Funeral of Pope Francis

[cakeorwine]

Watching it now. I'm not religious - but it is a fascinating watch and a beautiful setting.

I'm loving some of the details on the outfits. That pink robe with, what looks like, matching pink embroidered detail on the white sleeves.

Both the Vatican and the Italian authorities will want all the VIPs out immediately after the service for security reasons. It's not as if there will be tea and buns afterwards!

So Prince William will be back in the UK very promptly. And if he wants to go to the football, that's fine. Apparently Pope Francis was a big footie fan too!

@drivinmecrazy I'm sorry to hear about your friend.

I'm very lapsed/agnostic, but the sense that the living and the dead still belong together always moves me. We haven't lost them, they are still with us.

Agree @EasternStandard
I’m an atheist but I love a ceremonial occasion and think we are poorer for abandoning so much of it in the name of modernisation.

Im cradle catholic born 1975 from Irish catholics and I never saw this - I might have seen the odd one here in Sweden, but then it might have been a older person from some other country iyswim. I think it was scrapped after second Vatican council along with mantillas.

Appreciate I’m sounding judgey, I take that on board. Am genuinely worried though about the conservative movement I seem to see in the church so am overly sensitive. Don’t fancy a return of mantillas and nuns pinning hankies to your head if you forget yours.

I think the innocence of ceremony, as the poem goes, meets a very deep human need to feel part of something larger.

I'm sorry for your loss 🙏

It was the fast that made me faint. Seven year old having nothing since dinner the night before, school Mass at 10.30 and then back into school for lunch at 12. It was often the smell of the food that did for me. The nuns would tell me off for attention seeking.

@TheignT my Dad is an old school Catholic and he doesn't feel comfortable going to mass unless he has fasted (he's 84). So he switches church occasionally, depending on which church offers the earliest mass.

Maybe the Don will introduce a gold, embroidered version of his MAGA cap.

On another note, has anyone ever driven past St Peter’s basilica at night. It’s absolutely stunning, the Saints statues look incredible.

I grew up among Bavarian Catholics, I had an aunt who was a nun and I have never seen anyone kneel for receiving communion either, and that includes the nuns at my aunt's convent.

Things had changed a lot by 1975, back in the 50s on a Sunday there was 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 oclock Mass, there was also an evening Mass at about 6.30 I think. I can't picture many Catholic churches with the church so full that Communion has to be taken outside for the people who couldn't get into the church now. If I went to Mass with granny her church was even busier, they had Mass in the church and a second Mass in the school hall nextdoor and still had people on the pavement. I just can't picture that in 21st century England but maybe I live in a quieter parish.

Funnily enough I don't remember anyone wearing mantillas when I was a child, I lived in a poor area and most women wore a headscarf some wore hats.

I hope your man now with the coffin had a bit of a rest but he’s looking like he’s suffering already.

I was raised a Catholic in England the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, and I am so lapsed that I had completely forgotten that people no longer kneel at the altar rail to take Holy Communion!

Three you go, the beautiful Magnificat and the final goodbye 👋 Goodbye dear Pope, God rest you and thank you.

Some things just stick don't they.

May he rest in peace. This is a great loss for the Catholic church and the world, I believe. I am fearful that someone the opposite of him will be the next Pope.

So glad I'm not the only one who remembers when kneeling at the altar. I was beginning to wonder if I was imagining it.

I agree, let’s pray that it will be someone with the same values.

I missed out on the Fifties and may just about remember the tail end of the sixties but as I said, in my very very Catholic area (one of the centres of the counterreformation) I have never seen it. My mother never quite forgave John XXIII for abolishing mass in Latin although she liked him otherwise.

Depends on your perspective. It's a bit of a snub that they never go. After all, they are both heads of state.

I thought the same. I think he has worn army fatigues since the invasion and on this occasion he has changed into black.

Zelensky should ask him if he has a black suit, and if so, why isn't he wearing it.