Francis set the stage for his personal mourning late final 12 months, when he accepted a simplified procedure for papal funeral rituals.
Simplicity, after all, is relative — on this case to the breathtaking grandeur bequeathed by centuries of Roman Catholic custom.
The procession above happened Wednesday morning, when Francis’ coffin was carried from the Casa Santa Marta, the cardinals’ guesthouse the place he lived as a substitute of the regal papal flats, to St. Peter’s Basilica, the place his physique is to spend three days mendacity in state.
The pope’s stays will lie beneath the basilica’s 380-foot-high Renaissance dome, with its gilding and its attractive mosaics, in entrance of the bronze cover that Bernini made to brighten its excessive altar.
But it surely rests there on a low pedestal, not a bier. And the plans omitted a non-public viewing on the Apostolic Palace for cardinals and different dignitaries, although the coffin did spend a period for quiet farewells within the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta.
Nor will St. Peter’s be the ultimate cease. Francis requested to be buried on the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the place he prayed earlier than and after each journey of his papacy. His will specifies a easy tomb, “within the earth,” with a single-word inscription: “Franciscus.”
Elisabetta Povoledo, Emma Bubola and Alan Yuhas contributed reporting.
