The Vatican has announced that the late Pope Francis’s funeral will begin on Saturday in front of St. Peter’s Basilica at 10 a.m.
The funeral mass will follow the simplified rules the Vatican issued last year, the Rite of Burial for the Roman Pontiff, which was approved by the late Pope Francis.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the Vatican confirmed the passing of the pontiff on Easter Monday at his residence in the Casa Santa Marta within Vatican City.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, will celebrate the funeral, the 252 men known as the “princes of the church.”
The coffin will then be brought into St. Peter’s, named after the first pope, and then to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Francis asked to be buried.
Pope Francis’ funeral will be a more modest event after the pontiff simplified the ritual, breaking with longstanding Vatican tradition.
The selection of a new pontiff will likely take weeks.
Catholics worldwide declared official periods of mourning on Tuesday following the death of Pope Francis, with memorial services held and flags lowered to half-staff in tribute to the pontiff, who died at 88 from a stroke.
On Tuesday, flags were lowered at government buildings in honour of Pope Francis in Australia, Japan, Britain, Italy, and Lebanon.
President Donald Trump has also ordered American flags to be flown at half-mast at all government buildings until the burial of late Pope Francis.
