Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, left, prays in front of the body of Pope Francis laid out in state inside his private chapel at the Vatican, Monday, April 21, 2025. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis will be laid to rest Saturday after lying in state for three days in St. Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff.
The cardinals met Tuesday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10.
The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. U.S. President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump plan to attend, and Argentine President Javier Milei is also expected.
The Argentine pope died Monday at age 88 after a stroke put him in a coma and led his heart to fail. He had been recovering in his apartment after being hospitalized for five weeks with pneumonia. He made his last public appearance Sunday, delivering an Easter blessing and greeting followers from his popemobile, looping around St. Peter’s Square.
His Easter appearance from the same loggia where he was introduced to the world as the first pope from the Americas on March 13, 2013, was a fitting bookend to a 12-year papacy that sought to shake up the church and return it to its Gospel-mandated mission of caring for the poorest.
Viewing the pope’s coffin
The pope’s formal apartments in the Apostolic Palace and in the Santa Marta hotel were sealed Monday evening, following a centuries-old ritual. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who as camerlengo had the task of announcing the death and confirming it once the cause was determined, presided over the rituals.
Francis chose not to live in the palace, but in a two-room suite in Santa Marta on the other side of Vatican City. He died there and his body was transferred to the hotel chapel in the lobby, where the private viewing was underway Tuesday for Vatican officials and members of the pontifical household.
In changes made by Francis last year, his body was not placed in three wooden coffins, as it had been for previous popes. Rather, Francis was placed in a simplified wooden coffin with a zinc coffin inside.
Once in St. Peter’s, his casket will not be put on an elevated bier — as was the case with past popes — but will just be be placed simply facing the pews, with the Paschal candle nearby.
“He was a pope who didn’t change his path when it came to getting (his hands) dirty,” Francis’ vicar for Rome, Cardinal Baldassarre Reina, said in a Mass in his honor. “For him, poor people and migrants were the sacrament of Jesus.”
Choosing the next pope
After the funeral, there are nine days of official mourning, known as the “novendiali.” During this period, cardinals arrive in Rome and meet privately before the conclave.
To give everyone time to assemble, the conclave must begin 15 to 20 days after the “sede vacante” — the “vacant See” — is declared, although it can start sooner if the cardinals agree.
Once the conclave begins, cardinals vote in secret sessions in the Sistine Chapel. After voting sessions, the ballots are burned in a special stove. Black smoke indicates that no pope has been elected, while white smoke indicates that the cardinals have chosen the next head of the Catholic Church.
The one who has secured two-thirds of the votes wins. If he accepts, his election is announced by a cardinal from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica who tells the world: “Habemus Papam” — Latin for “We have a pope.”
