Pope approves new papal funeral rites to simplify ritual, allow for burial outside Vatican

Francis turns 88 successful December and, contempt immoderate wellness and mobility problems, appears successful good form. On Wednesday, helium presided implicit a spirited wide assemblage that featured children who spontaneously rushed the stage.

While popes often tinker with the rules regulating the conclave that volition elite their successor, a revision of the papal ceremonial rites became indispensable aft Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI died connected Dec. 31, 2022.

The Vatican had to enactment retired a funeral for a retired pope, and a fewer months aboriginal Francis revealed helium was moving with the Vatican’s maestro of liturgical ceremonies, Monsignor Diego Ravelli, to overhaul the papal ceremonial rites to simplify them.

In that 2023 interrogation with Mexican Televisa broadcaster N+, Francis besides revealed that helium had decided helium would beryllium buried successful Santa Maria Maggiore basilica successful Rome, not successful the grottoes underneath St. Peter’s Basilica wherever astir popes are buried.

Ravelli told L’Osservatore Romano that the caller betterment simplifies the ceremonial rites, including eliminating the request that the pope beryllium placed connected an elevated bier successful St. Peter’s Basilica for nationalist viewing. Rather, helium volition beryllium connected presumption successful a elemental coffin, and the burial nary longer requires the accepted 3 coffins of cyprus, pb and oak.

The simplification, helium told the newspaper, is meant “to stress adjacent much that the Roman Pontiff’s ceremonial is that of a shepherd and disciple of Christ and not of a almighty antheral of this world.”