From Pattom to Peter’s Tomb: Cardinal Cleemis Present in Rome for Pope Francis’ Final Farewell

Vatican City – 23 April 2025

Just days after offering the incense prayer for Pope Francis at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Pattom, His Eminent Beatitude Cardinal Moran Mor Baselios Cleemis Catholicos has arrived in Rome, joining the Universal Church in honouring the late Holy Father.

After presiding over the memorial service in Trivandrum, where the cathedral stood steeped in silence and smoke of prayer, His Beatitude departed for the Eternal City—quietly, without announcement, as is his manner. And so it was that on Wednesday morning, as the coffin of Pope Francis was borne across St. Peter’s Square in the solemn translatio, Cardinal Cleemis was there—present among the cardinals and bishops who flanked the procession.

In one image, his face is turned gently toward the simple wooden casket. In another, he walks alongside fellow prelates as the Swiss Guards stood in formation. These were not gestures of diplomacy, but of fraternal fidelity—of a bishop who had shared communion with the Pope not only in Rome, but in prayer, in purpose, and in pastoral witness.

As the Pope of the Peripheries was brought to rest at the heart of the Church, Cardinal Cleemis carried with him the prayers of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, and of a people bound in spirit to the successor of Peter.

From Pattom to Peter’s tomb, it is not distance that defines the Church, but unity in love.

He came as a son of the East, to honour the Bishop of Rome.
And in that act, the Church was shown once more to be one.