The body of Pope Francis has been carried into Basilica of Saint Mary Major or Church of Santa Maria Maggiore for burial.
The pontiff’s body was transported on Saturday from St Peter’s Basilica on a white Popemobile after the funeral.
Hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful packed both St Peter’s Square and the streets of the Italian capital to bid farewell to Pope Francis.
Dozens of heads of state and world leaders also attended the service, during which Francis was eulogised as a pontiff who knew how to communicate with the “least among us” and who urged people to build bridges and not walls.
Francis, who died on Monday aged 88, will be the first pontiff in more than a century not to be entombed in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
Francis was very devoted to the worship of the Virgin Mary and made a point of praying in Santa Maria Maggiore before leaving on trips abroad and upon his return to Rome.
Most recently, Francis prayed to the icon of the Virgin Mary inside the basilica on April 12, to mark the beginning of the Holy Week that culminated in Easter.
He declared his desire to be entombed in the basilica — known in English as the Basilica of Saint Mary Major — in 2023.
The last pope to be buried there was Clement IX in 1669.
The last pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII in 1903, whose final resting place is the Church of Saint John Lateran, the Cathedral of the bishop of Rome.
One of four papal basilicas in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore holds the remains of several other renowned personalities, such as the architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who designed St Peter’s Square and its surrounding columns.
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