Faithful flock to St. Peter’s on last day to pay respects to Pope Francis

ROME, Italy – Queues of faithful filed into St. Peter’s throughout the night and in the early hours of Friday, April 25, on the last day to bid farewell to Pope Francis ahead of his funeral on Saturday, April 26.

The Basilica was open for most of the night, shutting its doors for only three hours between 2:30 am (0030 GMT) and 5:30 am.

The body of the 88-year-old Pope, who died on Monday, April 21, in his rooms at the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse after suffering a stroke, was brought to St. Peter’s in a solemn procession on Wednesday, April 23.

Since then, almost 130,000 people from all over the world have bid farewell to the Pontiff, the Vatican said.

“What surprised me was how determined he was to serve the Church and love his people with all his energy, to the very end,” Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re — the ceremonial leader of the College of Cardinals and a retired Vatican official — told Italian daily la Repubblica in an interview published on Friday.

A conclave to choose a new pontiff is unlikely to start before May 6. In the meantime, cardinals present in Rome who have assumed temporary control of the 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church are meeting daily, in a so-called general congregation.

On Friday evening, at the end of his lying-in-state in the basilica, Francis’ coffin will be closed privately in the presence of a few aides. (LIVE UPDATES: Death and funeral of Pope Francis)

The city is bracing ahead of the arrival of hundreds of high-profile delegations attending the funeral, including US President Donald Trump, who will be flying into Rome late on Friday. – Rappler.com