Buenos Aires bids farewell to native pontiff with call to action

With songs, candles, flags and prayers, mourners in Buenos Aires marked the burial of pontiff and native son Pope Francis on Saturday.

As the 88-year-old was being laid to rest an ocean away in Rome, thousands gathered by Buenos Aires' cathedral for dawn vigils and a mass of remembrance.

"He's here among the ragged ones, those of us living in the slums among the cardboard," said Esteban Trabuco, a 27-year-old cartonero, or rubbish recycler. "He knew about our suffering. How could we not be here today to say goodbye." 

The mourners were urged to take up the activist mantle of Latin America's first pope and to carry on his work of creating an activist Church that champions the poor and downtrodden.

"Let us be the outgoing Church that Francis always wanted us to be, a restless Church that mobilises," Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge García Cuerva said at a funeral Mass. 

"The marginalised cry, those who are left aside, the despised, but those of us who lead a life more or less without needs do not know how to cry," said the archbishop.

"Be courageous. Do not be afraid to cry. That is why today we mourn Francis ... because pain also unites us as a people," said García Cuerva.

Braving rain and the antipodean autumn chill, dozens of people set up tents in the city's famed Plaza de Mayo for an overnight vigil until 5am local time (8am GMT), when Pope Francis's funeral began in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

Images of the pope and the Virgin of Luján were illuminated with candles, bread was broken and flags were flown. 

"The poor people loved him. He left many things with us, especially the idea of serving others in what you do," said Agustina Renfiges, a 46-year-old nurse. "I hope the church remembers the poor."

Iara Amado, a 25-year-old social worker, said she wanted the vigil "to reclaim the pope's legacy, to transform the sadness left by his departure into a beacon of hope."  

'Remember the poor'

After Mass in the cathedral where then Jorge Bergoglio was archbishop until 2013 before becoming pope, the faithful carried images of him around the square.

Bit by bit, the gathering took on a festival air, with the crowd singing, dancing and playing drums. Some wore carnival costumes as street vendors offered souvenirs featuring the pope's smiling face.

Spotted in the crowd was the flag of San Lorenzo, the football club of which Bergoglio was a lifelong fan. The club paid tribute to the pontiff Saturday, unfurling a massive banner of its most famous supporter and placing a statue of him on the pitch, a San Lorenzo scarf tied around the neck.

"To think that they are sad in Rome," laughed Norma Brioso, 63, dancing to the sound of drums. "Francisco is alive here among us... He would be happy to see us like this on the streets celebrating his life."

A funeral procession wound though neighbourhoods of the capital including Plaza Constitución, a gritty area of sex workers and homeless people, where Bergoglio had once declared: "You can do a lot, the most humble, the exploited, the poor and the excluded."

It stopped at a community center in Villa Zabaleta, where neighbours washed each other's feet, as Bergoglio once did there.

For many in perennially crisis-stricken Argentina, Pope Francis was not just a religious guide but a source of national pride.

His willingness to champion the poor, challenge governments and delight in everything – dancing tango, playing football, sipping Argentina's beloved mate tea – gave him popular appeal.

In his final years, Pope Francis often tussled with political leaders, including Argentina's current libertarian president Javier Milei, who attended his funeral in Rome.

Francis never returned to his homeland after becoming pope.

An image of the pope with the inscription "pray for me" was projected onto the capital's famous Obelisk.

Lucas Pedro, a 40-year-old teacher, said those celebrating the late Argentine pontiff did so "with a deep sense of gratitude."

– TIMES/AFP