Vatican City – Pope Francis’s funeral will be held in the Vatican on Saturday at 10am local time (8:00 GMT), with hundreds of thousands of guests and mourners expected to attend the late pontiff’s final ceremonies.
US President Donald Trump and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be among the dozens of dignitaries travelling to the Vatican for the ceremony, which will be a simpler affair than previous papal funerals.
Last year, the Argentine pope amended the funeral rites to show that he was a “disciple of Christ” rather than “a powerful man of this world”.
Who will be there?
As well as being a major religious event, papal funerals also have an important diplomatic dimension.
The pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, but he also leads the Holy See – a sovereign juridical entity with a seat at the United Nations – and the Vatican city-state. There are some 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, concentrated above all in Europe, the Americas and increasingly in Africa.
For this reason, papal funerals tend to attract large numbers of political figures. When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, his funeral attracted some 70 presidents and prime ministers – making it one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in history.
Among those to have already confirmed their attendance for Francis’s funeral on Saturday are US President Trump, the UN chief Guterres, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has no plans to attend, according to the Kremlin, but there will be a delegation from China.
Alongside these political figures, there will be large numbers of Catholics and other well-wishers.
The Italian government said on Tuesday that it expected at least 200,000 foreigners to travel to Rome for the funeral. Although the Vatican is a sovereign state, it is located in the heart of the Italian capital, and Italy will help manage some elements of the logistics.
There is, however, some reason to think that the eventual turnout will be higher than the Italian government’s estimate – the last funeral of a sitting pope, John Paul II, attracted some four million attendees.
That said, the number of mourners on Saturday might not quite reach that high. While both popes enjoyed high levels of popularity, John Paul had served for 26 years, compared to Francis’s 12. Moreover, John Paul’s native Poland – where he had a huge number of admirers – was close enough to Italy to facilitate large-scale travel.
What will happen at the funeral?
In 2024, Pope Francis simplified the Rite of Burial for Roman Pontiffs, which lays out the rubrics for papal funerals.
According to the new rites, Francis will be buried in a single coffin, rather than the three used by previous popes.
Different language will be used, too – during the funeral, the pope will be called “Bishop of Rome”, “Pope”, “Pastor”, or “Roman Pontifex”, with grander titles such as “Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church” now avoided.
Mirticeli Medeiros, a Catholic Church historian and Vatican correspondent for Brazil’s GloboNews, told Al Jazeera that “Francis’s simplification of the funeral rituals reflects not only his humility, which was well known, but also his revolution of the institution of the papacy”.
“He always said that he did not feel comfortable with the idea that the Vatican was the last absolute monarchy of Europe,” Medeiros said. “That is why, from the very beginning, he presented himself as ‘Bishop of Rome’, which for him was the most dignified title – he was a bishop, a pastor and a Christian like any other.”
Explaining the changes, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of Papal Liturgical Ceremonies, said that the aim was to highlight that the pope’s funeral is “that of a shepherd and disciple of Christ, and not of a powerful man of this world”.
Archbishop Ravelli added that it was Francis himself who had stressed the need to “adapt certain rites, so that the celebration of the funeral of the Bishop of Rome might better express the Church’s faith in the risen Christ”.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old Italian who is currently dean of the College of Cardinals, is expected to preside over the pope’s funeral mass.
He will lead those present in prayers and Bible readings, and will deliver the final commendation and valediction, entrusting the pope’s soul to God.
The funeral will be held in a variety of different languages, reflecting the Catholic Church’s international nature and the varied backgrounds of those present.
It is likely that – as is the case for most masses of this kind at the Vatican – the main prayers will be said in Latin and Italian, with Bible readings in Italian, Spanish, and English, and a number of shorter prayers in other languages such as Arabic, Polish, and Chinese.
What happens after the funeral?
After Pope Francis’s funeral, his coffin will be transferred to the Basilica of St Mary Major, a church lying outside the Vatican’s walls that he was particularly fond of visiting.
Francis will be the first pope to be buried there since the 1600s, and the first in over 100 years to be buried outside the Vatican.
In his final testament, released on Monday, the pope asked that his tomb be “in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation”, and specified that the only word should be his papal name in Latin: “Franciscus.”
A plain gravestone in a church that hasn’t held a pope’s remains in centuries – it’s a fitting final resting place for a man who will be remembered by many for his humility and his independence.
“After his election in 2013, the pope first appeared in public wearing simple white vestments, as a way to demonstrate his desire for a less ostentatious church”, Christopher White, Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, told Al Jazeera.
“So,” White added, “it is fitting that he has stripped down the funeral rites, to ensure that in death he can offer one final lesson in symbolism for a church which, he hopes, will continue on a path toward humility.”
