The most profound moment': thousands queue to honour pope

Thousands of people queued for hours under the hot spring sun in St Peter's Square yesterday to pay their final respects to Pope Francis, whose simple wooden coffin has been placed on the main altar of the 16th-century basilica where he will lie in state until tomorrow evening.

- Angela Giuffrida Vatican City

The pope, the head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, died at his home in Casa Santa Marta on Monday aged 88 after a stroke and subsequent heart failure. He had been recovering from double pneumonia for which he was treated in hospital for five weeks.

In keeping with his requests for simple funeral rites, Francis was dressed in his vestments, holding a rosary, with his open casket lined with red cloth. His coffin, which is being watched over by two Swiss Guards, has not been raised on a platform, one of the rituals Francis shunned when he simplified rules for papal funerals last year.

His funeral mass will take place at St Peter's Square on Saturday morning, an event that will be attended by world leaders and royals including the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the US president, Donald Trump, and Prince William. Francis will be buried at the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome's Esquilino neighbourhood, breaking with Vatican tradition.

Yesterday morning mourners erupted into a prolonged but sombre applause as Francis's coffin was carried through the square by pallbearers in a solemn procession involving dozens of cardinals and bishops and watched over by Swiss Guards.

The bells of the basilica gently tolled as a choir chanted psalms and prayers in Latin.