World leaders and rank-and-file Catholic faithful bade farewell to Pope Francis in a funeral Saturday in Vatican City.
Nation and World
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the Vatican to pay their final respects and witness the funeral mass for the leader of the Catholic Church on Saturday.
Neither the priests nor the faithful wore face masks, but Rome has largely been spared the virus as Italy’s national case count grew to 400.
Thousands of people from all walks of life — including a former president — filed slowly past the casket of the Rev. Billy Graham on Monday to pay their final respects to a man who reached millions with his message of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Last summer, Israel’s religious authorities issued a ruling that raised doubts about Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism. But after her father was elected president, they have changed their tune, raising eyebrows among activists who have long lobbied the rabbinical establishment to be more tolerant toward converts.
Retired pontiff Benedict XVI will help Pope Francis celebrate the sainthood ceremony Sunday for John Paul II and John XXIII, setting the stage for an unprecedented occurrence of two living popes canonizing two of their predecessors. About 1 million pilgrims are expected at the event and many were flooding into Rome on Saturday.
Pope Francis on Wednesday permanently removed a German bishop from his Limburg diocese after his 31 million-euro ($43-million) new residence complex caused an uproar among the faithful. Francis had temporarily expelled Monsignor Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst from Limburg in October pending a church inquiry.