Pope Francis

Mourners who flocked to the Pope’s lying-in-state on Wednesday have blasted ghoulish social media users for snapping selfies next to his open casket.

After passing away aged 88 on Easter Monday, Francis’ body has been carried into Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City for the three-day ritual.

Around 50,000 faithful have paid respects to the late Pontiff, but some sparked fury after posting macabre selfies which saw Francis’ body laid out in robes in a wooden coffin in the background.

Social media users are receiving backlash for posting selfies with Pope Francis' body in his open casket. Some people even tried using selfie sticks but were told to put them away pic.twitter.com/fKKr5VToNE

— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) April 24, 2025

h/t patthedog

The left loved Pope Francis when he denigrated capitalism, globalization, inequalities between rich and poor as well as Muslim migrants, and when he put theoretical Catholic violence and very real Islamic violence on the same level. The left loved the Pope when Francis willingly submitted to the dictates of political correctness and seemed to have adopted Chesterton’s famous “crazy Christian virtues”.

Thousands of faithful queued in Vatican City to pay their respects to Pope Francis on Friday, days after the pontiff passed away on Easter Monday at the age of 88.

It is the last day for the public to see the pope’s coffin ahead of his funeral the day after. Until 7 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) mourners can bid farewell to the late pontiff before his coffin is sealed.

Modern popes, for better or for worse, tend to be defined in soundbites.

John Paul II’s clarion call of “Be not afraid” became emblematic of his invitation to young Catholics to embrace their faith and his rallying of the West against the specter of international communism. Benedict XVI’s great theological career, and his term as a pope in the model of priest and professor, remains summed up in his simple declaration that Deus caritas est. For Francis, the world will likely remember, in the immediate weeks after his death anyway, his often quoted, though often misrepresented, motto of “who am I to judge?”

Pope Francis has died aged 88 after a bout of pneumonia that left him in hospital for weeks earlier this year.

The pontiff, who has been the head of the Catholic Church since 2013, died at 7.35am on Easter Monday, the Vatican announced in a video message.

His death came a day after his first prolonged public appearance since being discharged on March 23 from a 38-day hospital stay.

Pope Francis is slowly regaining his strength in hospital but must “relearn to speak” after prolonged use of high-flow oxygen therapy, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez said on Friday.

The cardinal, who is the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, dismissed speculation that the Pope would retire and said he was returning to his old self.

“The Pope is doing very well, but high-flow oxygen dries everything out. He needs to relearn how to speak, but his overall physical condition is as it was before,” Cardinal Fernandez said at a presentation of a new book by Pope Francis on poetry.

On Feb 14, 2025, Muslim terrorists kidnapped 70 Christians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, took them to a church, tied them up and beheaded them. Their bodies were left there to rot by the Muslim killers who did it to show the supremacy of Islam over Christianity.

Pope Francis’s condition continues to be “critical” after suffering a “prolonged asthma-like respiratory crisis” earlier on Saturday, the Vatican has said.

The pontiff is “more unwell than yesterday” and had received blood transfusions, the statement said.

The Vatican said the 88-year-old was alert and in his armchair, but required a “high flow” of oxygen and his prognosis “remains guarded”.

The Pope is being treated for pneumonia in both lungs at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome.

For anyone wondering if the ailing Pope Francis will emulate his predecessor Pope Benedict and resign, it is not much use listening to what Francis himself has to say on the subject.

In a memoir, Life: My Story Through History, published last year, Francis wrote, “I think that the Petrine ministry is ‘ad vitam’ [‘for life’] and therefore I see no conditions for a resignation”, only to add in the next sentence, “things would change if a serious physical impediment were to arise”.