The funeral of Pope Francis will be held on Saturday in St. Peter’s Square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the beginning of a carefully orchestrated process, choosing a new pope that is full of history and politics.
All 252 cardinals from around the world will attend the funeral – and then at least 120 will be elected in a sacred process to the next leader of the Catholic Church. There are already many speculations about who the Cardinal chooses and whether the new pope will continue Francis’ concerns about poverty and reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.
Vatican News reported that the Vatican announced that the 88-year-old pope died of a stroke and a “irreversible heart cycle collapse.”
As the 266th leader of the church, his commitment to social justice and his focus on the church ministry of immigration, poverty and oppressed is respected by many Catholics and theologians. Although he follows the church’s conservative doctrines about abortion and LGBTQ rights, he shakes the church’s conservative norms when he tells the church to “obsess” with these issues.
Pope Francis’ Saturday funeral and after
Funeral service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
Following tradition, the Vatican health department verified the Pope’s death in his home, his body was placed in a coffin and transferred to St. Peter’s Basilica for pubic view, funeral and funeral.
NPR reported that during this time, Cardinal Kevin Farrell served as Cardinal Camerlengo. These duties include destroying the symbolic fisherman ring of the late pope (used to seal Vatican documents) and preparing for the meeting.
The Pope’s body must be buried between the fourth and sixth days after death. According to PBS, last year, Pope Franciscans buried the pope in three coffins, with only two bodies placed in wooden coffins with zinc coffee inside. To be consistent with the change, he will be buried in the Cathedral of Major St. Mary, located outside the Vatican, a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the beginning and end of each apostolic journey he took during his 12-year Pope.
After the funeral, there were nine days of official mourning known as “Novidiali”. This is the Cardinal College that will gather at the Sistine Church in Vatican City for the meeting.
What you should know about the meeting
The meeting is a gathering of 120 church cardinals who hold secret votes at Sistine Chapel to elect the next pope.
There is no set date for the announcement of the meeting, but it must be held 15 to 20 days after the “Sede facante” (the vacancy caused by the Pope’s death or resignation).
During the voting, the ballots are filled in, paid, and then burned. Each round of voting smoke is released from the chimney above the church. Black smoke means there is no choice for the Pope and a new vote will be held. White smoke means that the Pope has been chosen.
To be elected as a leader, the next pope needs two-thirds of the vote.
The vote will include cardinals from historic congregations such as France, Italy and the United States, as well as others from remote locations such as Mongolia, chaired by Cardinal Giorgio Marengo and appointed by Pope Francis in 2022.
“Although there are still cardinals from some Catholic cities around the world, he will choose cardinals from peripheral locations,” the deck said of the late pope. “This is consistent with his idea that the church needs to go to the periphery, not just stay in the center, but also focus on people who are not. It is usually the people who are forgotten in poor areas.”
Currently, 80% of the Cardinals who will attend the meeting will be selected by Pope Francis himself.
“This is different from what we used to be to some extent because it includes many cardinals from smaller parts of the world,” Deck said.
Why there is no Cardinal in California at the conference
For a long time, California would not represent the Cardinals at conference games.
Cardinal Roger Mahony, who led the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, was banned for two reasons: his involvement in public or administrative duties in the process of sexual abuse hiding prohibited by the church; he was aging by the time he was sold at 89, because meeting participants must be under 80.
California does have Cardinal Robert McElroy, who was born in San Francisco and has long worked in churches in San Francisco, San Mateo and, most recently, San Diego. Cardinal McElroy rose steadily to become the Archbishop of Diocese life and development and held that position until he was appointed the sixth bishop of San Diego in March 2015.
Pope Francis appointed then-Bishop McElroy as Cardinal College in 2022, and three years later, Francis appointed Cardinal McElroy as the eighth largest bishop of Washington on January 6.
Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles was unable to attend because he was not a cardinal. David Gibson, director of the Center for Religion and Culture at Fordham University, said Francis believes his views are too conservative to elevate him to the issue.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
