Pope Francis has revised the funeral rites that will be used when he dies, simplifying the rituals to emphasize his role as a mere bishop and allowing for burial outside the Vatican in keeping with his wishes.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano published details of the updated liturgical book, which Francis approved April 29 and which replaces the previous edition that was last published in 2000.
Francis turns 88 in December and, despite some health and mobility problems, appears in fine form. On Wednesday, he presided over a spirited general audience that featured children who spontaneously rushed the stage.
While popes often tinker with the rules regulating the conclave that will elect their successor, a revision of the papal funeral rites became necessary after Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI died on Dec. 31, 2022.
The Vatican had to work out a funeral for a retired pope, and a few months later Francis revealed he was working with the Vatican’s master of liturgical ceremonies, Monsignor Diego Ravelli, to overhaul the papal funeral rites to simplify them.
In that 2023 interview with Mexican Televisa broadcaster N+, Francis also revealed that he had decided he would be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore basilica in Rome, not in the grottoes underneath St. Peter’s Basilica where most popes are buried.
Ravelli told L’Osservatore Romano that the new reform simplifies the funeral rites, including eliminating the requirement that the pope be placed on an elevated bier in St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing. Rather, he will be on view in a simple coffin, and the burial no longer requires the traditional three coffins of cyprus, lead and oak.
The simplification, he told the newspaper, is meant “to emphasize even more that the Roman Pontiff’s funeral is that of a shepherd and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful man of this world.”
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