The Roman Catholic Church is preparing to lay him to rest as hundreds of thousands of mourners gather around the world to mark his passing, even though his funeral costs are likely to be significantly less than those of his predecessors.
The faithful can pay their respects by placing Francis’ body in St. Peter’s Basilica since Wednesday. Donald Trump’s funeral, which is scheduled for Saturday morning, is also expected to be attended by world leaders, including US President.
Francis requested a more modest burial than his predecessors. He made a change to the customary three-coffin burial customs of 2024, which included two made of cypress and oak and one made of lead, one inside the other. Popes can now be interred in a single coffin made of wood and lined with zinc in accordance with the new regulations. According to Francis’ wishes, the rule change also permits burial outside the Vatican.
He had requested a simple burial in the ground at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a church outside the Vatican’s walls. Francis will be the first pope to be interred outside the Vatican since the 1600s and the first in more than 100 years.
Francis was renowned for adopting a modest lifestyle when he became papacy in 2013. The pope, who was born in Argentina, frequently traveled in modest vehicles and chose to reside in the Vatican guest house rather than the lavish Apostolic Palace.
He “always was more enthusiastic about visiting places where regular people lived, not the palaces, the halls of power, and so on.” That was very typical of him, according to Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
Francis stated in his final will and testament that an unnamed benefactor would pay for his burial and would send it to Santa Maria Maggiore’s Papal Basilica.
Because in Catholicism, symbols are very significant, and this is one of those situations, Faggioli continued.
The financial woes of Vatican loom large.
The Vatican has kept a tight-lipped about Francis’s funeral’s specific costs, but it has not responded to inquiries for information.
Papal funerals have historically cost millions of dollars. The Vatican lost $20 million in 1978, or more than $101 million today, as a result of the pope’s deaths and subsequent conclave. More recently, Pope Benedict XVI’s election and Pope John Paul II’s funeral in 2005 cost $9 million (roughly $14.7 million in current dollars).
The Church made $ 12.4 million in revenue that year from a tourist influx to its museums. Donations, stocks, bonds, real estate, and other investments are additional sources of income.
However, the Church has experienced significant financial strain in recent years. Just three days before his hospitalization in late February, Francis frequently fought with cardinals about church finances. He was the author of numerous financial reforms, some of which caused backlash, including slashing executive pay.
According to two sources with knowledge of the situation, the Church experienced a $87 million budget deficit just last year, according to Reuters news agency. Since 2022, the Vatican has not released a full budget.
Because this church is much bigger, the Vatican needs money, and it needs money. There are fewer Catholics in wealthy nations as a result of the service it provides to many more people in poor nations. And so the imbalance originates, according to Faggioli.
Rome is a city of crowds.
Due to Holy Week, which attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors, the city of Rome and the Vatican in particular, was already crowded.
Tens of thousands have already paid their respects to Francis’s passing or to attend the public viewing of his body, though it is still unknown how many will do so.
The crowds have been sizable in the past. In 1978, an estimated 100, 000 people gathered to mourn Paul VI. Pope John Paul II’s funeral service in Rome in 2005 reportedly attracted four million mourners. In contrast, Pope Benedict’s funeral was attended by an estimated 50, 000 people in St. Peter’s Square in January 2023, with more than 136, 000 people watching it on the Vatican’s YouTube livestream as the Church added the option for recent papal funerals for those who won’t be in Rome.
