How does a pope's funeral take place?

What funeral for Pope Francis?

Pope Francis, in office since 2013, reiterated, at the beginning of April, his desire to simplify the papal funeral rite. In the book El Sucesor, (in French, The Successor), written by the Vaticanist Javier Martinez-Brocal, the Sovereign Pontiff announces that he wants to put an end to a certain pomp of the Church. Gone were the logic of Court and the long ceremonies of exposure of the corpse. “There will be no more coffin closing ceremony. Everything will be done in the same ceremony, as for any Christian. », Explains the Argentine pope. He plans a single, faster rite for him and his successors at the Vatican. As well as a burial in a simple coffin and not a catafalque. A return to a form of sobriety so that the successor of Saint Peter is recognized only for his spiritual character. An intention that he had already formulated in March 2023, on Swiss radio and television.

Francis would therefore have already planned his funeral. Speaking to the Mexican television channel N+, the Argentine pope declared, in December 2023, that he wanted to be buried in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, near the statue of the Queen of Peace. “The place is already ready,” he confided, (…) It is my great devotion.” Jorge Bergoglio justifies this iconoclastic decision by his “very great link” with this church in the center of the Italian capital where seven of his predecessors are already buried. “There is a small recess, a door which leads to a room where the candelabra were stored. I saw it and thought: 'This is the place,' and the grave is already prepared there,” he concludes.