Rome, Italy (AFP)—Hundreds of thousands of mourners joined world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, to bid farewell Saturday to Pope Francis, a champion of the poor who strived to forge a more compassionate Catholic church.

The Vatican said 400,000 people packed St Peter’s Square and lined the streets of Rome for the funeral of the first Latin American leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

After a solemn funeral, the Argentine pontiff’s plain wooden coffin — a testament to a life of humility — was driven slowly to Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore church, where he was interred in a private ceremony.

Cardinals marked his coffin with red wax seals before it was lowered into a tomb set inside an alcove, according to images released by the Vatican.

Guatemalan Maria Vicente, 52, holding a rosary, cried as she watched the coffin being carried into Santa Maria Maggiore, the pope’s favourite Roman church.

“It made me very sad. It’s touching that he left us like that,” she said.

Fourteen white-gloved pallbearers carried the coffin into the church, as children placed baskets of flowers at the altar and a choir sang prayers.

The marble tomb is inscribed with just one word: “Franciscus”, his papal name in Latin.

Trump was among more than 50 heads of state at the funeral. He  met several world leaders in a corner of the St Peter’s basilica before, notably Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, in their first face-to-face meeting since their Oval Office clash in February.

-An open heart-

Francis, who died on Monday aged 88, was “a pope among the people, with an open heart”, who strove for a more compassionate, open-minded Catholic Church, said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re who led the service.

There was applause from the masses gathered under bright blue skies as he hailed the pope’s “conviction that the Church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open”.

Francis sought to steer the Church into a more inclusive direction during his 12-year-long papacy, and his death prompted a global outpouring of emotion.

Maria Mrula, 28, a student from Germany, said she drove 16 hours to be at the funeral.

“Giving to the poor and being with the poor”, Francis had inspired many, she said.

“The Church is alive,” she said. “It was great being here.”

Italian and Vatican authorities mounted a major security operation for the ceremony, with fighter jets on standby and snipers positioned on roofs surrounding the tiny city state.

Red-robed cardinals and purple-hatted bishops sat on one side of the altar in St Peter’s Square during the funeral, with world dignitaries sitting opposite.

In front of the altar lay the pope’s simple cypress coffin, inlaid with a pale cross.