Hannah Rich unpacks the significance of giving each other a ‘sign of peace’ following Pope Francis’ funeral. 28/04/2025

“Explain to us what we’re seeing here.” 

This was BBC presenter Reeta Chakrabarti’s response, midway through the broadcast of Pope Francis’s funeral this weekend, when the priest had pronounced the words “the peace of the Lord be with you always” and invited the crowd to share the peace. Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh, asked to explain, outlined how “the celebrant has wished everybody peace and has asked everybody to give each other a sign of peace, so people are turning to each other, usually with a handshake or a simple sign.” For much of church history, this was not a mere ‘sign’ of peace, but a ‘kiss of peace’ or a ‘holy kiss,’ still practiced in the Orthodox church. The liturgy here references Jesus’ words in John’s gospel: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”  

What we were seeing was a gesture shared by millions across the world every week, powerful in its symbolism but also in its mundanity. The camera panned over the thousands of faithful in the square, to the sight of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, exchanging a handshake with President Trump in the line of assembled world leaders. Ivereigh noted that it was a universal “moment of fraternity”, whereby people would be “shaking hands will be with whoever is by their side.” There are people in that crowd who we might find it a challenge to shake hands with, less still greet with a holy kiss, but that’s the point.  

The Catholic funeral liturgy is distinct from many other denominations in keeping the regular aspects of worship alongside the specificities of the requiem, namely the Eucharistic prayer, including the sign of piece and the sharing of communion. At a personal level, as a friend pointed out recently, this can be profound when estranged or warring family members find themselves shaking hands or receiving communion side by side. Geopolitically, the image of belligerent political leaders sharing the peace with one another was almost too much to watch. 

“Explain to us what we’re seeing here,” we might well ask.   

After the funeral, it emerged that Trump and President Zelensky had met for a conversation in St Peter’s Basilica, sitting down together for the first time since their inauspicious meeting in the White House in February. Two men in whose literal political gift it sometimes seems that world peace and stability rests. Funerals can be good for reconciliation, perhaps between long–estranged siblings finding a truce over the buffet because ‘it’s what grandad would have wanted’. Peace, I leave you. 

Five years ago, the physical ‘sign of peace’ was one of the first casualties of the pandemic, replaced by nodding or waving at each other. In some congregations, this has persisted as a hangover of Covid or – worse still if you are someone who attends church on their own – evolved into hugging the people you came with first, then raising an awkward hand to the rest of the congregation. It is perhaps more suited to the British temperament than the intimacy of exchanging a kiss.  

But something is lost if the sharing of the peace draws us further into our bubbles, into comfort, rather than into touching distance of the less familiar, less easy part of life. This is peace as the pure absence of conflict, not as the hard work of making peace where it is not.   

Peace can be chaotic, uncomfortable and slow, and forging peace takes time. If you’ve ever attended a church where the custom is for every individual to share the peace with every other person there, you will recognise it as all the above. As one of Pope Francis’s predecessors Pope Paul VI said, peace is the work of justice. It is achieved through work and willing. 

“Explain to us what we’re seeing here.”  

To a watching world not familiar with Catholic liturgy, the simple gesture of sharing a ‘sign of peace’ needed explanation. In a moment where there are precious few signs of peace around us, it was alien to see world leaders exchanging handshakes outside the context of a trade deal or diplomatic effort. Maybe the conversation between the two presidents convened in the Vatican will yet prove to be a key step in the road to peace in Ukraine. But it will only be so if it is accompanied by the hard yards of making peace, as intimate and uncomfortable as a holy kiss to an opponent. 

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