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Pope Francis buried after funeral attended by world leaders, royals and 400,000 mourners – live

As the recent film Conclave showed, predicting the next pope is not a straightforward matter. Francis – the first Jesuit pope – was a surprise choice; a fact the Argentinian immediately acknowledged when he joked that his fellow cardinals had had to “go to the end of the earth” to find a new bishop of Rome. But among the names frequently mentioned as possible successors are Matteo Zuppi, a progressive Italian cardinal; Pietro Parolin, who serves as the Vatican’s secretary of state; and Luis Antonio Tagle, from the Philippines.

Huge explosion in Iranian port wounds at least 516 people

An immense blast in Iran’s southern port of Shahid Rajaee has killed at least four people and wounded more than 500, according to state media, with an official suggesting the fire was caused by the explosion of chemical containers. A spokesperson for Iran’s crisis management body pointed to poor storage conditions of chemicals as the trigger for the port explosion. “The cause of the explosions was the chemicals inside the containers,” Hossein Zafari, a crisis management spokesperson, told Iran’s ILNA news agency. He added that the port administration had previously been warned about the danger these chemicals posed. The Iranian government has not yet specified the exact cause of the explosion, though it suspected combustible chemicals to be behind the blast. The provincial attorney general had ordered a “thorough and urgent” investigation into the circumstances of the explosion, which local officials said began in several containers in the port. Shahid Rajaee is a large Iranian container facility that handles 80m tons of goods a year, including fuel and other combustible materials. It is part of the Bandar Abbas port, the country’s largest. State media had previously quoted Iranian security officials as saying “any speculation about the cause of the explosion is worthless”. Videos showed a huge billowing mushroom cloud, with the force of the blast destroying a nearby building and shattering windows. Injured people lay on the roadside as authorities declared a state of emergency at hospitals across Bandar Abbas to cope with the influx of wounded. Aerial and naval firefighting teams worked to extinguish the blast, with state media reporting officials expected the firefighting operation to be completed within an hour. Local media reported people trapped under the wreckage of a collapsed building. In the aftermath of the explosion, port activities were suspended and Iranian customs officials halted export and transit shipments to the port. The state-owned National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said that oil refineries, tankers and pipelines in the area continued to operate and were unaffected by the blast. The explosion occurred as Iran and the US met for the third round of nuclear talks in Oman on Saturday, aiming to achieve a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. The US and Israel view the prospect of Iran getting a nuclear weapon as an urgent threat. In 2020, the Shahid Rajaee container facility was hit with a complex cyber-attack that jammed port logistics, which the Washington Post reported as being perpetrated by Israel in retaliation for an Iranian cyber-attack. The cyber-attack was one of a series of incidents that has affected Iranian critical infrastructure in recent years. The government has blamed some of the incidents, such as a 2024 coalmine blast in southern Iran which killed 31 people, on negligence. Tehran has accused Israel of being behind other incidents, such as an attack on Iranian gas pipelines last year. The Israeli government made no comment on Saturday’s explosions in Iran. Reuters contributed to this report

Trump and Zelenskyy hold ‘very productive’ ceasefire talks at Vatican

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy used their time at the Vatican while attending the funeral of Pope Francis to discuss a possible ceasefire with Russia, with the Ukrainian president releasing a photograph of a seemingly intense conversation in St Peter’s Basilica. The White House described the meeting as “very productive”, while Zelenskyy said on X that the talk with the US president was very symbolic and had the “potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”. It was the first time that Zelenskyy and Trump had met face to face after a frosty February encounter in the White House where Trump and the US vice-president, JD Vance, berated the Ukrainian leader and accused him of ingratitude for US aid. In an effort to to end fighting between Ukraine and Russia, Washington is engaging in intense mediation betweenthe two countries, at war since Russia’s 2022 invasion. On Friday, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow for three hours to discuss Washington’s peace proposal. Trump said that “most of the major points are agreed to”, in a post on his Truth Social platform, without further elaboration. He called for a meeting between Kyiv and Moscow’s leadership to sign a ceasefire deal, which he said was “very close”. Despite Trump’s eagerness for a deal, significant differences remain between the US vision for peace and what Ukraine and its European allies have deemed acceptable conditions for a ceasefire. Two sets of peace plans published by Reuters on Friday showed that the US is proposing Moscow retain the territory it has captured, including the strategic Crimean peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014. This is seemingly a non-starter for Ukraine and European countries, with Zelenskyy insisting the territory is the “property of the Ukrainian people”. “Our position is unchanged,” the Ukrainian president told reporters in Kyiv. “The constitution of Ukraine says that all the temporarily occupied territories … belong to Ukraine.” It is also unclear if Moscow will agree to the US peace deal, which is seen as offering considerable concessions to Russia. On Saturday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said all Ukrainian troops had been forced from Russia’s Kursk region, a key aim for Moscow. Ukrainian officials disputed the claim. The technical details of a ceasefire deal still need to be hammered out, including how western sanctions imposed on Russia would be lifted and what sort of security guarantees would be offered to Ukraine. Trump acknowledged on Friday that the talks were “very fragile”, and he has warned that the US would halt its mediation efforts if the two sides did not come to an agreement soon. Fighting continues in tandem with mediation efforts, with the Kremlin blaming Ukraine for a car bomb that killed a senior Russian general near Moscow on Friday. Kyiv did not comment on the incident, the latest in a string of Russian military officials to be killed over the past three years. The day before, Russia carried out its deadliest attack in months on Ukraine, launching 70 missiles and 145 drones, mostly towards Kyiv. The attack caused Trump to lash out at Putin on social media. “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday.

Pilgrims and the powerful come together for Pope Francis’s funeral

Pope Francis has been eulogised as “a pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone” during a funeral mass that brought together an array of mourners, from pilgrims and refugees to powerful world leaders and royals. Francis, 88, died on Monday after a stroke and subsequent heart failure, setting into motion a series of centuries-old rituals and a huge, meticulously-planned logistical and security operation not seen in Italy since the funeral of John Paul II in April 2005. The crowd erupted into applause as the late pontiff’s wooden coffin was carried from the altar of the 16th-century St Peter’s Basilica, where it had laid in state for three days, by 14 white-gloved pallbearers and into the square for the open-air ceremony. Applause also rang out when the Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who presided over the funeral mass, spoke of Francis’s care for immigrants, his constant pleas for peace, the need for negotiations to end wars and the importance of the climate. Under a blue sky, more than 250,000 pilgrims descended on the Vatican, with the crowds stretching along Via della Conciliazione, the road connecting the Italian capital with the Vatican. Among the pilgrims were Rosa Cirielli and her friend Pina Sanarico, who left their homes in Taranto, in southern Italy, at 5am, and managed to secure themselves a decent position in front of a huge TV screen. “When Pope Francis was alive, he gave us hope. Now we have this huge hole,” said Cirielli. “He left us during a very ugly period for the world. He was the only one who loudly called for peace.” The pilgrims were joined by leaders from more than 150 countries, including the US president, Donald Trump, who had repeatedly clashed with Francis over immigration, and his wife Melania. A White House official said Trump had a “very productive” meeting before the ceremony with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A photo showed the pair sitting opposite each other on chairs inside St Peter’s Basilica. Another image showed them together with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and French president, Emmanuel Macron. Trump and Zelenskyy were also expected to meet after the mass. Other guests included the former US president Joe Biden, who last met Francis at the G7 summit in Puglia last June, the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and Prince William. More than 2,000 journalists from around the world travelled to Rome to cover the event. The 90-minute mass was celebrated by 220 cardinals, 750 bishops and more than 4,000 priests. “The outpouring of affection that we have witnessed in recent days following his passing from this Earth into eternity tells us how much the profound pontificate of Pope Francis touched minds and hearts,” Battista Re said at the start of his eulogy. He recalled that the last image many people would have had of Francis was of him delivering what would become his final blessing on Easter Sunday, and saluting from the popemobile in the same piazza where his funeral was celebrated. Di Battista described Francis’s charisma of “welcome and listening”, adding that the guiding thread of his mission was “the conviction that the church is home for all”. There was more applause and cries of “Papa Francesco!” among the crowds lining the streets as the late pontiff made his final journey, aboard a specially adapted popemobile, from the Vatican towards his burial tomb at Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood. Flanked by police on motorbikes, the vehicle, which had been used on one of Francis’s trips overseas, crossed a bridge over Rome’s Tiber River, before slowly making its way along Via Vittorio Emmanuel, passing Piazza Venezia, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum before arriving at Santa Maria Maggiore, a basilica loved by Francis. Francis was given a final sendoff by a group of 40 people, including prisoners, refugees, transgender people and the homeless, who awaited his arrival on the steps of the fourth-century basilica. Francis is the first pontiff in more than a century not to be buried with great fanfare in the grottoes beneath St Peter’s Basilica. Instead, his coffin will be entombed in a small niche that until now has been used to store candlestick holders. As requested in his final testament, the tomb will not be decorated and will be inscribed only with his papal name in Latin: Franciscus. The burial will be a private event attended by Francis’s relatives. The public will be able to visit the tomb from Sunday. As the funeral wraps up, speculation about who will succeed Francis will go into overdrive. Francis, born in Argentina, was the first non-European pope for almost 13 centuries. During his 12-year papacy, the liberal late pontiff faced some fierce challenges from rightwing cardinals. Nine days of mourning will begin from Saturday, with a conclave – the secret election process to choose a new pope – therefore not expected to begin before 5 May. There is no clear frontrunner, although Luis Antonio Tagle, a reformer from the Philippines, and Pietro Parolin, from Italy, are early favourites. Virginio and his wife Anna Maria travelled to Rome from Naples for the funeral. They’re here to reflect on Francis but are also contemplating who will follow him. “We hope the new pope continues along the same line as Francis,” said Anna Maria.

‘I haven’t slept for two days’: Kharkiv residents reel from Russian attacks

About 1am on Friday, Yuliia Verbytska woke to the sound of an air raid siren. She grabbed her teenage children – Dmitry, 17, and Olexiy, 12 – and sat in the corridor, checking her phone. In the sky above came an ominous whine. Minutes later, a Russian drone crashed into the disused soap factory down the road in Polyova Street. There was an enormous explosion. “We don’t have a shelter in our building, so we hide behind two concrete walls. All the neighbours sit together. You wonder if this is your last moment,” she said. Friday’s raid followed a massive attack on Thursday on Verbytska’s home, Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and on the capital, Kyiv, where 12 people were killed. “I haven’t slept for two days,” she said wearily. Exhausted residents sweeping up glass and fixing broken panels pointed out that the latest attack came hours after a post from Donald Trump on social media. It said: “Vladimir, STOP.” Russia’s president, it seemed, had decided to ignore Trump’s rare rebuke. Despite peace negotiations and an appeal by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a month-long ceasefire, the Russians were bombing as usual. One of the damaged buildings belongs to a charity, Heart of Kharkiv, where Verbytska works as a volunteer. Bits of concrete fell amid clothes and donated shoes. Children’s drawings were blown from a noticeboard. The charity’s wheelchairs and pushchairs survived unscathed. “I don’t believe in promises or words. Not from Trump or anybody else. I don’t really have much faith in anything any more,” Verbytska said gloomily. By late morning, emergency service workers were still extinguishing small blazes in the now-ruined factory. Built in 1918, it once made soap for the Soviet Union. It went bankrupt last year. The Kremlin’s drones narrowly missed an old acacia tree by its entrance gate. They flattened a brick administration building. Firefighters doused charred beams and splashed among puddles and piles of twisted metal. “They are fascists. Inhuman people. Barbarians. Cruel,” the complex’s security guard, Anton, said, when asked what he thought about Russians. “They want to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. That’s their plan.” He was sceptical that the peace process – Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks on Friday with Putin in Moscow – would lead to a settlement that might end the fighting. The security guard said Zelenskyy would be unwise to accept the US’s latest leaked proposal. It envisages handing Crimea and four other Ukrainian regions to Russia. Ukraine gets back a sliver of territory in the Kharkiv region. “Today it’s five oblasts. Tomorrow, the Russians will demand another five. Zelenskyy should not sign,” he said. He dismissed Trump as a “Russian agent recruited long ago”, and said: “I’m disappointed that the Americans elected him.” Russia says its devastating attacks are against Ukrainian military objects. Its latest murderous barrage follows a double strike this month on the north-eastern city of Sumy, in which 35 people were killed. Most were travelling on a bus when an Iskander missile exploded next to them. Overwhelmingly, the victims of Russia’s air raids are civilians. They include two children killed on Thursday and dug from the rubble of their Kyiv apartment block. Liudmyla Hanzii, a pensioner, was at her home in Kharkiv’s Slobidsky district when the soap factory was hit. Her son, Andriy, showed off the bed where she had been sleeping. It was decorated with icons and a black-and-white photograph of Liudmyla as a young woman. “Mum heard a bang. All the glass came flying in. A teenage boy living next door dragged her out,” he said, adding she was being treated in hospital for minor injuries. According to Anatoliy Yaskovets, the deputy head of Kharkiv fire station No 6, Russia has stepped up its air attacks. The frequency increased in January, he said, when Trump came back as US president. Apart from a brief pause last weekend, when Putin announced an Easter ceasefire, bombing was continuous. “It’s terror against the civilian population. There’s no time to react. It takes 50 seconds for a missile fired from Belgorod in Russia to arrive,” he said. The Russians had recently changed tactics, he added. They now send a swarm of drones, one after another, at the same target. Three of his colleagues were killed last year when they went to the scene of a drone strike. Twenty minutes later, a second drone incinerated their vehicle. Moscow was using drones to drop CS gas and delayed-action grenades, which detonate up to an hour after impact. They go off if touched, he explained. Asked if he thought the war might end soon, Yaskovets answered: “Probably not.” He continued: “People are tired. There are air raid sirens all the time. It’s a psychological burden. Russia has been destroying our power stations and industrial infrastructure. The aim is to make people unhappy so they turn on Ukraine’s government.” His mobile phone rang with a popular song, Moscow Burns. “It’s my mother. She worries about me,” he said. In February 2022, Russian armoured columns tried to seize Kharkiv. There was fierce fighting. Ukrainian units pushed the enemy back to the city’s edge. For the next six months, Kharkiv was repeatedly shelled. That autumn, a Ukrainian counteroffensive liberated most of the surrounding province. In recent months, though, the Russians have been advancing again, reoccupying the border town of Vovchansk last year, and swallowing villages. How far could they go? Yaskovets said it was clear the Russians would try again to encircle and occupy Kharkiv. “Putin doesn’t intend to stop. He wants to take the south of Ukraine and go as far as the Dnipro River. He doesn’t have a big enough army to do that,” he suggested. In the meantime, there would be more drone attacks, and more casualties. “We’ve had four years of full-scale war. Somehow, people have got used to it,” he noted. A group of soldiers from the Kraken regiment – breaking off for coffee at a Kharkiv petrol station – said Putin’s behaviour this week was not surprising. “By bombing us, he shows his true nature,” one of them, Saifula, said. He added: “My feeling is that Trump is not really a president at all. He’s a parody or a clone of a president. The whole world is laughing at him. Our only option now is to have a strong army and to carrying on fighting.”

‘A revival is happening’: Church hails resurgence among young in UK

Father John Armitage is an incredibly busy man. His church, St Margaret’s Parish, welcomed a staggering 5,000 people across 20 masses in Holy Week. Church attendance across all Christian denominations has been in decline across England and Wales, with the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics describing both as “minority Christian countries”. But that national reality has been inverted in Canning Town, east London, where St Margaret’s first opened its doors in 1866. The church hosts mass in English, Romanian and Latin, averaging more than 800 worshippers a week. The chapel upstairs, originally built to handle overflow, regularly livestreams services to those who cannot find a seat. “The narrative has always been that nobody goes to church,” Armitage says. “It’s a narrative that needs to be adjusted, if not changed.” Recent polling by the Bible Society and YouGov points to a quiet resurgence in church attendance across the UK, particularly among young people in Roman Catholic communities. The figures go against the long-held assumption that secularity is on the rise, especially among the young. “Since Sunday, I’ve had three people phone up to say they want to be Catholics. Completely out of the blue,” Armitage says, adding that the pattern is not unique to their church. Others have continued pouring into the church following the news of Pope Francis’s death. Georgia Clarke, the director of youth ministry at St Elizabeth of Portugal RC Church in Richmond, said her parish had four adult converts this Easter alone: two former Protestants, one former Muslim, and one with no religious background. “All under 35,” she says. Her youth ministry began in 2020 with six teenagers. Now more than 100 young people attend regularly. Clarke suggests this is down to the fact her parish was inspired by Pope Francis to move away from a traditional, classroom-style model towards a more relational approach to teaching the faith. She says people often jokingly describe confirmation as the “exit sacrament”, where those young people are not seen until they get married. Now, about 80–90% of teens stay connected to the church after confirmation through weekly meet-ups, mentoring and retreats, where discussions range from climate anxiety to getting into university. She adds that it is not just young people – overall mass attendance at Easter jumped from 560 in 2023 to 760 this year. “We had people pouring out of the church in every single side chapel you can imagine. The chairs were being run up and down the stairs to seat more people. People were looking in from the street. It was incredible. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.” Teresa Carvalho, the Evangelisation coordinator for the Diocese of Westminster, says her parish in Forest Gate had 1,000 people from Saturday night to Sunday night. “People are giving church a try, or something has drawn them back again,” she says. “People are coming with whatever their question is … What will take it over the line for many people is how God breaks into their life.” Many cautioned that this increase is likely to be small, and concentrated in England’s urban centres, where waves of immigration from Catholic-majority countries such as the Philippines, Nigeria, Poland and many countries in Latin America have had a noticeable effect on parish congregations. But they were keen to point out that it is not just demographic changes. Several church members also spoke of a notable number of Britons, both white, and second- or third-generation ethnic minorities, who are converting to the faith. Elena Attfield, 29, converted in her early 20s after growing up in a Protestant household. Her husband and many of her friends are also young adult converts. When she first attended young Catholic gatherings in 2017, the majority of attendees were “cradle Catholics”, who are those born into the faith. “Now if I go to a young adult gathering it seems as if most of the people there are converts so I do believe there is some kind of revival happening.” Gabriel Diai, 33, is a leading member of St Margaret’s youth group, which has experienced notable growth among 25- to 35-year-olds. “The package once was you find a job, get married and you’re going to be happy, but that’s not the system any more,” he says. About 30-35 people meet once every fortnight, Diai explains, many of whom are drawn to Armitage’s sermons. On a rainy Wednesday morning, just under 40 people attended morning mass at 9.30am, where Armitage preached that transformation begins not with belief, but with acts of love, particularly towards the stranger in need. This message resonates deeply with east London, which has long been one of the country’s main points of arrival. Diai added: “One of the key things Father John talks about is self-forgiveness and how a lot of people struggle with that. Whether they made a mistake … you’re still someone that’s loved.” Theresa Alessandro, who is based in Leicester and hosts a podcast about ordinary Catholics and their faith journeys, said many of her guests spoke about “finding truth in the church” and wondered if it is a reaction to “a kind of post-truth world where it’s hard to know what to hang on to”. She has also observed that younger guests are often surprisingly well-read, exploring Catholic writers and scripture in depth before choosing to commit. “They’ve really looked into it and felt confident that they found something here.” Diai agreed. “A lot of friends of mine have Bible studies in people’s houses. So that’s ammunition and curiosity to take things further.” What draws them in? Diai didn’t hesitate before answering. “There’s nothing new. We’re all experiencing life, but we’ve got the anecdotes and stories of people who’ve lived in worse situations than the present. “It’s your faith and your relationship with God that’s ultimately going to drive your motivation, your hope, your resilience.”

‘One mistake and their Germanness is gone’: how idea of stripping citizenship for crimes spread across Europe

The plans, hatched by Sweden’s rightwing government with support of its far-right backers, made waves around the world. Politicians said they were working to strip citizenship from dual nationals who had been convicted of some crimes. It was a hint of a broader conversation taking place in capitals around the world. As far-right and nationalist parties steadily gain political ground, analysts say that citizenship is increasingly being linked to crime, giving rise to a shift that risks creating two classes of citizens and marginalising specific communities. The roots of these changes can be traced back partly to the early 2000s when the UK government – led at the time by Tony Blair – began casting citizenship as a privilege rather than a right, said Christian Joppke, a sociology professor at the University of Bern. The UK government posited citizenship as something to be “earned”, making it harder to obtain and easier to lose. “This idea of earned citizenship is that if you do wrong, you should also be able to lose it,” said Joppke. Recent proposals put forward in countries such as Sweden, Finland and Germany seemingly take this one step further, he added. “The new proposals now suggest that if you do any kind of serious crime, that should also allow for the possibility to withdraw citizenship – that is quite new.” Days after Sweden announced plans to eventually change the constitution so that people convicted of crimes like espionage or treason could be stripped of their Swedish passports, a handful of politicians in Iceland began calling for similar changes for those convicted of serious crimes. Months earlier, the Dutch government said it was exploring the possibility of revoking citizenship for serious crimes that have “an antisemitic aspect”. The concept also made a cameo in Germany’s February election after Friedrich Merz – whose centre-right CDU/CSU bloc emerged victorious in the ballot – told the newspaper Welt it should be possible to revoke German citizenship in the case of dual nationals who commit criminal offences. The proposal was swiftly criticised, with one political commentator pointing out that it would result in some being “Germans on probation” for their entire lives. “They can never truly be German. One mistake, one crime – and their Germanness is gone,” the journalist and political commentator Gilda Sahebi wrote on social media. “It doesn’t matter if they were born here or if their family has lived in Germany for generations.” Merz’s idea, she added, had laid bare the normalisation of “racist discrimination” in that, “in other words,” he was calling for remigration – the concept long-peddled by far-right, anti-immigrant parties and which, in Germany, calls for the mass deportation of migrants, including those with German citizenship. For Joppke, it was little coincidence that citizenship was being reframed just as the far-right was tightening its grip on power across the continent. Instead, he described it as one of the few options for politicians on the right of the spectrum. “What can states promise? The golden age of democracy once promised two cars per family, a house, a stable job. Now all this is gone,” he said. Instead governments had homed in on the most basic type of security: physical security. “This is the toolbox which is intimately connected to the agenda of the radical right,” he said. “And mainstream parties are just very anxious not to be outvoted by them.” For years, governments across Europe have sought to strip citizenship from those convicted of terrorism, offering a window on to how the expanded link between nationality and crime could play out. Because international law limits governments from rendering people stateless, the proposals linking citizenship to terrorism have been largely applied to dual nationals, said Tanya Mehra, a senior research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague. “But then the question is, aren’t you making a distinction on the basis of whether someone has one or two nationalities, and thus creating different classes of citizens?” The law leaves dual nationals vulnerable to being punished twice for the same crime, if they serve prison time and then also face having their citizenship revoked, she said. “It’s great media optics to say that you’re taking a strong stance against crime by depriving them of their nationality,” said Mehra. “But you have to really look more carefully at whether or not you’re violating their human rights.” Her research had delved into cases of people’s citizenship being revoked over terrorism convictions, finding a small number who were then left stranded in the country that had stripped them of citizenship after the country of their other nationality refused to take them in. “That means they basically become illegal,” she said, losing their right to stay and work in the country. The situation pushes them underground, making it easier for terrorist or criminal groups to potentially exploit them but also harder for officials to track them. “They disappear into the illegality,” she said. “You’re creating a situation that is counterproductive.” In Denmark, where, after years of revoking citizenship for terrorism, treason and threats to the state, the law was expanded in 2021 to include gang-related crime, it was difficult to say whether the changes had pushed down crime levels, said Somdeep Sen, an associate professor at Denmark’s Roskilde University. “There isn’t much out there in terms of qualitative or quantitative data that shows that individuals – otherwise keen to commit crime – have somehow been deterred by these changes,” he said. But what was clear was that the policy had provided “legal framing” for the longstanding, xenophobic public discourse that had falsely sought to link immigration to crime. “The issue with these changes is that it perpetuates the problematic perception that ancestry and ethnicity play a role in determining criminality,” he said. What emerged was an overly simplistic view of crime, one that overlooks the myriad of research that has found no significant link between immigration levels and crime rates across Europe. Years after Denmark had been among the first to tie citizenship to serious crimes, the impact had been sharply felt by many, said Sen. “Already, the years of anti-immigration discourse has heightened this feeling of unwanted-ness in Denmark,” he added. “And such laws remind many of how tenuous their inclusion in Danish society is and how easily these ties to Denmark can be severed.”

Giorgia Meloni faces awkward weekend at funeral of pope whose values she opposed

It is an awkward weekend for Giorgia Meloni. The Italian leader will host a gathering of world leaders to say goodbye to a much-revered pope whose public views – from the treatment of people fleeing war to the climate crisis – were diametrically opposed to hers. While Pope Francis was a staunch advocate for asylum seekers, and blessed the vessels that saved refugees at sea, Meloni once said Italy should “repatriate migrants back to their countries and then sink the boats that rescued them”. Close allies of Meloni are attending, including the US president, Donald Trump, who Francis sharply criticised for his anti-immigration stance, saying: “Anyone who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian.” Also flying in is Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, who at various times called the pontiff an imbecile and a representative of the “evil one”. In a joint session of parliament on Wednesday, Meloni cited how the pope “gave back a voice to those who did not have one”. The words of Italy’s prime minister were sharply criticised by opposition parties in parliament. The leader of the centre-left opposition Democratic party, Elly Schlein, said: “Francis does not deserve the hypocrisy of those who deport migrants, take money from the poor, deny the climate emergency and deny care to those who cannot afford it.” The former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi of Italia Viva was equally scathing. “It is very funny that each of us seeks to grab a little piece of his legacy,” he said. Addressing the government’s members, he added: “Your detention camps for migrants were a disgrace to Pope Francis.” On big issues, Meloni and the pope could not have been further apart. The climate emergency was for Francis a moral and spiritual crisis demanding a radical and systemic response, whereas for Meloni the ecological transition is subordinate to economic competitiveness and national interest. In economics, the pope denounced the “culture of waste”, criticising a system that values people according to their productivity and calling for an economy in the service of human dignity. Meloni, meanwhile, has abolished subsidies for the poor and cut healthcare. “There was a huge gap between the two,” said Francesco Galietti, the founder of Policy Sonar, a political consultancy in Rome. “Meloni bet on Atlanticism, on a close rapport with Trump, while Bergoglio [Pope Francis] was by no means pro-American nor a friend of Trump. There was also a divergence in geopolitical vision: Francis pursued a policy of rapprochement with China, whereas under Meloni Italy withdrew from Beijing’s ambitious belt and road initiative.” But on a personal level, they appeared to be friendly, even friends. “Despite this,” Galietti added, “the friendship between Meloni and the pope was allegedly genuine. They spoke in Spanish and met often. This should come as no surprise: after all, the pope, who grew up under Argentina’s Videla dictatorship, was forced to coexist with generals in uniform far to the right of Meloni.” Meloni has long publicised her personal rapport with Francis, frequently citing details of their conversations in public speeches. Many political observers and media outlets described the prime minister’s strategy as an “operazione simpatia”, an attempt to win over her electorate by highlighting her friendship with one of the most beloved pontiffs. With the death of Francis, Meloni has lost someone politically, and possibly personally, important to her. “Francis accepted Meloni’s history, her self-portrayal as an underdog,” said Prof Alberto Melloni, a church historian at the University of Modena-Reggio Emilia and the Unesco chair on religious pluralism and peace. “Once Bergoglio told me he liked the PM because she was ‘a woman of the people’.” The professor said the crucial question for Meloni was whether the next leader of the Catholic church would also play a useful role. “If the pope does not sympathise with them, he won’t let them off so lightly.”