Pope Francis was remembered on Saturday as a unifying force, a leader who “sought to shed light on the problems of our time with the wisdom of the Gospel.”
“Rich in human warmth and deeply sensitive to today’s challenges, Pope Francis really shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this globalization time,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re in a liturgy during Francis’s funeral.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista re leads the funeral mass of Pope Francis in the Plaza de San Pedro in El Vaticano, on April 26, 2025.
Yara Nardi/Reuters
Battista re added: “He gave himself comforting and encouraging us with a message capable of reaching people’s hearts in a direct and immediate way.”
The cardinal praised Francis for surrendering to the Church until his last full day, when he appeared during a Easter celebration to bless the faithful who had gathered in the Vatican.
Francis maintained a “temperament and form of pastoral leadership” throughout his years leading the church, Battista said Re. And he was “guided by the light of faith” as he encouraged everyone, from world leaders to the leagues of the faithful, to “live as Christians in the midst of the challenges and contradictions in recent years, which he loved to describe as an ‘time.”
The carriers carry the coffin of Pope Francis to the deceased during the funeral ceremony in the Plaza de San Pedro, in the Vatican, on April 26, 2025.
Filippo Monteforte/AFP through Getty Images
“Faced with the furious wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and innumerable deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly lifted his voice imploring peace and asking for honest reason and negotiation to find possible solutions,” Battista Re.
Added: “War, [Francis] He said, results in the death of people and the destruction of households, hospitals and schools. War always leaves the world worse than it was before: it is always a painful and tragic defeat for all. “
