Francis – who chose his papal name after Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint who renounced his family wealth and championed the poor – took steps while he was alive to simplify the rites around his death to make them more “down to earth.”
The Vatican said the funeral will follow the rites laid out in the “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis.” This liturgical book, detailing the procedures following the death of a pope, was published in 2000 and revised by Francis last year.
Some of those revisions have already been on display. Unlike after previous papal deaths, Francis’ body was placed immediately inside his coffin, which has been left open to allow people to pay their respects.
Diego Ravelli, master of apostolic ceremonies, said Francis had sought to “simplify and adapt” the rituals, so that the papal funeral is “that of a pastor and disciple of Christ, and not of a powerful person in this world.”
Elise Allen, CNN’s Vatican analyst, said Francis, the first Argentine pontiff, was the “pope of simplicity.”
“He lived that way in Buenos Aires, and he tried to bring that into the papacy and the way that he lived as pope because that’s something he wanted for the church itself – to be more simple, to be more in contact with reality, with the lives of people around,” Allen said.
In his will, Francis gave simple instructions for his burial: “The tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, bearing only the inscription: Franciscus.”
Rather than the splendor of the Vatican, Francis has opted to be buried in Rome’s Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. He will be the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century.
