What Sky News correspondents witnessed at the Pope’s funeral

Hundreds of thousands of Catholics descended on Vatican City for Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday.

World leaders, including President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, were among those who flew in to pay their respects.

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But amid the formal proceedings, Sky News correspondents reporting from St Peter’s Square and Rome witnessed the unexpected – from nuns sprinting to secure their place in the queue to teenagers playing Uno as the funeral played out on big screens above them. Here they reflect on the historic day for the Catholic Church and its faithful.

Adam Parsons, Europe correspondent in Vatican City

Normally the streets around the Vatican are quiet at this time, dotted with a few rough sleepers and passing security personnel. Not this time.

Via della Conciliazione is the road that runs from the Tiber all the way up to St Peter’s Square and, before the sun had risen, there were long queues to get through the checkpoint in order to secure a prime viewing location.

And when the gates were opened, and as more and more people came through, so the rush became greater.

A trickle became a torrent – first people strolled towards the front, then they jogged and then, eventually, I saw three nuns, sprinting as fast as they could.

But what I had expected to see in St Peter’s Square was not, in fact, what I did see.

I thought I’d bear witness to a lot of sobbing and sadness. Instead, in our section of the square, we were surrounded by dozens of teenagers; all affiliated to church youth groups, sitting on the ground and playing Uno.

They stayed for the day, watching on the big screens along with the rest of the crowd. They applauded, watched patiently and then, when they saw President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, cheered their approval. Nobody, other than the Pope, got a warmer ovation than the Ukrainian president.

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What we didn’t know at the time was that Zelenskyy had just met Donald Trump, not that Trump had had second thoughts about Vladimir Putin’s reliability. But come the end of the service, the news had filtered through.

So could the funeral have been a catalyst for an outbreak of peace, or at least a step or two in the right direction? As if by providence, at the very moment our team was discussing this, Michelle O’Neill, first minister of Northern Ireland, wandered past.

“Well that would be some legacy indeed from Pope Francis wouldn’t it? And I hope that’s the case.”

So did she worry that the Catholic Church will choose a more conservative successor to Pope Francis, I ask? Would she rather a Pope who continues Francis’s path of reform and, by comparison with his predecessor, liberal thinking. She nodded, smiling.

“I think that his legacy is something that we want to be able to carry on. You know, we want him to be a living legacy. I hope the incoming Pope has the same qualities, that same approach to the leadership role they provide.

“I think Pope Francis is a lesson to so many people in terms of what we need, which is inclusion. What we need is a more unified society.”

Lisa Holland, Sky correspondent in Rome

“He left us. He went to the sky,” said Sister Annalisa Serra gesturing upwards.

“But surely from there he is enjoying seeing us all here since we love him a lot.”

The sentiment from the nun from Sardinia kind of encapsulated the Pope’s funeral.

Again and again people told us they felt Pope Francis – who was happiest among the people – would be with them, not the dignitaries, given a choice.

That’s not to say he wouldn’t have taken the opportunity to speak his mind to the world and the Catholic Church’s most powerful first.

But, at heart, Francis’s papacy was defined by his connection with ordinary Catholics.

This weekend was originally billed as a special event in the Catholic calendar with 150,000 youngsters coming to Vatican City from around the world for a youth jubilee.

Their trips were long planned and they could never have imagined that when the date came their event would be overshadowed by the funeral of Pope Francis.

But the presence of the young faces gave a really youthful feel to the day – and a sense of unexpected joviality as we witnessed various groups burst into spontaneous song and applause to celebrate the former pontiff’s life.

Pope Francis recognised the importance of listening to the next generation.

The crowd was an incredible mix of people of all nationalities and backgrounds.

Part of the Pope’s legacy is the growth of the Catholic Church particularly in countries like the Philippines where it makes up 80% of the population.

Sister Richelle Elena – who is from the Philippines and came to watch Pope Francis’s coffin pass by on the papal vehicle – said: “We call him lolo kiko- our grandfather – and he is very close to us Filipinos because he embodies our values, the importance of families, dialogue, communion.”

Nicholas Bridges travelled with his pregnant wife Ludovica and their young children from the outskirts of Rome.

It’s a lot taking a one-year-old and a three-year-old to a public event attracting 400,000 people.

“It’s an early start but it’s such a historic event we had to come,” said Nicholas.

Elise Gascon from France wanted to share the moment with her grandparents.

She said she came so she could tell them what it was like in St Peter’s Square on the day the world’s Catholics said goodbye to their spiritual leader.