Pope Francis has amended the funeral ceremonies that will be performed when he dies, reducing the formalities to stress his function as a mere bishop and allowing for burial outside the Vatican, as he requested.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano released details of the updated liturgy book, which Francis approved on April 29 and will replace the old edition, which was last published in 2000.
Francis turns 88 in December and, despite some health and mobility issues, looks to be in good shape.
On Wednesday, he presided over a lively general audience, which included children who spontaneously rushed the stage.
While popes frequently change the rules governing the conclave that elects their successor, a reform of papal burial procedures became necessary after Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI died on December 31, 2022.
The Vatican needed to plan a funeral for a retired pope, and a few months later, Francis stated that he was working with Monsignor Diego Ravelli, the Vatican’s master of liturgical ceremonies, to simplify papal burial rites.
In same 2023 interview with Mexican Televisa station N+, Francis also disclosed that he had elected to be buried in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore church rather than the grottoes beneath St Peter’s church, where most popes are buried.
Monsignor Ravelli told L’Osservatore Romano that the new reform simplifies funeral ceremonies, including eliminating the obligation for the pope to be placed on an elevated bier in St Peter’s Basilica for public viewing.
Instead, he will be shown in a modest casket, and the burial will no longer require the traditional three coffins of Cyprus, lead, and oak.
The simplification, he told the newspaper, is aimed “to emphasise 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”
