants and homeless individuals met Francis at least once, while the “small group of transgender individuals … live with a community of nuns.”

Francis was long devoted to the poor — he took his papal name from Francis of Assisi — and, as pontiff, he upended the church’s messaging with a more welcoming tone on the LGBTQ+ community, courting controversy from conservatives. [Continue reading…]