Buenos Aires bids farewell to native pontiff with call to action

With songs, candles, flags and prayers, mourners in Buenos Aires marked the burial of pontiff and native son Pope Francis on Saturday.

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 mobilises," Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge García Cuerva said at a funeral Mass.

"The marginalised cry, those who are left aside, the despised, but those of us who lead a life more or less without needs do not know how to cry," said the archbishop.

"Be courageous. Do not be afraid to cry. That is why today we mourn Francis ... because pain also unites us as a people," said García Cuerva.

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 5am local time (8am GMT), when Pope Francis's funeral began in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

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

"The poor people loved him. He left many things with us, especially the idea of serving others in what you do," said Agustina Renfiges, a 46-year-old nurse. "I hope the church remembers the poor."

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."