Tens of thousands file into St. Peter's Basilica to pay final respects to Pope Francis

VATICAN CITY (AP) — 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 and a half Thursday morning for cleaning.

The basilica was bathed in a hushed silence as mourners from across the globe made a slow, shuffling procession up the main aisle to pay their last respects to Francis, who died Monday at age 88 after a stroke.

The Vatican said more than 90,000 people had paid their respects by Thursday evening, a day and a half after opening. The basilica closed for just a short time Thursday morning, and will stay open Thursday night as long as there are mourners, the Vatican said.

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.

Robert Healy, a pilgrim from Ireland, flew on the spur of the moment from Dublin just to pay his respects.

“I think it's just really important to be here, to show our respect to the Holy Father,'' he said. "We flew from Dublin last night, we’re staying for one day, home tonight then. We just felt it was really important to be here.”

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.

After three days of public viewing, a funeral Mass including heads of state will be held Saturday in St. Peter's Square. The pope will then be buried in a niche within the St. Mary Major Basilica, near his favorite Madonna icon.

Italian authorities have tightened security around the Vatican, adding drones to foot and horse patrols to their controls along the Tiber River and Via della Conciliazione, which leads to St. Peter's Square, to secure the area for mourners and foreign delegation expected for the funeral.

The Vatican said 130 delegations are confirmed, including 50 heads of state and 10 reigning sovereigns. Among those confirming their attendance are U.S. President Donald Trump with the First Lady Melania Trump, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The prefect of Rome, Lamberto Giannini, told a news conference on Thursday that “I believe that the ‘security machine’ is ready,'' but will remain flexible and ”ready to reshape and above all transmit a sense of serenity.''

The death of Franci s capped a 12-year pontificate characterized by his concern for the poor and his message of inclusion, but he was also criticized by some conservatives who felt alienated by his progressive outlook.

A procession of priests, bishops and cardinals accompanied Francis’ body Wednesday on its journey from a private viewing inside the Vatican to St. Peter’s Square. The pageantry contrasted with the human interactions of rank-and-file mourners at the public viewing.

Francis lay in state in an open casket, perched on a ramp facing mourners, with four Swiss Guards standing at attention. As the crowd reached the casket, many lifted their smartphones to snap a photo.

One nun accompanying an elderly woman with a cane walked away sobbing, “My pope is gone.’’

Such despair was rare. The mood was more one of gratitude for a pope who had, by example, taught many people to open their minds.

“I am very devoted to the pope,'' said Ivenes Bianco, who was in Rome from Brindisi, Italy, for an operation. ”He was important to me because he brought many people together by encouraging coexistence.'' She cited Francis' acceptance of the gay community and his insistence on helping the poor.

Humbeline Coroy came to Rome from Perpignan, France, for the planned canonization Sunday of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, which was suspended after the pope’s death. She stayed to pay respects to Francis, enjoying exchanges with Japanese mourners they met as they waited under the sun in St. Peter’s Square.

“For me, it is a lot of things. In my job, I work with disabled children, and I traveled to Madagascar to work with poor people. Being here, and close to the pope, is a way of integrating these experiences, and make them concrete,’’ she said.

Cardinals continued to arrive in Rome for Saturday's funeral, and numbered 113 by Thursday. During a morning session "the cardinals started a conversation on the church and the world,'' the details of which remain private.

No sooner than May 5, after nine days of official mourning, cardinals under 80 years of age will meet in a conclave to choose a new pope. That number is expected to be 134, after Spanish Cardinal Antonio Cañizares said he would not make it to Rome for health reasons. Bosnian Cardinal Vinko Puljic, meanwhile, confirmed his participation after getting cleared by doctors, the Sarajevo diocese said.

“We have not yet opened the Conclave, and one feels that,'' said French Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, arriving for the cardinals' meeting. "For the moment I do not believe the cardinals are saying ‘who will be the next?’ For the moment we are here completely for Francis.”

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AP video journalists Trisha Thomas, Franceso Sportelli and Isaia Montelione in Vatican City and AP writer Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia contributed.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle leads a rosary prayer outside the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, where the late Pope Francis will be buried, in Rome, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, right, leaves after a rosary prayer outside the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, where the late Pope Francis will be buried, in Rome, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, center, leads a rosary prayer outside the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, where the late Pope Francis will be buried, in Rome, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

People line up to enter St. Peter's Basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis lying in state, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

People line up along Via della Conciliazione avenue to view Pope Francis lying in state inside St. Peter's Basilica, seen in the background, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

People walk along Via della Conciliazione avenue to line up to view Pope Francis lying in state inside St. Peter's Basilica, seen in the background, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Carabinieri paramilitary police patrol St. Peter's Square as people line up to enter St. Peter's Basilica where Pope Francis is lying in state, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

People wait in line under the rain to enter St.Peter's Basilica to view Pope Francis lying in state, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A group of four nuns, center left, wait in line with other people to view Pope Francis lying in state inside St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

A faithful holds a rosary while waiting in line to enter St.Peter's Basilica to view Pope Francis lying in state, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

People line up as they enter St. Peter's Basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis lying in state, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A woman takes a picture of a photograph of the late Pope Francis, that reads "Please, don't forget to pray for me" during a mass in his memory at the Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia outside the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

People line up as they enter St. Peter's Basilica to pay their respects to Pope Francis lying in state, at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Faithful pay their respects to Pope Francis lying in state inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Faithful pay their respects to Pope Francis lying in state inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Cardinal Camerlengo Kevin Joseph Farrell, center right, spreads incense around the body of Pope Francis inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, where he will lie in state for three days. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

The body of Pope Francis is carried through St. Peter's Square to St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, where he will lie in state for three days. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

People gather in St. Peter's Square as they await the arrival of the body of Pope Francis, who will lie in state at St. Peter's Basilica for three days, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Faithful gather to pay their respects to Pope Francis inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, where his body will lie in state for three days. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Faithful at St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025 as the body of the late Pope Francis will lie in state inside St. Peter's Basilica for three days. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

The body of Pope Francis is carried into St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, where he will lie in state for three days. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A gull flies above people waiting in St. Peter's Square to pay their respects to the late Pope Francis, who will lie in state at St. Peter's Basilica for three days, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Nuns sit in the Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia, outside Vatican City, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Faithful gather in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025 as the body of the late Pope Francis will lie in state inside St. Peter's Basilica for three days. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Men attend a rosary prayer for the late Pope Francis, at St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

People queue to pay their respects to the late Pope Francis, who will lie in state at St. Peter's Basilica for three days, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)

A tense calm hangs over Venezuela after the U.S. military operation that deposed President Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to New York to face criminal charges.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “run” the South American country and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

Maduro and his wife landed late Saturday afternoon at a small airport in New York. The couple face U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.

The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval. Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, demanded that the United States free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader as her nation’s high court named her interim president.

Here's the latest:

Associated Press video on Sunday shows a banner now on display in Iran’s capital warning the United States and Israel that their soldiers could be killed if they take action in the country.

Trump’s recent comment that the U.S. “will come to their rescue” if Iran kills peaceful protesters has taken on a new meaning after the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the “illegal U.S. attack against Venezuela.” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said adversaries of the U.S. should note that “America can project our will anywhere, anytime.”

From California to Missouri and Texas, protestors are planning demonstrations Sunday and through the week against President Donald Trump’s military operation and capture of Maduro, which one protest description called “the illegal, unconstitutional invasion of Venezuela.”

Dozens appear to be organized by chapters of Indivisible, a left-leaning group, and many take umbrage with Trump’s plans to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry and ask American companies to revitalize it.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa who serves as Senate president pro tempore, posted on X Saturday that Maduro is a narco-terrorist and his drug trafficking resulted in the deaths of too many Americans. He likened the Trump operation to then-President George Bush’s decision in 1989 to capture Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega following his indictment for drug trafficking.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat and one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics, posted that U.S. military action in Venezuela is unconstitutional and is putting troops in harm’s way with no long-term strategy. “The American people deserve a President focused on making their lives more affordable,” Pritzker wrote.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, posted a statement on X calling the strikes illegal and criticizing Trump for taking action without congressional approval. “The President does not have the unilateral authority to invade foreign countries, oust their governments, and seize their resources,” she wrote.

France’s foreign minister says the departure of President Nicolás Maduro “is good news for the Venezuelans” and called for a peaceful and democratic transition of power.

Jean-Noël Barrot said “Maduro was an unscrupulous dictator who confiscated Venezuelans’ freedom and stole their elections.”

“Then, yes, we pointed out that the method used infringes the principles of international law,” Barrot said about the U.S. military operation on France 2 national television.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, called Maduro “a horrible, horrible person” but added, “You don’t treat lawlessness with other lawlessness. And that’s what’s happened.”

“We have learned through the years that, when America tries to regime change and nation-building in this way, the American people pay the price in both blood and results,” Schumer told ABC’s “This Week.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says President Donald Trump’s conversations with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez now are ”very matter-of-fact and very clear: You can lead or you can get out of the way, because we’re not going to allow you to continue to subvert American influence and our need to have a free country like Venezuela to work with rather than to have dictators in place who perpetuate crimes and drug trafficking.”

Noem tells “Fox News Sunday” that the United States wants a leader in Venezuela who will be “a partner that understands that we’re going to protect America” when it comes to stopping drug trafficking and “terrorists from coming into our country.”

She says that “we’re looking for a leader that will stand up beside us and embrace those freedoms and liberties for the Venezuelan people but also ensure that they’re not perpetuating crimes around the globe like they’ve had in the past.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to back off Trump’s assertions that the U.S. was running Venezuela, insisting instead that Washington will use control of the South American country’s oil industry to force policy changes and, “We expect that it’s going to lead to results here.”

“We’re hopeful, hopeful, that it does positive results for the people for Venezuela,” Rubio told ABC’s “This Week.” “But, ultimately, most importantly, in the national interest of the United States.”

Asked about Trump suggesting that Rubio would be among the U.S. officials helping to run Venezuela, Rubio offered no details but said, “I’m obviously very intricately involved in the policy” going forward.

He said of Venezuela’s interim leader: “We don’t believe this regime in place is legitimate” because the country never held free and fair elections.

Venezuela’s capital Caracas was unusually quiet Sunday with few vehicles moving around. Convenience stores, gas stations and other businesses were mostly closed.

The presence of police and members of the military across the city was notable for its smaller size compared with an average day and even more so with the days when people protested against Maduro’s government in previous years.

Meanwhile, soldiers attempted to clear an area of an air base that had been on fire along with at least three passenger buses following Saturday’s U.S. attack.

The Brooklyn jail holding Nicolás Maduro is a facility so troubled that some judges have refused to send people there even as it has housed such famous inmates as music stars R. Kelly and Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Opened in the early 1990s, the Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC Brooklyn, currently houses about 1,300 inmates.

It’s the routine landing spot for people awaiting trial in federal courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn, holding alleged gangsters and drug traffickers alongside some people accused of white collar crimes.

Maduro is not the first president of a country to be locked up there.

Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, was imprisoned at MDC Brooklyn while he was on trial for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the U.S. Hernández was pardoned and freed by President Donald Trump in December.

▶ Read more about MDC Brooklyn

Residents look at a damaged apartment complex that neighbors say was hit during U.S. strikes to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A soldier stands atop an armored vehicle driving toward Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Shoppers line up at a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)