South Africa bids farewell on Saturday to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in a funeral set to be stripped of pomp but freighted with tears and smiles.
Tutu died last Sunday at the age of 90, triggering grief among South Africans and tributes from world leaders for a life spent fighting injustice.
Famous for his modesty, Tutu gave instructions for a simple, no-frills ceremony, with a cheap coffin, donations for charity instead of floral tributes and an eco-friendly cremation.
The requiem mass will start at 10am at Cape Town’s St. George’s Cathedral where, for years, Tutu used the pulpit to rail against a brutal white minority regime.
The eulogy will be delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who will then hand South Africa’s multicoloured flag to Tutu’s widow, Leah — a reminder of her husband’s description of the post-apartheid country as the “Rainbow Nation”.
South Africa has been marking a week of mourning, culminating with two days of lying in state.
Several thousand people, some of whom had travelled across the country, filed past a diminutive rope-handled casket made of pine, adorned simply by a bunch of carnations.
Mourners are expected to include close friends and family, clergy and a few guests, including former Irish president Mary Robinson, who is to read a prayer, and King Letsie III of South Africa’s neighbour Lesotho.
Tutu’s longtime friend, retired bishop Michael Nuttall, who was Anglican Church dean when Tutu was the archbishop of Cape Town, will deliver the sermon.
Tutu’s moral firmness and passion went hand-in-hand with self-deprecatory humour and a famously cackling laugh.
“One day I was in San Francisco, minding my own business, as I always do, when a lady came up gushing,” he recalled in a speech in 2008.
“Oh, she was so warm and she was greeting me and she said, ‘Hello, Archbishop Mandela!’ Sort of getting two for the price of one.”
For his funeral, Tutu picked as a guiding quote the scripture from the New Testament’s Gospel of St. John where Jesus addresses his disciples after their last supper.
It reads: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Source: AFP
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