Pope Francis’ coffin was carried Wednesday morning in solemn procession to St. Peter’s Basilica, where the late pontiff will lie in state for three days for mourners to pay their final respects and say goodbye.
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The rite began in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, where Francis lived for the 12 years of his pontificate, and where he was placed in a simple, zinc-lined coffin on April 21, hours after he died at the age of 88.
Members of the lay confraternity of chair-bearers, called sediari pontifici, carried Pope Francis’ coffin — led in procession by priests, bishops, and cardinals — through Vatican City and to St. Peter’s Square, where thousands of mourners waited in total silence for a glimpse of their former pope.
To the sounds of bell tolls and Latin chants, Pope Francis, for the last time, passed over the same road he took hundreds of times before, when he would greet the crowds gathered to see him during turns around St. Peter’s Square in his popemobile.
Flanked by eight Swiss Guards, the coffin was carried into St. Peter’s Square to loud applause, breaking through the solemn silence. The pope was carried across the left side of the square, up the incline, and through the main door of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The choir chanted Psalms, the Kyrie and the Litany of Saints as Francis’ body was carried down the center aisle of the Vatican basilica and his coffin placed on a low, wooden platform in front of the Altar of the Confession.
Four Swiss Guards stood watch as clergy and laypeople prayed together for Pope Francis following the rite of the “translation of the coffin of the Roman Pontiff Francis,” according to the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, the Church’s liturgical book for the funeral rites of popes.
The camerlengo, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, presided over the rite, which included incensing and sprinkling the papal coffin with holy water, the sung proclamation of a passage from the Gospel of John 17: 24-26, intercessory prayers, and a prayer that God will “hear us as we pray in union with all the Saints, and welcome into the assembly of your elect, the soul of your servant, our Pope Francis, who placed his trust in the Church’s prayer.”
The prayer ended with the congregation singing the Our Father in Latin, and the Salve Regina. The cardinals and bishops in attendance silently approached the coffin in two lines to pay their final respects, and around 45 minutes later, just before 11 a.m. local time, the first mourners were allowed to enter the Vatican basilica to see the pope.
Pope Francis will lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica for the public to see, pray, and say goodbye, until the evening of April 25, when Cardinal Farrell will close the coffin in preparation for the funeral Mass on the morning of April 26, in St. Peter’s Square.
April 26 will also mark the first day of a formal period of nine days of prayer and mourning in the Catholic Church, called the “novendiales.”
After his funeral Mass, the late pontiff will be buried in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, as he requested in his last testament.
