It is a requiem mass of which Desmond Tutu has settled the smallest detail: his funeral on Saturday in the Anglican cathedral of Cape Town, of which he was for a long time the archbishop standing against apartheid, mark the end of a week of tributes to this major figure of South Africa.
Under a gray sky and a fine drizzle, Tutu's family and friends, but also the widow of the last white president of the country FW de Klerk and many priests dribbled into the church.
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President Cyril Ramaphosa was to deliver the eulogy after Communion.
He was to give Tutu's widow, "
Mama Leah
" as the South Africans tenderly call her, a national flag, the only military tribute allowed here.
Because “
The Arch
” wanted a simple, uncluttered ceremony.
The coffin in which he has rested the two previous days in Saint George's Cathedral, so that thousands of people come to honor the memory of his battles and his enthusiasms, is made of light pine.
He had asked for "
the cheapest possible
", in a country where funerals are often an opportunity to show that we have spent lavishly for the deceased.
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Here no gold handles, simple pieces of rope to be able to transport it, evoking the sober belt of the Franciscan friars.
Above, a bouquet of white carnations.
Bishop Tutu did not want any other flower in the church.
A close and longtime friend of Bishop Tutu, former Bishop Michael Nuttall, was chosen by the deceased to deliver the sermon.
When Tutu was Archbishop, Nuttall was his “
number two
”.
Their bond, in the last years of apartheid, "
a dynamic black leader and his white deputy
", was particularly striking.
As "
a taste of what our divided country could be
," he says.
Untouchable
Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson was to participate in the reading of the universal prayer, in the presence of Letsie III, the king of neighboring Lesotho, or a representative of the Dalai Lama with whom Tutu exchanged memorable laughs .
“
Their friendship was unique
,” Ngodup Dorjee told AFP.
“
As soon as they met, they laughed.
The only explanation for this is a karmic connection in the past
, ”he added very seriously.
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The week was marked by tributes to Bishop Tutu across the country and beyond. South Africans remembered his tenacity and grace in the face of the oppressive Pretoria regime. In Soweto, where he preached for a long time, he denounced the violence against high school students during the riots of June 1976, repressed in blood. Little by little, he becomes the voice of Nelson Mandela, locked up on Robben Island. The police and the army threaten him. Only her dress then saved her from prison.
"
We would get up in the morning and if we saw the military trucks, then we knew he would celebrate mass,
" Mathabo Dlwathi, 47, told AFP.
“
They wanted him dead, but for some unknown reason, it never happened.
He entered the church, said mass and left
”.
In the demonstrations, "
he served as a shield
", recalled Panyaza Lesufi, today a member of the ANC, a historic party still in power.
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Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, spoke of the “
indescribable courage
” it took to oppose the regime.
“
He stood resolute and fearless ahead of the protests, his clerical robe fluttering in the wind, his cross as a shield
,” she described.
For his funeral, the shepherd Tutu chose, in his last message to men, the passage from the Gospel according to St. John where Jesus addresses his disciples after their last meal.
A message of love.
"
My commandment is this: Love one another as I have loved you
."