Sawt Falasteen - Buenos Aires farewells native pontiff with call to action

As the 88-year-old was being laid to rest an ocean away in Rome, thousands gathered by Buenos Aires' cathedral for dawn vigils and a mass of remembrance.

They were urged to take up the activist mantle of Latin America's first pope and to carry on his life's work.

"Let us be the outgoing Church that Francis always wanted us to be, a restless Church that mobilizes," Buenos Aires' archbishop Jorge Garcia Cuerva told a funeral mass.

Braving rain and the antipodean autumn chill, dozens of people set up tents in the city's famed Plaza de Mayo for an overnight vigil until 05:00 local time (08:00 GMT), when Pope Francis's funeral began in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

Images of the pope and the Virgin of Lujan were illuminated with candles, bread was broken and flags were flown.

Iara Amado, a 25-year-old social worker, said she wanted the vigil "to reclaim the pope's legacy, to transform the sadness left by his departure into a beacon of hope."

They hung banners with some of the most emblematic phrases of Francis's papacy: "Make a ruckus" and "dream big."

An image of the pope with the inscription "pray for me" was projected onto a nearby obelisk.

Lucas Pedro, a 40-year-old teacher, said those gathered did so "with a deep sense of gratitude".

M.AbuKhalil--SF-PST