Solemn ceremony to draw leaders from around the world
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ funeral will be held on Saturday in St. Peter’s Square, Roman Catholic cardinals decided on Tuesday, setting the stage for a solemn ceremony that will draw leaders from around the world.
People will be able to pay their final respects from Wednesday through Friday, the Vatican said in a statement.
Catholic faithful and the general public will be able to visit from 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) to midnight on Wednesday, 7 a.m. to midnight on Thursday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday.
Francis, 88, died on Monday, ending an often turbulent reign in which he repeatedly clashed with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalized.
Vatican doctor Andrea Arcangeli, in a death certificate released by the Vatican, said Francis died of a stroke and irreversible cardiovascular arrest. The pope had fallen into a coma before he died.
Besides his recent lung infection, Arcangeli said Francis had also suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes.
The pontiff spent five weeks in hospital earlier this year suffering from double pneumonia and had appeared to be slowly recovering, but the Vatican on Tuesday recounted his last moments, saying death came quickly and he had not suffered.
He started to feel unwell at around 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) on Monday and was promptly attended to by his team. More than an hour later he made a gesture of farewell to his ever-present nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, and slipped into a coma, the Vatican’s official media channel said.
His time of death was given as 7:35 a.m.
The Vatican released photographs of Francis dressed in his vestments and laid in a wooden coffin in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence, where he lived during his 12-year papacy. Swiss Guards stand on either side of the casket.
His body will be taken into the adjacent St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. (0700 GMT), in a procession led by cardinals, allowing the faithful to pay their last respects to the first Latin American pope.
His funeral service will be held in St. Peter’s Square, in the shadow of the Basilica, on Saturday at 10 a.m. and will be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals.
US President Donald Trump, who clashed repeatedly with the pope about immigration, said he and his wife would fly to Rome for the service.
Among other heads of state set to attend were Javier Milei, president of Francis’ native Argentina, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to a source in his office.
Francis’ native Argentina ordered seven days of mourning, as did neighboring Brazil.
Doctors had prescribed two months of rest when the pope left hospital last month but he appeared on a number of occasions. Francis met Britain’s King Charles in April and had a brief meeting on Sunday with visiting US Vice President JD Vance.
World leaders praised his efforts to reform the worldwide Church and offered condolences to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Among other world leaders who have so far said they will attend the funeral President Javier Milei (Argentina), King Philippe and Queen Mathilde (Belgium), President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva And First Lady Janja Lula Da Silva (Brazil), European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, President Emmanuel Macron (France), President Karin Keller-Sutter (Switzerland), President Jose Ramos-Horta (East Timor), President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany), President Sergio Mattarella And Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (Italy), President Edgars Rinkevics (Latvia), President Gitanas Nauseda (Lithuania), and Romania’s interim President Ilie Bolojan.
ANCIENT RITUALS
In a break from tradition, Francis confirmed in his final testament released on Monday that he wished to be buried in Rome’s Basilica of Saint Mary Major and not St. Peter’s, where many of his predecessors were laid to rest.
Francis’ death has set in motion ancient rituals, as the 1.4-billion-member Church started the transition from one pope to another, including the breaking of the pope’s “Fisherman’s Ring” and lead seal, used in his lifetime to seal documents, so they cannot be used by anyone else.
Francis, who visited more than 60 countries during his papacy, will make his final journey along the road from Vatican City to the Esquiline, one of the seven hills of Rome, where he wanted to be buried.
Francis sought to bring a humble touch to his grand office. In that spirit he eschewed much of the Vatican’s traditional pomp and opted for simpler rites when making plans for his funeral and burial.
His chosen resting place, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major), is one of the main four churches of Christendom in Rome.
In his final testament, Pope Francis asked to be buried “in the earth, simple, without particular decoration” and with the inscription only of his papal name in Latin: Franciscus.
The last pope to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII, who died in 1903.
St. Mary Major, around 4 km (2.5 miles) from the Vatican, was dear to Francis because of his devotion to Mary, Mother of God. He prayed there before setting off on and returning from each overseas trip.
“I’ve always had a great devotion to St. Mary Major, even before I became pope,” Francis said in his 2024 book “El Sucesor” (The Successor), a long interview with journalist Javier Martinez-Brocal.
Argentina-born Francis prayed in the basilica early on March 14, 2013, the day after he became the first Latin American pope. The church’s gold-leaf ceiling is said to have been made from a batch of the precious metal brought back from the New World by explorer Christopher Columbus.
Francis returned at key moments in his papacy, praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic in a locked-down Rome in 2020 and after his abdominal surgeries in 2021 and 2023.
A venerated Byzantine icon of Mary is housed in the Pauline chapel in the left nave of the basilica. A vase of golden roses, donated by Francis in 2023, sits among candlesticks under the icon.
Before reaching the chapel entrance, there is a statue of Mary, Queen of Peace, commissioned by Pope Benedict XV in 1918 to ask God to end World War One. In May 2022, Francis led an international prayer service for peace in Ukraine and other war-torn places.
CANDELABRA STORE ROOM
“Just beyond the sculpture of the Queen of Peace, there’s a small recess, a door that leads to a room where candelabras were stored. I saw it and thought: ‘This is the place,’” the pope said in “El Sucesor,” referring to where his tomb will be.
His cypress coffin will not be encased in lead, with a further wooden outer layer, as has been customary for popes.
In Ancient Rome, the Esquiline was used for the burial of slaves, the poor and those condemned to death. Nowadays, it is home to the Stazione Termini, Rome’s main railway station, and is a multi-ethnic, populous neighborhood where many film directors and actors have settled.
Santa Maria Maggiore was founded in 432, a year after the Council of Ephesus declared Mary to be the Mother of God. It is the only basilica in Rome that preserves the primitive early Christian structure, although there have been many additions later.
A legend, depicted on a 13th-century mosaic in the basilica’s loggia, tells of a miraculous summer snowfall that occurred on the future site of the church.
Romans gather every August 5 to celebrate the miracle of La Madonna Della Neve, or Madonna of the Snows.
The basilica houses the bodies of seven popes and several religious figures, including Cardinal Bernard Law, former archbishop of Boston, who became infamous for his role in covering up child sexual abuse by priests.
It is the burial place of Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. A spiral staircase named after him connects the five floors of a building attached to the church. Its shell shape is said to symbolize the Christian journey from earth to heaven.
CONCLAVE
As Catholics worldwide mourned Francis, all cardinals in Rome were summoned to a meeting on Tuesday to decide on the sequencing of events in the coming days and review the day-to-day running of the Church in the period before a new pope is elected.
A conclave to choose a new pope normally takes place 15 to 20 days after the death of a pontiff, meaning it should not start before May 6. The exact date will be decided by cardinals after Francis’ funeral.
Some 135 cardinals are eligible to participate in the secretive ballot, which can stretch over days before white smoke pouring from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel tells the world that a new pope has been picked.
At present there is no clear frontrunner to succeed Francis.
PROGRESSIVE
Pope Francis inherited a Church in disarray and worked hard to overhaul the Vatican’s central administration, root out corruption and, after a slow start, confront the scourge of child abuse within the ranks of the priesthood.
He often clashed with conservatives, nostalgic for a traditional past, who saw the pope as overly liberal and too accommodating to minority groups, such as the LGBTQ community.
Francis appointed nearly 80% of the cardinal electors who will choose the next pope, increasing, but not guaranteeing, the possibility that his successor will continue his progressive policies.
One of the hallmarks of Francis’ reign was his decision to appoint cardinals to far-flung regions – places where Roman Catholics make up a tiny minority or where the Church is growing faster than in the mostly stagnant West.
While Europe still has the largest share of cardinal electors, with about 39%, it is down from 52% in 2013, when Francis became pope. The second largest group of electors is from Asia and Oceania, with about 20%.
