VATICAN CITY: Huge crowds were expected on Thursday for a glimpse of Pope Francis’s body on the second day of public tributes, after St. Peter’s Basilica stayed open almost all night to accommodate the crowds.
Close to 20,000 people filtered past the Catholic leader’s red-lined wooden coffin in the first eight hours of the lying in state on Wednesday.
Instead of closing at midnight, it allowed people in until 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) on Thursday morning, before reopening at 7:00am, the Vatican said.
Italy is preparing a massive security operation for the funeral in front of St. Peter’s, with world leaders including US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky due to join hundreds of thousands of mourners.
Francis died on Monday after 12 years as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, during which time he made a name for himself as a pope of the marginalized.
Mourners queued for up to four hours on Wednesday to say their goodbyes to Francis, who was dressed in his papal vestments – a red chasuble, white mitre and black shoes – and held a rosary.
Each mourner was ushered past the casket within seconds, many hurriedly catching the moment on their smartphones.
Argentine Federico Rueda, 46, said that despite the rush, he would not have missed the opportunity.
“It is worth missing out on other places to say goodbye to an Argentine: a very worthy pope,” he said as he stood proudly wearing the jersey of Argentina’s national football team, the current world champions.
Mexican Leobardo Guevara, 24, draped in his country’s flag, said he felt “a sense of peace” as he filed past the body of the first pope from the Americas.
Francis, an energetic reformer who became pope in 2013, died on Monday aged 88 after suffering a stroke.
His death at his residence in the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican came less than a month after he was released from five weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.
Francis’s casket was initially put on display for Vatican officials and clergy in the Santa Marta chapel, before being transferred to St. Peter’s Wednesday in a procession including cardinals, clergy and Swiss Guards.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was among those who paid respects on Wednesday, and scores of world leaders and dignitaries plan to attend the funeral.
They include Argentine President Javier Milei and Britain’s Prince William, although Russia – which has for centuries had icy ties with the Vatican – said it would send its culture minister.
Authorities, who expect up to 170 foreign delegations, have ramped up security for the funeral.
Italy’s civil protection agency estimates that “several hundred thousand” people will descend on Rome on what was already set to be a busy weekend due to a public holiday.
After the funeral, Francis’s coffin will be taken to his favorite church, Rome’s papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
His will requested that he be interred in the ground, his simple tomb marked with just one word: Franciscus.
Following that, all eyes will turn to the process to choose Francis’s successor.
Cardinals from around the world are returning to Rome for the conclave, which will begin no fewer than 15 days and no more than 20 days after a pope’s death.
Only those under the age of 80 – currently some 135 cardinals – are eligible to vote.
Cardinals have agreed that the traditional nine days of mourning for the pope, the so-called “novemdiales,” will begin on Saturday and conclude on May 4.
Another meeting of cardinals of all ages was set for Thursday at 9:00am (0700 GMT).
However, the Vatican brushed aside hopes of an announcement of the conclave date, insisting the focus is on the funeral.
At the time of his death, Francis was under doctors’ orders to rest for two months.
But the headstrong pope continued to make public appearances despite appearing tired and short of breath.
On Easter Sunday, one day before he died, he circled St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile to greet the crowds, stopping to kiss babies along the way.
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Huge crowds expected for second day of Pope Francis lying in state
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Huge crowds expected for second day of Pope Francis lying in state
- Close to 20,000 people filtered past the Catholic leader’s coffin in the first eight hours of the lying in state
- Pope Francis died on Monday after 12 years as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics
Culture being strangled by Kosovo’s political crisis
PRIZREN: Kosovo’s oldest cinema has been dark and silent for years as the famous theater slowly disintegrates under a leaky roof.
Signs warn passers-by in the historic city of Prizren that parts of the Lumbardhi’s crumbling facade could fall while it waits for its long-promised refurbishment.
“The city deserves to have the cinema renovated and preserved. Only junkies gathering there benefit from it now,” nextdoor neighbor butcher Arsim Futko, 62, told AFP.
For seven years, it waited for a European Union-funded revamp, only for the money to be suddenly withdrawn with little explanation.
Now it awaits similar repairs promised by the national government that has since been paralyzed by inconclusive elections in February.
And it is anyone’s guess whether the new government that will come out of Sunday’s snap election will keep the promise.
- ‘Collateral damage’ -
Cinema director Ares Shporta said the cinema has become “collateral damage” in a broader geopolitical game after the EU hit his country with sanctions in 2023.
The delayed repairs “affected our morale, it affected our lives, it affected the trust of the community in us,” Shporta said.
Brussels slapped Kosovo with sanctions over heightened tensions between the government and the ethnic Serb minority that live in parts of the country as Pristina pushed to exert more control over areas still tightly linked to Belgrade.
Cultural institutions have been among the hardest-hit sectors, as international funding dried up and local decisions were stalled by the parliamentary crisis.
According to an analysis by the Kosovo think tank, the GAP Institute for Advanced Studies, sanctions have resulted in around 613 million euros ($719 million) being suspended or paused, with the cultural sector taking a hit of 15-million-euro hit.
- ‘Ground zero’ -
With political stalemate threatening to drag on into another year, there are warnings that further funding from abroad could also be in jeopardy.
Since February’s election when outgoing premier Albin Kurti topped the polls but failed to win a majority, his caretaker government has been deadlocked with opposition lawmakers.
Months of delays, spent mostly without a parliament, meant little legislative work could be done.
Ahead of the snap election on Sunday, the government said that more than 200 million euros ($235 million) will be lost forever due to a failure to ratify international agreements.
Once the top beneficiary of the EU Growth Plan in the Balkans, Europe’s youngest country now trails most of its neighbors, the NGO Group for Legal and Political Studies’ executive director Njomza Arifi told AFP.
“While some of the countries in the region have already received the second tranches, Kosovo still remains at ground zero.”
Although there have been some enthusiastic signs of easing a half of EU sanctions by January, Kurti’s continued push against Serbian institutions and influence in the country’s north continues to draw criticism from both Washington and Brussels.
- ‘On the edge’ -
Across the river from the Lumbardhi, the funding cuts have also been felt at Dokufest, a documentary and short film festival that draws people to the region.
“The festival has had to make staff cuts. Unfortunately, there is a risk of further cuts if things don’t change,” Dokufest artistic director Veton Nurkollari said.
“Fortunately, we don’t depend on just one source because we could end up in a situation where, when the tap is turned off, everything is turned off.”
He said that many in the cultural sector were desperate for the upcoming government to get the sanctions lifted by ratification of the agreements that would allow EU funds to flow again.
“Kosovo is the only one left on the edge and without these funds.”
Signs warn passers-by in the historic city of Prizren that parts of the Lumbardhi’s crumbling facade could fall while it waits for its long-promised refurbishment.
“The city deserves to have the cinema renovated and preserved. Only junkies gathering there benefit from it now,” nextdoor neighbor butcher Arsim Futko, 62, told AFP.
For seven years, it waited for a European Union-funded revamp, only for the money to be suddenly withdrawn with little explanation.
Now it awaits similar repairs promised by the national government that has since been paralyzed by inconclusive elections in February.
And it is anyone’s guess whether the new government that will come out of Sunday’s snap election will keep the promise.
- ‘Collateral damage’ -
Cinema director Ares Shporta said the cinema has become “collateral damage” in a broader geopolitical game after the EU hit his country with sanctions in 2023.
The delayed repairs “affected our morale, it affected our lives, it affected the trust of the community in us,” Shporta said.
Brussels slapped Kosovo with sanctions over heightened tensions between the government and the ethnic Serb minority that live in parts of the country as Pristina pushed to exert more control over areas still tightly linked to Belgrade.
Cultural institutions have been among the hardest-hit sectors, as international funding dried up and local decisions were stalled by the parliamentary crisis.
According to an analysis by the Kosovo think tank, the GAP Institute for Advanced Studies, sanctions have resulted in around 613 million euros ($719 million) being suspended or paused, with the cultural sector taking a hit of 15-million-euro hit.
- ‘Ground zero’ -
With political stalemate threatening to drag on into another year, there are warnings that further funding from abroad could also be in jeopardy.
Since February’s election when outgoing premier Albin Kurti topped the polls but failed to win a majority, his caretaker government has been deadlocked with opposition lawmakers.
Months of delays, spent mostly without a parliament, meant little legislative work could be done.
Ahead of the snap election on Sunday, the government said that more than 200 million euros ($235 million) will be lost forever due to a failure to ratify international agreements.
Once the top beneficiary of the EU Growth Plan in the Balkans, Europe’s youngest country now trails most of its neighbors, the NGO Group for Legal and Political Studies’ executive director Njomza Arifi told AFP.
“While some of the countries in the region have already received the second tranches, Kosovo still remains at ground zero.”
Although there have been some enthusiastic signs of easing a half of EU sanctions by January, Kurti’s continued push against Serbian institutions and influence in the country’s north continues to draw criticism from both Washington and Brussels.
- ‘On the edge’ -
Across the river from the Lumbardhi, the funding cuts have also been felt at Dokufest, a documentary and short film festival that draws people to the region.
“The festival has had to make staff cuts. Unfortunately, there is a risk of further cuts if things don’t change,” Dokufest artistic director Veton Nurkollari said.
“Fortunately, we don’t depend on just one source because we could end up in a situation where, when the tap is turned off, everything is turned off.”
He said that many in the cultural sector were desperate for the upcoming government to get the sanctions lifted by ratification of the agreements that would allow EU funds to flow again.
“Kosovo is the only one left on the edge and without these funds.”
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