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Cardinals Pay Respects at Pope's Coffin; Pope Francis Lying in State at St. Peter's Basilica. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired April 23, 2025 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[04:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): May be he's with me where I am, to see my glory, that you have given me, because you loved me from the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The proclamation of the Gospel passage will be followed by intercessions. Prayers for the needs of the Church and for the soul of Pope Francis.

Brothers and sisters, let us pray to God, our Father, that he may welcome our departed Shepherd to his eternal home, and increase our faith in the resurrection of the dead. The response is, We beseech thee, hear us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): For the late Pope Francis, that the Chief Shepherd, who eternally lives to intercede for us, may welcome him into his kingdom of light and peace.

For the Holy Church of God, that in fidelity to her mandate she may be, in Christ, a leaven of renewal in our human family.

For every people and nation, that in the pursuit of justice they may dwell in peace as one family, united by fraternal affection.

For all of us gathered here in prayer, that we may one day be reunited in the kingdom of heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Cardinal Farrell leads us in the Our Father.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The concluding prayer.

CARDINAL FARRELL (through translator): God, our salvation hear us as we pray in union with all the Saints. And welcome into the assembly of your elect, the soul of your servant, our Pope Francis, who placed his trust in the Church's prayer through Christ our Lord.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this service concludes with the Marian Antiphon "Salve Regina."

(CHOIR SINGS "SALVE REGINA")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The Chant of the "Salve Regina" concludes the rite of translation of the body of Pope Francis from the Casa Santa Marta to the Basilica of Saint Peter, where he will lie in state for the next three days until his funeral on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. Rome time. And with that we conclude this live broadcast. Please visit our Vatican News website, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: If you're just joining us, a very good morning. It's just past 10 o'clock here in the morning in Vatican City. You have been watching our special coverage as we see the Pope's coffin, his casket, being transferred from Casa Santa Marta, where he resided, to Saint Peter's Basilica.

I'm Isa Soares, joined alongside my colleague Anderson Cooper and our Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb, and really taking stock and moved by these incredibly moving images as the Pope was transferred. By those who knew best, carrying them on their shoulders. A beautiful, solemn ceremony, moment, and prayers that he would no doubt would have had a say in what he would want to hear.

The beautiful view here as so many turn out, as we have a wider shot view here of Saint Peter's Square. The square filling up with so many mourners clapping as his casket passed. No doubt many also incredibly moved by what they are seeing, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I have to say this is one of the most extraordinary things to have witnessed, something no one alive has seen before, this procession through the streets, the Pope in an open casket, carried into Saint Peter's Basilica. Extraordinary.

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: A truly historic moment. Francis coming from the Casa Santa Marta, and he wanted his final farewell to be a simple affair.

[04:10:00]

He wanted to be remembered -- he wants to be remembered as a shepherd and a disciple, not as a powerful man as well.

And we saw with this ceremony, you know, the mix between Francis' desire for that simplicity, but also the traditional liturgy that the Catholic Church has for people who have died, the way that the Church organizes prayers so that people can say farewell to a loved one. We heard the Invocation of the Saints, the Intercession of the Saints, which were prayed for, prayed specifically for Pope Francis.

So that idea that the Pope, as he departs from his earthly journey, is to be welcomed into the next world.

COOPER: And as we talked about before, but for those who are just joining, the Pope has written as early as this recent February for a book that just is coming out this week by another Cardinal about his view of what happens, about that this is not the end, this is a new beginning. LAMB: Absolutely, and his faith and the faith of the Church is that death doesn't mean the end, but something different. And Francis really held onto that very strongly in his final days as he faced the suffering and sickness. He was able to maintain hope despite going through what was a horrendous experience in hospital.

And I think there's a message there that suffering and death doesn't have to have the last word and that this service we've seen is, I think, very hopeful and it's what I think the Pope would have wanted to communicate.

SOARES: And we've seen the Pope's casket there and the Altar of the Confession, which is above the tomb of Saint Peter, incredibly symbolic, as you were saying. It's 11 minutes past 10 here in Vatican City and in what, less than 50 minutes or so, we'll be able to see mourners, anyone from any walk of life, be able to make their way in and pay their respects to Pope Francis, a man clearly, as Christopher was saying, wanted to be remembered, not as a king, an ordinary man, but as a bishop, Bishop of Rome, of course, in its simplicity.

But important to point out also to viewers, this, the funeral, which will be on Saturday, he will be lying in state until then, but he will not be interred here, and that is significant.

LAMB: It is significant. He's decided that he wants to be buried in the Santa Maria Maggiore, an ancient Roman basilica about a 10-minute drive from the Vatican, and he wants to be buried in a simple tomb which simply says Franciscus on it. So that simplicity that the Pope tried to model during his pontificate is there in his burial, in his tomb, and we can see the Cardinals coming forward to pay their respects.

COOPER: This idea of death as a new beginning, as a journey to eternity -- I think eternity was the word that the Pope used. It's so interesting, you may do a podcast about grief called "All There Is," and one of the things I've learned in my own journey through this world of grief is that you can still have a relationship with somebody who has died. The relationship doesn't necessarily end.

In some ways it can deepen and it can change, and you can learn new things about the person even though they are gone, and that's something I think in the Catholic faith is very present in people's understanding of death.

LAMB: Absolutely, and I think that's where devotion to the Saints is rooted. The idea that someone is in heaven and you can pray to them or pray for their intercession, have a relationship with them, that the world beyond this one, if that's your faith, is not something that's far away, and therefore there is this idea you can have a relationship with someone who has died, and that Francis, through his legacy, I think would want people to feel that they can still interact with what he stood for and what he tried to communicate during his days.

SOARES: And on that point, as Anderson was saying, often though, you know, growing up as a Catholic, that grief was very much shut behind closed doors. Yes, you prayed to Saints, but that grief was internal, you did not air that. Pope Francis, in being so open, speaking about his ailments, even when he was in hospital, he's kind of cracked the door open somewhat in speaking out, in having that frankness, which is something that I haven't felt in the Catholic Church for a while.

COOPER: Also, even in an event like this, where you have so many people watching, it is a communal grief, which is the way grief used to be felt. And it's still in some cultures, but in the United States, certainly, it has become less communal. It's now something sort of hidden behind closed doors.

[04:15:00]

People cry, you know, the names of their loved ones in whispers that only they can hear, because it's not something that people are comfortable having be communal. And I think, certainly, this experience is a communal global experience that people are taking part in.

LAMB: Absolutely, and I think that the idea behind having this open coffin, open casket, for people to come to pay their respects, is about not trying to shut death away behind closed doors, but allowing people to experience grief, to go through the process of saying goodbye to someone, to allow the emotions to flow, and that's a healthy thing, and that's a good thing, and I think that's what is behind this idea that people can come and see Francis for this one last time.

COOPER: And people will be able to do that for the next three days. I've heard a wide variety of numbers of how many people came to see Pope John Paul II back in 2005. I was here for the coverage.

I remember the lines just seemed endless. I've heard 200,000, 300,000. I've heard higher figures than that.

But whatever the actual number, it is an opportunity for everybody to pay their respects, but also to step into their own grief and also to the grief of the Catholic Church.

LAMB: That's right, and I think we are going to see big lines and huge numbers of people coming in to see Francis.

SOARES: And these are the Cardinals, correct, that we're looking at, paying their respects?

LAMB: We're now seeing the Bishops.

SOARES: There now the Bishops. We had the Cardinals earlier.

LAMB: Thousands have come through.

SOARES: And now the bishops.

COOPER: There are 130 -- correct me if I'm wrong -- 139 cardinals.

LAMB: 135.

COOPER: 135 cardinals. Right, but it's actually limited to 120 who actually have a say in --

SOARES: Under the age of 80, right?

LAMB: Yes, well, yes. So there is a bar the Pope is supposed to follow that he shouldn't appoint more than 120 voting cardinals. However, Francis exceeded that limit, and actually John Paul II also exceeded that limit, so it's not unheard of. So any Cardinal under the age of 80 can vote, even though the Pope has gone over that 120.

COOPER: So all 135 can vote?

LAMB: Correct, those who are under the age of 80. And of course you've got the Cardinals who are over the age of 80 who can also attend some of the pre-conclave meetings. And they can be quite important in giving their views as well.

SOARES: Of the 135, how many of those did Pope Francis appoint?

LAMB: More than two-thirds of those.

COOPER: Which is important. It's not just an interesting fact. This is actually important in terms of it may affect, it may impact how the vote goes in ways we don't even really know.

LAMB: Well, that's right. We don't know how it's going to go because the Pope changed that body, the College of Cardinals, so dramatically. He internationalized it. He chose bishops from places that had never had cardinals before.

Places like Tonga, Haiti, Central Africa, Mongolia. He kind of also dismantled the ecclesiastical career ladder. Because before Francis, if you were the Bishop of a certain diocese, particularly in Italy and also other parts of the world, you would assume you'd be a Cardinal.

But Francis said, no, I'm not going to make you a Cardinal. I'm only going to make Cardinals who I think are worthy of the position. And even in the Vatican, he chose junior officials.

For example, the official running his office for migration made him a Cardinal. So he kind of inverted the career ladder. So if you thought you were going to become a CARDINAL, you basically weren't going to become one.

SOARES: Even though he stacked the College of Cardinals, quite a few people that he put there, it doesn't necessarily mean that we have any sort of insight into the way the Catholic Church is going to go, whether they can continue following Pope Francis' line.

LAMB: My point that I was trying to make there was that because he's filled the college with candidates from different parts of the world who we don't necessarily know how they're going to vote, it's a very unpredictable situation. Because some of the voters, we don't know a huge amount about them. And also, how much do they know about Rome?

Some of them, I know, don't speak Italian. They don't know the Roman system. How's that going to work? SOARES: So the next few days are going to be critical in terms of getting to know each other, especially with the new cardinals who've never been here, perhaps have never met any of the other cardinals.

[04:20:00]

This is going to be important. I know everyone compares it to the movie.

COOPER: I know, which is --

SOARES: The point of reference for so many.

COOPER: But how much is known about, I mean, how much does personality play into it? How much does -- do alliances, do discussions between Cardinals during the conclave? I mean, people aren't, are people openly campaigning? Do you know?

LAMB: Well, I think anyone who's openly campaigning is not going to get chosen. I mean, that's the first mistake, is to show you're openly campaigning. I think, you know, someone said the Vatican is more political than Washington and other places because at least there you can say, well, I'll do this, deal with you if you do this.

You start that in the Vatican, that's the end. If called, I will serve.

But I think the point is that we don't know exactly how the conversation is going to go. Obviously personality, experience, who the candidate is hugely important. But equally, is the church they come from, is their church a growing church? Also, what do the Cardinals envisage as the main priorities?

Do they want to continue very much with the Francis reforms? Do they want to continue but do it in a more cautious way? With a pope who perhaps is a little bit more predictable, a bit less shock and awe?

And of course there are those who want to say, let's try and go in a different direction.

SOARES: So let me push you then on that. What is your sense then, Christopher, from your conversations, as to the direction that the Catholic Church wants to go? Because to many that I've spoken to, Francis was a bit of a lightning rod.

Do they want to -- are there elements of Francis where they want to keep? Or are we going towards a more conservative route in terms of how the Catholic Church wants to present itself?

LAMB: I think Francis has ensured that what he started in terms of reform processes, we're talking about the role of women in the church, we're talking about bishops listening to lay Catholics, we're talking about reforms in all sorts of other areas, accountability of bishops. I think those are going to continue. The question is how far, how fast? Yes, there is a minority who want to go in a different direction. I don't see them as winning the day in the arguments. But I think the big question is how are they going to continue what Francis has started?

Now the Pope, although he shook things up, he didn't really change fundamentals in terms of doctrine. He didn't change structures hugely. He started conversations.

He started a conversation about the role of women in the church --

SOARES: He appointed women to senior roles.

LAMB: -- within senior positions in the Vatican. He broke a number of glass ceilings, absolutely. But there are some who would say, what about women deacons? A level of service in the church just below priesthood for women to be ordained.

Now he said we can have a conversation about that, but he kind of said he's not going to change that. So what he did was he opened up a lot of processes of reform. He made very important changes.

Don't get me wrong, they were very, very significant. But the question is how does the next Pope continue that?

COOPER: It's not just, you know, the most obvious question is the conservative versus more progressive or liberal, but there's also global south, global north. There's now a majority of Cardinals who are from the global south, from Latin America, from Africa, where there are growing numbers of Catholics. I think the Cardinal in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I think the church is thriving there with some six to seven million Catholics.

SOARES: In the Philippines even, yes.

LAMB: Exactly, and I think that's were the kind of --

COOPER: By the way, you know, in Africa there's more conservative on a number of social issues.

LAMB: Yes, exactly. And when the Pope, of course, made that very dramatic and significant decision to allow blessing for same sex couples, some bishops in Africa said, look, we're not going to do it.

COOPER: I mean, that was it. It wasn't as if the Pope pushed globally that that had to be done. He sort of made the statement about it, allowed it, but didn't push it.

LAMB: Exactly. He has allowed for some diversity of viewpoints, and I think that's also the major challenge for the next Pope. The Catholic Church is a huge global organization operating in a vast array of different cultures who look at things in very different ways, and so how do you kind of hold that together? That's a key question.

[04:25:00] I think the progressive conservative framing doesn't always hold for the cardinals because they're coming from a very different agenda. Some of them are concerned about -- they're working in war zones. They've got migration crisis.

COOPER: Corruption. Corruption.

LAMB: And so the kind of framing of progressive, conservative, well, that thinking, I don't think that's really how they're going to look at it.

SOARES: They're weighing it up, especially as we see a growth of Catholicism, specifically in parts of Asia, but also, you know, against this backdrop of deep polarization around the world. Certainly they'll be thinking about a more open church, a church where, like Pope Francis, you go to your flock rather than one that shuts its doors. Would that be something they will be weighing up?

LAMB: I think most Cardinals will be, I think, fairly supportive of how Francis was open, how the pastoral, I think they're very impressed with how he did that. And I think the next pope will be expected to try and continue in that way.

Now, there's, of course, the geopolitical situation that's going to play a big impact. How is the Trump administration and what's going on in the United States, how is that going to play into the conclave? Then you've got to think about China.

SOARES: Also his final march.

LAMB: Well, the fact that we're seeing such huge shifts in the geopolitical landscape, how we're seeing multilateral institutions, the UN, EU, being less able to -- the post-war consensus basically breaking down. How does the conclave, how do the Cardinals, see the next pope playing into that?

Do they want a pope to stand up to the MAGA movement? Do they want a pope who can build bridges with China? Of course, Francis signed an important diplomatic agreement with China.

How is that going to play into it? And, of course, if you go with a pope from Asia, obviously the China relationship is really very important. But there are cardinals who want a more -- how can I say? A more confrontational relationship with China. They're not happy with how Francis dealt with it.

So I think the geopolitical situation is going to be impactful.

SOARES: I thought it was interesting, you know, this morning I spoke to Filippo Grandi, who is the commissioner for the UN for refugees. He's Italian as well.

And we all remember one of the first trips that Pope Francis did was to the island of Lampedusa, where so many migrants are coming in. A story that I covered, a crisis I covered, the Haydn migrant crisis. And what he said to me is that Francis, unlike so many others, he also had the political courage to speak truth in terms of immigration, in terms of the wars and the crisis. But also even confronting some of those political voices clashing often with President Trump on the question of immigration, mass migration we're seeing, but also the USA cuts and how important, what kind of impact that has had on refugees, on the voiceless, on the powerless throughout the world.

LAMB: Yes, and I think that will also play into things in the future conclave. Now, Pope Francis, he was a political pope. He understood how politics work. And he tried to make as big an impact as he could on the global stage when it came to protection of the planet, migration crisis, all of those things.

He didn't want the church to sit on the sidelines. He wanted the church to get its hands dirty and get involved in these things.

And I think the Cardinals will be looking for a pope who is able to engage in the big global discussions and to be that moral voice. That is very important because that's the influence of the papacy.

COOPER: As we continue to look at some of these remarkable images, we are still seeing members of the Church, members of the Vatican staff, saying prayers with St. Francis inside St. Peter's Basilica. It's going to open up to the public in about half an hour, we believe, and will be open to visitation for the next three days.

We've been not taking any breaks because we wanted to bring you all of this extraordinary day, this extraordinary last several hours without interruption.

We're going to take a short break and our coverage continues in just a moment.

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