login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Tarik Cyril Amar
Sharona Margolin Halickman
Andrew Mitrovica
Gideon Levy
Penny S. Tee
John Nosta
Rachel Marsden
Pope Francis’s funeral: A final act of humility and hope, in words and pictures
LIKE the man it celebrated and honoured, it was a funeral of contrasts. No Requiem Mass is more public than a Pope’s, yet Francis dictated that his final entombment would be a private affair, not in a crypt beneath St Peter’s Basilica but in the inner sanctum of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The unrivalled grandeur of St Peter’s Square, shimmering under a cerulean blue sky studded with damask white clouds, contrasted with the simple wooden casket in which Pope Francis was laid to rest.
The Vatican said 250,000 were in St Peter's Square for Pope Francis's funeral PICTURE: RONAN MCGRADE (Ronan McGrade)Then there was the sharp contrast between the ‘great and the good’ - the leaders of the Catholic Church and the world’s governments - gathered at St Peter’s, and the poor and humble specifically invited by Pope Francis to accompany him on his journey inside the Basilica of St Mary Major to his final resting place.
Members of the clergy and a representative group described by the Vatican as the 'poor and needy' welcome Pope Francis's coffin into the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)It was a vivid reminder of how Christian teaching is supposed to favour the dispossessed and marginalised over the powerful. ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first’ was at the forefront of a papal ministry conducted by a shepherd who wore the smell of the sheep.
Belfast chef goes from selling pizza in his........© The Irish News
visit website