Vatican keeps St. Peter's open all night for public viewing of Francis

Vatican City, Apr. 25: So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St. Peter's Basilica that the Vatican kept the doors open all night due to higher-than-expected turnout, closing the basilica for just an hour Thursday morning for cleaning.

The basilica is bathed in a hushed silence as mourners from across the globe make a slow, shuffling procession up the main aisle to pay their last respects to Francis, who died Monday after a stroke.

The hours spent on line up the stately via della Conciliazione through St. Peter's Square and through the Holy Door into the basilica has allowed mourners to find community around the Argentine pontiff's legacy of inclusion and humble persona.

Emiliano Fernandez, a Catholic from Mexico, was waiting in line around midnight, and after two hours still had not reached the basilica.

"I don't even care how much time I wait here. It's just the opportunity to (show) how I admired Francisco in his life,'' said Fernandez, whose admiration for the pope grew during his 2016 visit to Mexico. "I think because of the respect that I have for him and the great person he was, it's worth the wait."

The last numbers released by the Vatican said more than 20,000 people had paid their respects during the first 8 ½ hours of the public viewing on Wednesday. The basilica closed for just one hour Thursday morning, from 6 a.m. until 7 a.m., the planned opening time.

Among the first-day mourners was a church group of 14-year-olds from near Milan who arrived for the now-suspended canonization of the first millennial saint, as well as a woman who prayed to the pope for a successful operation and an Italian family who brought their small children to see the pope's body.

"We came because we didn't bring them when he was alive, so we thought we would bring them for a final farewell,'' said Rosa Scorpati, who was exiting the basilica Wednesday with her three children in strollers. "They were good, but I don't think they really understood because they haven't yet had to deal with death."

Like many others, the Scorpati family from Calabria was in Rome on an Easter vacation, only to be met with the news of Francis' death on Easter Monday.

Out of devotion to the pope and his message of inclusion, the grieving faithful joined the procession of mourners that wended from St. Peter's Square through the basilica's Holy Door, with the repentant among them winning an indulgence, a form of atonement granted during the Jubilee Holy Year. From there, the line extended down the basilica's central aisle to the pope's simple wooden casket.

By late Wednesday, the wait appeared to be three or four hours and growing. A person doing crowd management estimated that the wait was closer to five hours. The mourners stretched down the center of Via della Conciliazione, in a lane set aside for Jubilee pilgrims.(AP)