Reuters
Tens of thousands of mourners filed into St. Peter's Basilica on Friday on the last day to pay final respects to Pope Francis ahead of his funeral on Saturday.
Long queues snaked around St. Peter's Square and the surrounding roads, before being funnelled through the heart of the basilica in a single column leading to the central altar, where Francis' open-topped coffin is placed on a dais.
The basilica was open for most of Thursday evening into Friday morning, shutting its doors for only three hours overnight.
The body of the 88-year-old pope, who died on Monday in his rooms at the Vatican's Santa Marta guesthouse after suffering a stroke, was brought to St. Peter's in a solemn procession on Wednesday.
Since then, almost 130,000 people from all over the world have bid farewell to the pontiff, the Vatican said.
"It's a very strong feeling (to be here)," said Patricio Castriota, a visitor who, like the pope, is from Argentina. "This farewell was very sad, but I thank God that I was able to see him".
"He's the only pope we've had who came from South America, a pope who had many good intentions for the Catholic Church," said Castriota. "He cleaned up (a lot) of the bad, maybe not all of it, but he tried."
Francis, who was pope since 2013, was the first pontiff from the Western hemisphere and was known for an unusually charming, and even humorous, demeanour.
His 12-year papacy was sometimes turbulent, with Francis seeking to overhaul a divided institution but battling with traditionalists who opposed his many changes.
"He humanised the church, without desacralising it," said Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, who leads the Church on the French island of Corsica.
Queues on Friday morning were stretching halfway down the main boulevard leading through Rome into the Vatican.
People were pressing forward slowly, some waiting hours, in order to have a few minutes inside to pay their respects to Francis.
Vatican officials plan to end viewings at 7 p.m. on Friday, ahead of a formal rite to seal the late pope's coffin. The Vatican said it would close access to the line to enter the basilica around 6 p.m.
"What surprised me was how determined he was to serve the Church and love his people with all his energy, to the very end," Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re - the ceremonial leader of the College of Cardinals and a retired Vatican official - told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Friday.
Long queues snaked around St. Peter's Square and the surrounding roads, before being funnelled through the heart of the basilica in a single column leading to the central altar, where Francis' open-topped coffin is placed on a dais.
The basilica was open for most of Thursday evening into Friday morning, shutting its doors for only three hours overnight.
The body of the 88-year-old pope, who died on Monday in his rooms at the Vatican's Santa Marta guesthouse after suffering a stroke, was brought to St. Peter's in a solemn procession on Wednesday.
Since then, almost 130,000 people from all over the world have bid farewell to the pontiff, the Vatican said.
"It's a very strong feeling (to be here)," said Patricio Castriota, a visitor who, like the pope, is from Argentina. "This farewell was very sad, but I thank God that I was able to see him".
"He's the only pope we've had who came from South America, a pope who had many good intentions for the Catholic Church," said Castriota. "He cleaned up (a lot) of the bad, maybe not all of it, but he tried."
Francis, who was pope since 2013, was the first pontiff from the Western hemisphere and was known for an unusually charming, and even humorous, demeanour.
His 12-year papacy was sometimes turbulent, with Francis seeking to overhaul a divided institution but battling with traditionalists who opposed his many changes.
"He humanised the church, without desacralising it," said Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, who leads the Church on the French island of Corsica.
Queues on Friday morning were stretching halfway down the main boulevard leading through Rome into the Vatican.
People were pressing forward slowly, some waiting hours, in order to have a few minutes inside to pay their respects to Francis.
Vatican officials plan to end viewings at 7 p.m. on Friday, ahead of a formal rite to seal the late pope's coffin. The Vatican said it would close access to the line to enter the basilica around 6 p.m.
"What surprised me was how determined he was to serve the Church and love his people with all his energy, to the very end," Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re - the ceremonial leader of the College of Cardinals and a retired Vatican official - told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Friday.
