The workers cover the altar on Saint-Pierre square in preparation for Pope Francis funeral on Saturday.
Michael Kappeler / Picture Alliance via Getty Images
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Michael Kappeler / Picture Alliance via Getty Images
Pope Francis will be resting on Saturday while dozens of world leaders, church officials and mourning people are looking.
Francis ‘funeral occurs six days after Francis’ death of a stroke and heart failure at 88, and after tens of thousands of people paid tribute when he was in a state of the Saint-Pierre basilica.
After a Saturday morning funeral mass in St. Peter’s, the Pope’s coffin will be taken to Rome and buried with the Basilica of St. Mary Major – making him the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican for more than a century.
This is not the only way in which Francis’ funeral break with tradition: he has used his authority to simplify funeral rites for future popes and left specific instructions to reduce his.
Here’s what you need to know about the day and how to see for yourself.
When and where are the funeral?
Saturday’s funeral mass will start at 10 a.m. local time – 4 a.m. and 3 a.m. CT.
It will be held on Saint-Pierre square, a large square directly in front of the Saint-Pierre basilica in the city of the Vatican.
After mass, said the Vatican, the body of the pope “will be taken to the Saint-Pierre basilica then to the Basilica of St. Mary Major where he will be buried”.
Why the burial in Rome?
Visitors queue on Friday to enter the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, where Pope Francis will be buried after his funeral.
Piero Cruciatti / AFP via Getty Images
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Piero Cruciatti / AFP via Getty Images
Many popes are buried in the Vatican caves under the Saint-Pierre basilica. But Pope Francis chose to be buried in Rome, at the Basilica of St. Mary Major – about 2.5 miles away.
Francis chose St. Mary Major because he prayed there before and after each trip to Rome, and in difficult times like the cocovid-19 pandemic.
“I have always had great devotion to St. Mary Major, even before I became a pope,” he said in an interview in 2024 that was transformed into a book, El Sucessor.
The last pope buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII, who died in 1903.
How can I look at?
Viewers can watch a live flow from the ceremony on the Vatican News YouTube channel. The Vatican says that it will provide live coverage of the funeral and the procession to the majors of St. Mary, but will stop before the burial of the basilica.
Many major broadcasters in the United States and the world will also cover and broadcast live funerals, including NBC and Peacock, CBS and Paramount + and ABC News, Disney + and Hulu.
For the latter, go to npr.org and the NPR application.
Who will be there?
A view of Place Saint-Pierre in the city of Vatican on Friday, the day before the pope’s funeral.
Antonio Masiello / Getty images
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Antonio Masiello / Getty images
The Vatican says that mass will be chaired by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re – The dean of the Cardinals College, who will meet in the coming weeks to select the next Pope.
He will be joined by “the patriarchs, the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops, the priests, the consecrated religious and the faithful of the whole world”.
The Italian government expects 200,000 people to attend, including more than 100 foreign delegations, as reported.
President Trump confirmed his attendance, making it the first foreign trip to his second term.
The other world leaders who plan to be there understand: the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres; The president of the European Union commission Ursula von der Leyen; Javier Milei, president of Argentina from Francis; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, French President Emmanuel Macron; Michael D Higgins and Micheál Martin, President and Taoiseach of Ireland; Polish President Andrzej Duda; The outgoing chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz; The King of Spain Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prince William (in the name of King Charles III).
The Kremlin says that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be at the funeral, according to Russian media. Putin is under an arrest warrant against the International Criminal Court in the context of alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
What do we know about the procedure?
Friday evening, the coffin of Francis will be sealed during a ceremony, marking the end of the period of visualization of the public.
Saturday morning, the funeral begins with a procession, led by a priest carrying a cross, the New York Times Reports. After the coffin was placed on the square, a gospel book will be placed on it.
The service will be largely a conventional Catholic funeral, explains the correspondent for the NPR religion, Jason Derose. And although it will mainly be in Latin, the program lists prayers in other languages ​​- Portuguese, Polish, Chinese, Arabic – Hockering the world’s worldwide nature.
NBC News reports that the Swiss guards – who have protected the Pope and the Apostolic Palace for centuries – kneel for the consecration of the host. There will be a sermon that will examine the life of the pope, although it is technically not a praise.
The Vatican says that because Pope Francis took care of 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 tribute before his coffin is buried.
How does Francis break with tradition?
Tens of thousands of people paid tribute while the body of Pope Francis was in the state inside the Saint-Pierre basilica for three days.
Massimo Valicchia / Nurphoto via Getty Images
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Massimo Valicchia / Nurphoto via Getty Images
The last funeral ceremony for a seated pope – Pope John Paul II in 2005 – lasted three hours and one of the greatest rallies of statesmen in the world. The most recent papal funerals were for Pope Benedict XVI in January 2023, a decade after his resignation from the post.
But Francis will be quite different.
After chairing the funeral of his predecessor, the Pope worked with the Master of Liturgical Ceremonies of the Vatican to simplify funeral rites for future pontiffs. Francis wrote in his autobiography in 2024 that a pope should be buried “with dignity, but like any Christian, because the bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world”.
A notable change is that the Pope’s body no longer needs to be placed in three cypress, lead and oak coffins – instead, Francis’s body was placed in a simple wooden coffin with a zinc coffin inside. During his stay in the state, the coffin was not placed on a raised beer, but facing the benches.
In his will, Francis asked that his grave be “in the ground; simple, without any particular decoration, and with the only inscription: Franciscus” Latin for Francis. The Vatican says that the tomb was made with marble from the Liguria of Italy region, the country of the Grandparents of Francis.
What happens next?
The Vatican says that the faithful could start to visit Francis’ tomb on Sunday, in the morning after the funeral.
Francis’ funerals mark the start of a nine -day mourning period called novemdiales, with special masses every day.
Soon, the Roman Catholic cardinals will meet to elect a new pope. The conclave must start 15 to 20 days after the death of the Pope, who would make his start date between May 6 and 11.
