Pope Francis’ coffin leaves Vatican en route to St. Mary Major Basilica
Pallbearers carry the coffin of late Pope Francis at the end of the funeral ceremony at St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, on April 26, 2025. Agence France-Presse
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ coffin left the Vatican on a white popemobile following his funeral at St Peter’s Square on Saturday.
Thousands of people lined the streets along the route as the coffin was driven across Rome to its final resting place at the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica.
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The coffin of late Pope Francis is seen in front of the Colosseum as it is transported from St Peter’s Basilica to Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, during the funeral ceremony in Rome on April 26, 2025. Agence France-Presse
Francis died of a stroke and heart failure less than a month after he left hospital where he had battled pneumonia for five weeks.
He loved nothing more than being among his flock, taking selfies with the faithful and kissing babies, and made it his mission to visit the peripheries, rather than mainstream centers of Catholicism.
His last public act, the day before his death, was an Easter Sunday blessing of the entire world, ending his papacy as he had begun it — with an appeal to protect the “vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants”.
The Jesuit chose to be named after Saint Francis of Assisi, saying he wanted “a poor Church for the poor”, and eschewed fine robes and the papal palace.
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Instead, the Church’s 266th pope lived at a Vatican guesthouse and chose to be interred in his favorite Rome church — the first pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican walls in more than a century.
Catholics around the world held events to watch the proceedings live, including in Buenos Aires, where Francis was born Jorge Bergoglio in the poor neighborhood of Flores in 1936.
“The pope showed us that there was another way to live the faith,” said Lara Amado, 25, in the Argentine capital.
Francis asked to be put inside a single wooden coffin to be laid in a simple marble tomb, marked only with the inscription “Franciscus”, his name in Latin.
