Pope Francis’s Funeral to Be Held on Saturday, Many World Leaders Expected 

The body of Pope Francis is placed in an open casket during the rite of the declaration of death in Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, April 22, 2025. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS
The body of Pope Francis is placed in an open casket during the rite of the declaration of death in Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, April 22, 2025. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS
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Pope Francis’s Funeral to Be Held on Saturday, Many World Leaders Expected 

The body of Pope Francis is placed in an open casket during the rite of the declaration of death in Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, April 22, 2025. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS
The body of Pope Francis is placed in an open casket during the rite of the declaration of death in Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, April 22, 2025. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

Pope Francis' funeral will be held on Saturday in St. Peter's Square, Roman Catholic cardinals decided on Tuesday, setting the stage for a solemn ceremony that will draw leaders from around the world. 

Francis, 88, died unexpectedly on Monday after suffering a stroke and cardiac arrest, the Vatican said, ending an often turbulent reign in which he repeatedly clashed with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalized. 

The pontiff spent five weeks in hospital earlier this year suffering from double pneumonia. But he returned to the Vatican almost a month ago and had seemed to be recovering, appearing in St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday. 

The Vatican on Tuesday released photographs of Francis dressed in his vestments and laid in a wooden coffin in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence, where he lived during his 12-year papacy. Swiss Guards stand on either side of the casket. 

His body will be taken into the adjacent St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m. (0700 GMT), in a procession led by cardinals, allowing the faithful to pay their last respects to the first Latin American pope. 

His funeral service will be held in St. Peter's Square, in the shadow of the Basilica, on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. (0800 GMT). 

US President Donald Trump, who clashed repeatedly with the pope about immigration, said he and his wife would fly to Rome for the service. 

Among other heads of state set to attend were Javier Milei, president of Francis' native Argentina, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to a source in his office. 

ANCIENT RITUALS 

In a break from tradition, Francis confirmed in his final testament released on Monday that he wished to be buried in Rome's Basilica of Saint Mary Major and not St. Peter's, where many of his predecessors were laid to rest. 

Francis's sudden death has set in motion ancient rituals, as the 1.4-billion-member Church started the transition from one pope to another, including the breaking of the pope's "Fisherman's Ring" and lead seal, used in his lifetime to seal documents, so they cannot be used by anyone else. 

All cardinals in Rome were summoned to a meeting on Tuesday to decide on the sequencing of events in the coming days and review the day-to-day running of the Church in the period before a new pope is elected. 

A conclave to choose a new pope normally takes place 15 to 20 days after the death of a pontiff, meaning it should not start before May 6. 

Some 135 cardinals are eligible to participate in the secretive ballot, which can stretch over days before white smoke pouring from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel tells the world that a new pope has been picked. 

At present there is no clear frontrunner to succeed Francis. 

PROGRESSIVE 

Pope Francis inherited a Church in disarray and worked hard to overhaul the Vatican's central administration, root out corruption and, after a slow start, confront the scourge of child abuse within the ranks of the priesthood. 

He often clashed with conservatives, nostalgic for a traditional past, who saw Francis as overly liberal and too accommodating to minority groups. 

Francis appointed nearly 80% of the cardinal electors scattered across the world who will choose the next pope, increasing, but not guaranteeing, the possibility that his successor will continue his progressive policies. 

Many of the cardinals are little known outside their own countries and they will have a chance to get to know one another at meetings known as General Congregations that take place in the days before a conclave starts and where a profile of the qualities needed for the next pope will take shape. 

The Vatican said late on Monday that staff and officials within the Holy See could immediately start to pay their respects before the pope's body at the Santa Marta residence, where Francis set up home in 2013, shunning the grand, apostolic palace his predecessors had lived in. 



Thousands Flock to Vatican for Pope Leo XIV’s Installation Ceremony and First Popemobile Tour

 Workers place flowers on the basilica's loggia ahead a Holy Mass for the Beginning of the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, in St Peter's square in The Vatican on May 18, 2025. (AFP)
Workers place flowers on the basilica's loggia ahead a Holy Mass for the Beginning of the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, in St Peter's square in The Vatican on May 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Thousands Flock to Vatican for Pope Leo XIV’s Installation Ceremony and First Popemobile Tour

 Workers place flowers on the basilica's loggia ahead a Holy Mass for the Beginning of the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, in St Peter's square in The Vatican on May 18, 2025. (AFP)
Workers place flowers on the basilica's loggia ahead a Holy Mass for the Beginning of the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, in St Peter's square in The Vatican on May 18, 2025. (AFP)

Tens of thousands of people streamed into St. Peter's Square early Sunday to inaugurate Pope Leo XIV 's pontificate, joining presidents and princes in celebrating history's first American pope with a formal installation ceremony that blends ancient ritual, evocative symbols and a nod to modern-day celebrity.

Starting at dawn, civil protection crews in neon uniforms funneled pilgrims into quadrants in the piazza while priests and patriarchs hurried into St. Peter's Basilica to get ready for the Mass. US Vice President JD Vance, one of the last foreign officials to see Pope Francis before he died, paid his respects at the Argentine pope's tomb upon arriving in Rome late Saturday and was heading the US delegation honoring the Chicago-born Leo.

Leo will start the day by taking his first tour through the piazza in the popemobile. The open-topped vehicle has become synonymous with the papacy’s global reach and mediatic draw, used at home and abroad to bring popes close to their flock.

It was here that Francis took his last popemobile ride on Easter Sunday, and it was on the back of a popemobile that Francis’ casket was brought across Rome last month to its final resting place.

Leo, a 69-year-old Augustinian missionary elected May 8 after a 24-hour conclave, seems a bit more timid than Francis. But all eyes will be on how he manages the throngs of pilgrims, tourists and curiosity-seekers, and the babies who will inevitably be passed up to him for him to bless.

After the festive public tour in the square, Leo goes into the basilica to begin the solemn ceremony to inaugurate his ministry in a series of rites that emphasize the service that he's called to perform in leading the Catholic Church. He prays first at the tomb of St. Peter, considered to be the first pope, under the basilica’s main altar and then processes out into the piazza for the Mass.

Strict diplomatic protocol dictates the seating arrangements, with both the United States and Peru getting front-row seats thanks to Leo’s dual citizenship. Vance, a Catholic convert who tangled with Francis over the Trump administration’s mass migrant deportation plans, is being joined by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who arrived in Rome ahead of time to try to advance Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte is one of around a dozen heads of state attending, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Kalen Hill, a pilgrim from the US, got to St. Peter's soon after the gates opened Sunday morning and said he never expected an American would lead the 1.4-billion strong church.

"I would say all the Americans are emotional about it," he said. "It is really powerful for American Catholics who sometimes feel separated from the world church to be brought in and included in this community through Pope Leo."

During the Mass, Leo will receive the two potent symbols of the papacy: the lambswool stole, known as a pallium, and the fisherman’s ring. The pallium, draped across his shoulders, symbolizes the pastor carrying his flock as the pope carries the faithful. The ring, which becomes Leo’s official seal, harks back to Jesus’ call to the apostle Peter to cast his fishing nets.

The other symbolically important moment of the Mass is the representational rite of obedience to Leo: Whereas in the past all cardinals would vow obedience to the new pope, more recent papal installations involve representatives of cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, nuns, married couples and young people participating in the rite.

In the days since his historic election, Leo has already sketched out some of his key priorities as pope. In his first foreign policy address, he said the Holy See's three pillars of diplomacy were peace, justice and truth. In his first major economics address, he emphasized the Catholic Church's social doctrine and the search for truth. It's not known if he'll use his installation homily as a mission statement as some of his predecessors did.

Pope Benedict XVI quoted his predecessor during his installation homily, on April 25, 2005, and offered a meditation on the symbols of church unity represented by the pallium and fisherman’s ring. Francis’ installation homily, on March 19, 2013, focused on the need to protect the environment, an early hint of what would become one of the priorities of his pontificate.

Leo has vowed all efforts to find peaceful ends to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere. But as a priority, he has also identified the challenges to humanity posed by artificial intelligence, making the parallel to the challenges to human dignity posed by the industrial revolution that were confronted by his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878-1903.

After the homily and at the end of the Mass, Leo will offer a final blessing and then go into the basilica to greet the heads of the more than 150 official delegations attending.

Security was tight, as it was for Francis’ funeral on April 26, which drew an estimated 250,000 people. Rome authorities are planning for another 250,000 on Sunday. The piazza and main boulevard leading to it, and two nearby piazzas were set up with giant television screens, and dozens of portable toilets have been erected in a nearby park.