WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Several thousand people attended the funeral mass of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in the US capital of Washington, DC, on Saturday.
Reverend Paul Scalia, one of nine sons of the deceased justice, led the mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, as broadcast live on television.
Justice Antonin Scalia was mourned during a funeral today in Washington, D.C. https://t.co/9oJys1FERR pic.twitter.com/GwjIDlgMM2
— WBZ Boston News (@cbsboston) February 20, 2016
Justice Scalia's casket, draped in the US flag, received a final blessing before being led out by pallbearers for a private burial.
Scalia died at a resort in west Texas on February 13 at the age of 79.
Obama vowed to exercise his Constitutional duties to nominate a candidate to fill Scalia’s seat, while senior Senate Republicans cited a decades-long precedent prohibiting the president from making judicial appointments in the last year of his term.
The US leader was not present at the funeral mass, but attended Scalia's wake in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court the day prior.
Scalia is remembered as an avowed Constitutional originalist with conservative credentials, who regularly disagreed with but was respected by liberal colleagues.
