The Vatican has just announced the Pope’s funeral will take place on Saturday, 26 April at 10:00 local time (09:00 BST).
Pope Francis will be taken to St Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday morning at 09:00 local time (08:00 BST), the Vatican has announced.
The Pope’s coffin will be there until the burial for the public to pay their respects.
His body is currently laid out in a coffin in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence, where he lived during his 12-year papacy.
According to Church custom, it should typically be held within four to six days after the pontiff’s death – with the funeral mass taking place in St Peter’s Square.
Papal funerals have traditionally been elaborate affairs, but Pope Francis acted last year to simplify his arrangements.
He will be the first Pope in more than a century not to be buried in the Vatican, in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica – opting instead to be laid to rest in Rome’s Basilica of St Mary Major, near his favourite icon of the Madonna.
He also requested to be buried in a simple wooden casket, unlike his predecessors who were buried in the traditional three nesting coffins made of cypress, lead and oak.
In his final testament, Pope Francis expressed his wish to be buried in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome.
“I wish my final earthly journey to end precisely in this ancient Marian sanctuary, where I would always stop to pray at the beginning and end of every Apostolic Journey,” he said.
The pontiff, who has come to be known for favouring simplicity over pomp, also asked for a tomb “without ornamentation” and with only the inscription “Franciscus”.
On the cost of the burial, the late Pope said it would be covered by a benefactor which he had arranged to be transferred to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major.
