World leaders, dignitaries, and thousands of mourners have started arriving at the St Peter’s Square to bid farewell to Pope Francis.
US President Donald Trump, his predecessor Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and the Prince of Wales are among attendees at the requiem mass in St Peter’s Square, which begins at 9am UK.
Others include French President Emmanuel Macron, former US President Joe Biden , and Irish President Michael D Higgins.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, arrived on Saturday morning and will attend with his wife Olena Zelenska, following uncertainty over where he could attend after his travel plans were disrupted by air strikes in Kyiv.
About 500,000 people are expected to gather for the open-air service.
Pope Francis, who died aged 88 on Monday, just hours after greeting crowds to mark Easter, had been lying in state in St Peter’s Basilica for three days, with some 250,000 mourners passing him day and night, before his coffin was formally sealed in private on Friday.
Nuns who gathered in St Peter’s Square ahead of the service told the Associated Press news agency that the late pontiff had been a ‘saintly man… a man of peace, who wanted peace for the whole world’.
Sister Nilma Navarro from the Philippines said that Francis was ‘the most humble person I have ever met,’ adding that he shepherded people ‘not only in the Catholic Church. He also embraced other religions.’
Miguel Vaca, a pilgrim from Peru, lined up from 7am to enter the square. ‘He was a very charismatic pope, very human, very kind,’ he said.