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People will be able to pay their last respects to Pope Francis in St Peter’s Basilica from Wednesday to Friday, the Vatican has announced.
Many world leaders have confirmed their plans to attend Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, which will be marked by his requests for simpler rites and a burial outside the Vatican in the hilltops of Rome.
The Argentinian pontiff, 88, died on Monday from a stroke, less than a month after returning home from five weeks in hospital battling double pneumonia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said they would be at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on Saturday morning, after the funeral was announced by cardinals.
Italy declared five days of national mourning and Poland, another Catholic-majority country, said it would observe the same, from Tuesday until the day of the funeral.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces an international criminal arrest warrant, will not be attending, the Kremlin has said.
The late Pope’s coffin will be taken by procession from his residence in the Vatican to the Basilica on Wednesday, where mourners can visit until the funeral.
Although the ceremony will take place at St Peter's Basilica, the Pope asked to be buried at Santa Maria Maggiore Church in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood, in a break from tradition. He will become the first pontiff in more than 100 years to be laid to rest outside the Vatican.
The Vatican released images of the Pope in his coffin in San Marta Residence, where he lived during his 12-year papacy. It emerged he had requested a simple burial "without particular decoration".
His body has not been placed in three nested coffins made from cypress, lead and oak, as is a tradition in papal burial, but in a zinc casket inside a simple wooden coffin.
Special services will be held across the UAE to celebrate the life of the Argentine, who was the first pope to visit the Emirates. Mass will be held in Dubai on Saturday evening at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Dubai, led by Bishop Paolo Martinelli, where more than 40,000 people are expected to gather during the day.
A book of commemoration will be placed from Thursday at St Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi, for mourners to sign. Meanwhile, daily prayers are being held at St Joseph’s, St Paul’s and St John the Baptist Church in Abu Dhabi, St Mary’s Church in Al Ain, St Mary’s and St Francis of Assisi in Dubai, St Michael’s in Sharjah and St Anthony's in Ras Al Khaimah.
As speculation grows over who could succeed Pope Francis, eyes have turned towards two clerics whose tenures in the Middle East were marked by war and overcoming sectarian division.
The Italian-born Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who has played a key role in bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza, is spoken of as one of the favourites.
The Cardinal, who speaks Hebrew, has made two visits to Gaza since the war was prompted by the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, including in December last year, when he met the community sheltering in the Palestinian territory's only Catholic church, the Holy Family Church in Gaza city.
Pope Francis said at the time that the Cardinal’s entry into Gaza had been blocked, although Israeli officials denied this and he was given permission to enter the following day.
Cardinal Pizzaballa said there had been a spiritual “connection” between the Easter celebrations and Pope Francis’s death after the news broke early on Monday.
“There is a significant connection between the celebration of life and love with the Resurrection and today Pope Francis was called to see the face of God,” he said.
Under Cardinal Pizzaballa’s leadership, the Jerusalem Patriarchate was one of two bodies that maintained humanitarian access channels to northern Gaza, the region most affected by Israeli blockades.
Yet he previously told The National of the great challenges he faced maintaining interfaith dialogue in Jerusalem since the war began, with faith leaders unable to “understand each other”.
“I used to meet the hierarchy of Muslim authorities, Jewish authorities and so on. Now it’s difficult,” he said during a visit to London in November. “After years of dialogue, we are at a point where we do not understand each other.”
In Iraq, the leader of the Chaldean Church, Cardinal Louis Sako, was also hailed as a possible successor by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani.
Cardinal Sako, 76, is an ethnic Assyrian born in the northern city of Zakho, where Assyrian Christians have lived since the 5th century AD.
Mr Al Sudani praised him for his vital role in advancing peace and fostering interfaith tolerance on Tuesday, and offering his “unwavering support” for the "sole nominee from the Middle East" for the papacy.
Cardinal Sako has been outspoken in raising the grievances of Christians in Iraq, with an estimated one million having left in the past decade.
