Pope Francis buried at his favourite church in Rome
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pope Francis has been laid to rest at his favourite church in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore, after a funeral attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Many lined the streets to see his coffin being taken there from the Vatican on an adapted popemobile. He is the first pontiff in more than 120 years to be buried outside the Vatican.
Also in the programme: With tensions high between India and Pakistan after a shooting in Kashmir, we have an interview with the politician son of assassinated Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto; and an attempt to crack down on so-called 'headphone dodgers' on trains and buses.
(Photo: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re blessed Pope Francis' coffin during the funeral mass. Credit: Reuters/Dylan Martinez)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service coming to you live from London. I'm Sean Lay. |
| 0:10.0 | Pope Francis devised his own variation of the traditional funeral right, |
| 0:14.5 | pushing against convention to make the manner of his leaving as unconventional as the manner of his papacy. |
| 0:20.5 | Instead of mass set inside |
| 0:21.7 | St. Peter's Basilica, in front of a necessarily limited number of mourners, the celebration of his |
| 0:26.8 | life on Saturday morning took place in the square outside, where all were welcome, prostitutes, |
| 0:32.5 | ex-prisoners, the homeless, among the many thousands of people sharing this moment with around |
| 0:37.0 | 150 heads of government |
| 0:38.7 | or state. Francis's coffin stood not on a cattle falk but on the ground down where he felt he belonged |
| 0:45.0 | among the people. The solemn hour-long mass was leavened by the applause which greeted the coffin |
| 0:50.5 | being carried out of the church and into the square. This wood--lined with zinc, was much simpler than the triple casket of Cyprus, lead and oak or elm, |
| 0:59.8 | in which papal remains are traditionally interred. |
| 1:02.6 | It was born on his final journey across the river Tiber to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, |
| 1:08.7 | the Pope's favourite church in Rome, now his place of rest. |
| 1:12.4 | The BBC's Rome correspondent Sarah Rainsford reports. |
| 1:16.0 | I'm sorry. As I squeezed my way through the crowd early this morning, there were nuns and priests |
| 1:23.2 | dashing over the cobblestones. They were rushing to bag a spot on St Peter's Square ahead of the service. |
| 1:30.6 | Soon, all the streets around were full of Catholics. |
| 1:33.8 | You have some very interesting yellow and black hats. |
| 1:36.7 | Yes. |
| 1:38.8 | The teenagers tell me it's so they can spot each other in the crowd. |
| 1:42.3 | And then we created them in my garage. |
... |
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