Pope Francis chose the church as his final resting place

The recent papal funeral of Pope Benedict XVI: The Swiss Guards kneel for consecration in the Basilica of St. Mary Major

The Swiss Guards who have been protecting the pope and the palace for centuries will kneel for consecration. There will be a sermon that discusses the life of the pope, though it won’t technically be a eulogy.

The Vatican says that because Pope Francis cared for the poor, a representative group “of poor and needy” will be on the steps leading to the Basilica of St. Mary Major to pay their last respects before his coffin is buried.

The funeral ceremony of Pope John Paul II in 2005 was three hours long and was one of the largest gatherings of statesmen in the world. The most recent papal funeral was for Pope Benedict XVI in January 2023, a decade after he resigned from the position.

One notable change is that the pope’s body no longer needs to be placed in three coffins made of cypress, lead and oak — instead, Francis’ body was placed in a simple wooden coffin with a zinc coffin inside. The coffin was not placed on an elevated bier, but facing the pews, while lying in state.

And beside the chapel was the nave where Francis will be buried. The work was still taking place on Francis’ burial vault at the time of NPR’s visit. The Vatican released a picture of the tomb ready for him after the funeral. There is a replica of Francis’ cross on the back wall of the nave. And on the ground is a simple marble stone containing a single word engraved: Franciscus.

The St. Peter’s Basilica of St. Mary Major: A Superbeast for the Italian-Catholic Interaction of Pope Francis and his Country

The new pope will be elected by the Roman Catholic cardinals. The conclave must begin 15 to 20 days after the death of the pope, which would put its start date sometime between May 6 and May 11.

The funeral is going to mostly be a catholic one, says DeRose. And while it will predominantly be in Latin, the program lists prayers in other languages — Portuguese, Polish, Chinese, Arabic — nodding to the global nature of the church.

On Saturday morning the funeral will begin with a procession, led by a priest carrying a cross, the New York Times reports. After the coffin has been set down in the square, a book of the Gospels will be placed on top of it.

The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be at the funeral, according to Russian media reports. The International Criminal Court is investigating war crimes inUkraine and has an arrest warrant for Putin.

Other world leaders who plan to be there include: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres; European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen; Javier Milei, president of Francis’ native Argentina; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, French President Emmanuel Macron; Michael D Higgins and Micheál Martin, the president and taoiseach of Ireland; Polish president Andrzej Duda; Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz; Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prince William (on behalf of King Charles III).

After millions of people paid respects to Francis as he lay in state at St. Peter’s Basilica, the funeral will take place next week.

Many popes are buried in the Vatican Grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. But Pope Francis chose to be buried in Rome, at the Basilica of St. Mary Major — about 2.5 miles away.

It’s not the only thing that Francis has done to break with tradition: He used his authority to simplify burial rites for future popes, and left specific instructions to limit his own.

Viewers can watch a livestream of the ceremony on the Vatican News’s YouTube channel. The Vatican says it will provide live coverage of the funeral and procession to St. Mary Majors, but will stop before the burial in the Basilica.

Many major broadcasters in the US and around the world will be covering the funeral and streaming it.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re and his visit to St. Peter’s Basilica: The story of the Virgin Mary’s appearance before Pope Gregory the Great

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re will take charge of the mass in order to find the next pope, according to the Vatican.

The foundational story is a miraculous tale. The Virgin Mary told the Pope that they should build a church in her honor, after appearing to him in a dream. On August 5th, the height of summer, it snowed on the hill in Rome.

Makrickas said that the intervention was divine from Mary. Francis recounted the story of the Virgin Mary’s appearance before him during a meeting at his residence in which the Pope asked Makrickas to make the necessary arrangements for his tomb at the basilica. He told me that he was very happy that Mary didn’t forget him.

The basilica was visited by Pope Francis 126 times. He went there to pray at the health or protectionress of the Roman people in Latin who had a painting of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus on cedar wood. This icon was brought to Rome from the East in the fifth century, when Mary was declared the Mother of God at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Tradition holds that it was painted by St. Luke the Evangelist, whose written narratives became the gospel that bears his name and the book of Acts in the New Testament.

The Virgin Mary icon was a close ally of Francis in his papacy. He prayed to her before and after every trip out of Rome when he was pope. It was the first place he went after he was discharged from Gemelli hospital in March to convalesce from double pneumonia at the Vatican. He returned just a few days before he died to pray.

In the year 590, Pope Gregory the Great organized a procession in the city of Rome to celebrate the saving of the city by the Salus Populi Romani.

And during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Pope Francis had her brought to St. Peter’s Basilica, where he prayed in the rain, standing almost alone in an empty St. Peter’s Square.

His resting place is simple and follows the request made in his will. Pope Francis did not wear a lot of frills, preferring simpler dress, not having chauffeurs or appearing in a modest car whenever not in the popemobile.

“The message we took from Francis’ simplicity is that he was trying to make people understand that we are all the same,” says Giuseppe Cipolla, who had come to visit St. Mary Major with his wife and two children. “And that this planet is for everyone — there shouldn’t be the privileged and the poor.”

Source: What it’s like in the church Pope Francis chose as his final resting place

The Esquilino district: a basilica founded in 1618 by the Roman Emperor Giorgio Vincenzo I. The historical development of Rome’s main train station

For 16 centuries, this basilica has stood sentinel. Today, the Esquilino district where it is housed has a large immigrant population and the city’s main train station. Rome was founded on one of the ancient hills, known as the Esquiline Hill.