World leaders expected to attend

HOLY SEE—Pope Francis’ funeral will be held on Saturday, the Vatican announced yesterday, as world leaders from US President Donald Trump to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy said they would attend to honor the Catholic leader.

The Argentine pontiff, 88, died on Monday from a stroke, less than a month after returning home from five weeks in hospital battling double pneumonia.

His funeral, which is expected to draw huge crowds, will take place at 10:00 am (0800 GMT or 4 p.m. Manila time) Saturday in the square in front of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Francis’s coffin—which he previously ordered should be of wood and zinc—will then be taken inside the church and from there to the Rome basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore for burial.

The date was set by the first so-called “general congregation” of cardinals on Tuesday morning, which kicked off a centuries-old process that culminates in the election of a new pontiff within three weeks.

Earlier, the Vatican published the first images of the pontiff in his open coffin, ahead of its transfer to St Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday at 9:00 am (0700 GMT, 3 p.m. Manila time), to lie in state.

The pope’s body was photographed during a service Monday evening in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where he lived during his 12-year papacy, and where he died.

Francis was wearing his red papal vestments, a mitre on his head and had a rosary between his fingers.

Tributes have poured in from around the globe for Francis, a liberal reformer who took over following the resignation of German theologian Benedict XVI in 2013.

His home country, Argentina, prepared for a week of national mourning while India began three days of state mourning on Tuesday — a rare honor for a foreign religious leader in the world’s most populous nation.

Heads of state and royalty are expected for his funeral, with Trump and France’s Emmanuel Macron the first to announce they would attend even before a date was confirmed.

On Tuesday, a source at the Ukrainian presidency told AFP that Zelenskyy, too, would come to Rome.

Cardinals of all ages are invited to the congregations, although only those under the age of 80 are eligible to vote for a new pope in the conclave.

The conclave should begin no less than 15 and no more than 20 days after the death of the pope.

Simple tomb

The pope’s body was moved into the Santa Marta chapel on Monday evening, and his apartment formally sealed, the Vatican said.

Francis, who wore plain robes and eschewed the luxury of his predecessors, has opted for a simple tomb, unadorned except for his name in Latin, Franciscus, according to his will released Monday.

In choosing to be buried in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore basilica, he will become the first pope in more than 100 years to be laid to rest outside the Vatican.

His death certificate released by the Vatican said Francis died of a stroke, causing a coma and “irreversible” heart failure.

He had been discharged from Rome’s Gemelli hospital on March 23 and ordered to spend at least two months resting.

But Francis, who never took a holiday and delighted in being among his flock, made numerous public appearances in recent days.

He appeared exhausted on Sunday during the Easter celebrations, but nevertheless greeted the crowds in his popemobile in St Peter’s Square.

The Camerlengo

With Pope Francis’s death, the immediate running of the Vatican is now in the hands of one cardinal, Dublin-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

Known as the Camerlengo, and appointed by the pope, it is he who will lead meetings to determine the date of Francis’s funeral, and supervise other organizational tasks, culminating in the Conclave to elect the next pope.

Farrell, 77, who has dual American and Irish citizenship, has served as Camerlengo since February 2019.

Known for his sense of humor and for speaking Spanish with an Irish brogue, the cardinal — who once was chaplain at Mexico’s University of Monterrey — now serves as the prefect for the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

He was asked by Francis in 2016 to head the newly created dicastery combining the functions of two previous ones, and moved to Rome for his first Vatican posting.

He was made a cardinal by Francis that same year.

Since January 2024, Farrell has been president of the Vatican City State Supreme Court.

Earlier, he spent the bulk of his priesthood in the United States, nearly 30 years in the Washington DC area and nine years in Dallas.

In a 2016 interview in The Irish Times, Farrell explained how when his secretary in Dallas told him that Pope Francis was on the phone to tell him he would be made a cardinal, he told her, “Like hell he is.”

“I kept saying to her, ‘No, that is one of my bishop friends, just messing.’”

In his role of temporarily managing the Holy See, Farrell will be helped by three cardinals.

As Camerlengo, he has the right to ask all the Vatican departments for budget reports, economic information and details on other ongoing affairs.

‘Eyes of God’

On Monday evening, thousands of faithful, some bringing flowers or candles, flocked to St. Peter’s Square at sunset to pray for Francis.

He “tried to get people to understand it doesn’t matter your sexual orientation, your race, it doesn’t matter in the eyes of God”, Mateo Rey, 22, a Mexican student, told AFP.

“I think that’s the closest to what Jesus intended.”

Born Jorge Bergoglio, Francis was the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit to lead the worldwide Catholic Church.

An energetic reformer, he sought to open the Church to everyone and was hugely popular — but his views also sparked fierce internal opposition.

In 12 years as pope, Francis advocated tirelessly for the defense of migrants, the environment, and social justice without questioning the Church’s positions on abortion or priestly celibacy.

Outspoken and stubborn, Francis also sought to reform the governance of the Holy See and expand the role of women and lay people, and to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances.

Faced with revelations of widespread child sex abuse in the Church, he lifted pontifical secrecy and forced religious and lay people to report cases to their superiors.

However, victims’ groups said he did not go far enough.

Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “Pope Francis’s funeral set for Saturday, world leaders expected.”