POPE WANTS SIMPLER FUNERAL
VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis, who has shunned much of the Vatican’s pomp and privilege, has decided to vastly simplify the elaborate funeral rites for a pontiff and be the first one to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century.
The Pope, who turns 87 on Sunday, disclosed plans for his funeral in an interview with Mexico’s N+ television on Tuesday evening to mark the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In the interview with the network’s Vatican correspondent, Valentina Alazraki, taped before the Pope presided at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis appeared to have recovered from a bout of bronchitis.
No to ‘mozzetta’
Francis disclosed that he has been working with the Vatican’s master of ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to simplify the elaborate, book-long funeral rites for a pope that have been used for his predecessors.
Since his election in 2013, Francis has shunned the crimson, fur-trimmed “mozzetta” or cape and also does not wear a gold cross but has kept around his neck the same faded silver-plated one he used as archbishop of Buenos Aires.
He also has not used the plush red “shoes of the fisherman” used by his predecessors. He has kept the same simple black shoes he always used and wears a plastic watch, giving others away so they could be auctioned off for charity.
Health ‘improved’
Francis said that because of his devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, he has decided to be buried in Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he traditionally goes to pray before and after each of his foreign trips. The funeral Mass itself would be expected to be held in St. Peter’s Square.
Many popes are buried in the crypts beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. The last pope to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII, who died in 1903 and is buried in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. —Reuters
