With hundreds of world leaders present at Pope Francis' funeral on Saturday, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re called for care for migrants, an end to conflict and action to combat global climate change – issues close to Francis' heart.
Cardinal Battista again delivered one of his sharpest criticisms of US President Donald Trump, who was in the crowd, calling for “building bridges, not walls.”
Trump and the Pope have traded criticism over the past decade, largely over the Pope's calls for compassion for migrants, a group Trump has repeatedly tried to deport.
Cardinal Battista's sermon, heard by millions around the world, contained a powerful political message for national leaders and a powerful domestic message for Catholic cardinals around the world.
For the roughly 135 Catholic cardinals who will soon gather for a secret conclave to choose the next pope, it also provided a potential roadmap to begin their discussions.
In spiritual language, the 91-year-old prelate expressed a simple thought: there is no turning back.
Pope Francis, the first pontiff from Latin America to attract worldwide attention during his 12-year pontificate, was “attentive to the signs of the times and to what the Holy Spirit was awakening in the Church.”
“Pope Francis, with his human warmth and his deep sense of contemporary challenges, sincerely shared the concerns, sufferings and hopes of his time,” Cardinal Battista noted.
He said he touched people's hearts in a “direct and immediate way.”
Francis, pope since 2013, died on Monday at the age of 88.
His funeral on Saturday, also attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and about 50 other world leaders, was a carefully orchestrated affair with Latin chants, strict seating arrangements and ancient Catholic rituals.
Cardinal Battista recalled Pope Francis's criticism of Trump in 2016, when the businessman first ran for president, saying Trump was “not a Christian” because of his views on immigration.
“A person who thinks only of building walls and not of bridges is not a Christian,” Francis said at the time. “That is not in the Gospel.”
Trump then responded: “It is shameful for a religious leader to question a person's faith.”
Most recently, the Pope described Trump's moves to curb immigration during his second term as a “disgrace.”
Cardinal Battista also referred to an important document written by Pope Francis in 2015 on climate change, which was expected to influence discussions at the 2016 Paris climate conference, as well as the Pope's visits to the Mediterranean islands of Lampedusa and Lesbos, where he met with migrants in detention camps.
There is no clear favorite to succeed Francis as pope, but there is a history of sermons at papal funerals influencing the conclave's choice.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
