Pope Francis’ funeral will be held on Saturday, April 26, at 10.00 a.m. (0800 GMT) at St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican said in a statement.
Cardinals gathered at the Vatican on Tuesday to plan Pope Francis‘ funeral, which leaders from around the world will attend ahead of a conclave next month to elect a new head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Francis, 88, died unexpectedly on Monday after suffering a stroke and cardiac arrest, the Vatican said, ending an often turbulent reign in which he repeatedly clashed with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalised.
The pontiff spent five weeks in hospital earlier this year suffering from double pneumonia. But he returned to the Vatican almost a month ago and had seemed to be recovering, appearing in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
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 stand on either side of the casket.
A charismatic communicator with a friendly demeanour, Pope Francis succeeded in broadening Catholicism’s appeal at a time of growing disenchantment towards the Church, an institution embroiled in financial and sexual scandals.
Throughout his papacy from 2013 to 2025, the Pope stripped the Vatican of some layers of opacity and connected with the concerns of common people.
He highlighted the plight of the poor and that of prisoners.
Pope Francis condemned the Church’s abuse of power while engaging with other faiths.
His tone marked a radical departure from his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who believed that nurturing the Church’s most ardent believers was the way to strengthen the institution.
But Pope Francis’s shift never translated into fundamental changes to the Church’s doctrine on contentious issues. In most instances, he remained in line with previous papacies, staunchly opposing gay marriage, women becoming priests and priests marrying.
Meanwhile, The Vatican has just announced that the coffin of Pope Francis will be transferred to the St Peter Basilica on Wednesday at 9am (07:00 GMT).
It will be taken from the chapel of the Santa Marta residence, the pope’s residence where he died on Easter Monday, in a procession accompanied by cardinals.
The Vatican said Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farreli, the camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, will preside over a prayer, after which the coffin will undertake a short itinerary that will culminate with entering the Basilica through its central door.
The camerlengo with then preside over a liturgy at the altar, at the end of which it will be possible for the public to begin paying visits to Pope Francis’s body, it added.
People have been filing into St Peter’s Square all morning, as they will continue to do throughout the next days in ever greater numbers.
They include the faithful, members of the public, and non-Catholics.
People are coming here to pray, to reflect and to remember the legacy of Francis’s 12-year papacy. He was the first Argentinian pope, the first non-European pope in well more than a millennium, and had such broad appeal.
I’ve been speaking to people here, and one woman spoke of the pope’s embrace of the poor, his embrace of the climate and the environment, much as St Francis of Assisi espoused, from whom the pope took his name. Another woman said he did much to try and modernise and reform the institutions and doctrine of the church, but that he could have done more.
This ancient institution is not easily changed, however, and another person hoped that the successor would be able to continue Pope Francis’s legacy.
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