Pope Francis’s 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.
Meanwhile, the Vatican said in a statement that people will be able to pay their final respects to Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica from Wednesday through Friday. The pontiff, who died aged 88 on Monday, will lie in state inside his coffin.
The funeral service for the Pope will be held in St. Peter’s Square, in the shadow of the Basilica, on Saturday at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET). It will be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals.
Francis’s body will be taken into the adjacent St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday at 9 a.m. local time, in a procession led by cardinals. Catholic faithful and the general public will be able to visit from 11 a.m. to midnight on Wednesday, 7 a.m. to midnight on Thursday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday.
Francis, the first pope from Latin America, died on Monday after suffering a stroke and cardiac arrest, the Vatican said. The pontiff spent five weeks in hospital earlier this year for double pneumonia. But he returned to his Vatican home almost a month ago and had seemed to be recovering, appearing in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
The Vatican has announced that the funeral for Pope Francis will be held on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. local time, 4:00 a.m. ET. They also released new photos and video of the Pope’s body lying in his private chapel at Casa Santa Maria.
He started to feel unwell at around 5:30 a.m. local time 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.
“He did not suffer, and it all happened very fast,” the Vatican media channel said.
His time of death was given as 7:35 a.m.
World leaders expected to attend funeral
The Vatican on Tuesday 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 stood on either side of the casket as dignitaries, including Italian President Sergio Mattarella, paid homage.
Among the heads of state set to attend will be Javier Milei, president of Francis’s native Argentina, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron.
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.
Pope Francis during his tenure 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 Francis as overly liberal and too accommodating to minority groups, such as the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
His death 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 so they cannot be used by anyone else.
Most voting cardinals were appointed by Francis
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. Some 135 cardinals are eligible to participate in the highly secretive ballot which can stretch over days.
The process for selecting a new pope to lead more than one billion Catholics worldwide comes down to an ancient voting ritual, cloaked in secrecy. CBC’s Ellen Mauro explains how the conclave works.
Francis appointed nearly 80 per cent of the cardinal electors scattered across the world 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’s tenure was his decision to appoint cardinals where the Church is growing faster than in the mostly stagnant West.
While Europe still has the largest share of cardinal electors, at about 39 per cent, that is down from 52 per cent in 2013, when Francis became pope. The second largest group of electors is from Asia and Oceania, with about 20 per cent.
Many of the cardinals are little known outside their own countries and they will have a chance to get to know one another at meetings known as General Congregations that take place in the days before a conclave starts and where a profile of the qualities needed for the next pope will take shape.
The Vatican said late Monday that staff and officials within the Holy See could immediately start to pay their respects before the Pope’s body at the Santa Marta residence, where Francis set up home in 2013, shunning the grand, apostolic palace his predecessors had lived in.
