"We came to the funeral to thank Pope Francis."

RomeThe first metro of the morning, the 5:30 a.m. one, was packed as if it were rush hour on any weekday. However, the majority of those traveling were not workers but a sea of people headed to Pope Francis's funeral in Rome. Hours before the ceremony began, the Vatican's Piazza Sant'Pere and the surrounding area were already teeming with people with infinite patience, ready to wait standing or sitting on the ground as long as necessary to pay their last respects to the pontiff. The morning started cold. It was necessary to bundle up.

Even those lucky enough to pass through security beneath Bernini's iconic colonnade and enter Piazza Sant'Pere couldn't see much. The altar, set up for the funeral right in front of St. Peter's Basilica, was visible in the distance, and the cassock-clad priests making final preparations for the Eucharist looked, from a distance, like small black specks. It was clear that the only way to properly follow the ceremony would be through the large screens installed for the occasion. Wouldn't it have been better to stay home then?

"Watching him on television is too comfortable. Standing here for four or five hours is a way of paying tribute to a pope who has done so much for the people," Steve Emejuru, originally from Nigeria but who has lived in Italy for 43 years, replied without hesitation. Maria Zani, from the northern Italian city of Brescia, had the same answer. "I left Brescia by bus at 11 p.m. on Friday and arrived here at 5:30 a.m. this Saturday," she explained. In other words, she hadn't slept during the night. "My presence here is a way of thanking Pope Francis."

Other people were there purely by chance, like Elena Fernández Tagle, who traveled from Madrid and was in St. Peter's Square draped in a Spanish flag and a black crepe. Her initial plan was to go to the city of Assisi, in central Italy, for the canonization of the young Carlo Acutis, scheduled for this Sunday, but which was postponed due to the Pope's death. "For me, being here is a gift," she assured. Like her, many others also changed their destinations at the last minute: Angelica Martínez López, from Los Angeles; the sisters María Fernanda and María Cecilia Leonel, from Brazil; and the Australian Georgina Brazaer, who learned there would be no canonization but a funeral just as she was boarding the plane in Sydney.

The general feeling

"Being in Rome and not coming to such an important event seemed unforgivable to me," argued Catalan Mariola Borrell, who has been working in the Italian capital for three years and was also in Piazza Sant Pere to honor the Pope. "The world you have loved is here today to thank you," read a banner carried by two Italian nuns, Sister Maria Isola and Sister Analisa Gasbarro, which couldn't have summed up the general feeling better.

"We will begin Holy Mass by praying the rosary," they announced over the PA system at 9:20 a.m. Many then began to pray, even on their knees, but others also remained seated or lying on the floor to try to catch a few minutes of sleep. A helicopter hovered overhead, its drone drowning out the litany of prayer. Even then, cell phones lost coverage. All the international authorities who attended the funeral were about to make their appearance.

At 10 a.m., the bells rang, a deathly silence fell, and the helicopter began to fly higher so as not to disturb the crowd with its noise. A long, emotional, heartfelt applause that made my hair stand on end.

Then the Gregorian chants began, and more and more Gregorian chants. It seemed that the funeral was going to be long.

By then, the morning chill had disappeared, and a blazing sun blazed down mercilessly. People tried to cover themselves with caps, hats, umbrellas... Others sought refuge in the few shady spots: under Bernini's colonnade, or under the small awnings of souvenir shops. Some left Mass for a while to have breakfast at a nearby café. But the great mass of people remained there, standing in the sun, devoted. The Eucharist lasted more than two hours.

The transfer of the coffin to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore also brought the center of Rome to a standstill, but no one seemed to be bothered. A woman explained why: "Francis deserved all this and more."