She was joined by her friend Molly Dorman from Fair Port, Alabama. “I can stand in a line for three or four hours. I think that it’s important to do that,” Dorman said.

Dorman, 19, said it was her first visit to Rome, said she thought it would be “solemn and surreal,” to see Francis body close up.

One of the first to pass by the late pope’s coffin was Lisa Massachi, who said the basilica was very crowded when she entered after lining up for around hour inside.

“It was so crowded,” she said, adding that losing Francis was “as if you’re losing your grandfather, your very wise grandfather.”