In death as in life, the Pope favours simplicity

Telegraph

22-04-2025

For a pope who embraced humility, shunned pomp and mistrusted tradition, it was an entirely fitting scene.
From the plain zinc-lined wooden coffin he had insisted on to the simple silver ring on his finger inside an unadorned chapel, everything about Pope Francis in death exuded the simplicity he had always shown in life.
On Wednesday at 9am Italian time, the coffin of the late Pope will be transferred to St Peter's Basilica to lie in state as the crowds file past.
But on Tuesday night, watched over by two halberd-clutching Swiss guardsmen, Pope Francis spent his last hours in the Casa Santa Maria, the functional, spartan hostel next to St Peter's which he had insisted on living in for the 12 years of his papacy. The splendour of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace was not for him; a simple room in a simple building would do him just fine.
As some of his closest colleagues looked on, the Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Pope's camerlengo, or chamberlain, read the rite declaring the pontiff's death, blessing his body in a quiet ceremony, quite possibly the last moment of peaceful reflection before Saturday's funeral.
It was Cardinal Farrell who, in accordance with tradition, removed and smashed the Ring of the Fisherman, the symbol of office that had adorned his finger throughout his papacy. He left in its place a simple band, adorned with a cross, that Pope Francis had worn during his 15-year tenure as Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
A plain black rosary wrapped around his fingers, the Pope lay in his casket dressed in a red chasuble, the traditional colour of papal mourning that denotes the love, passion and blood of Christ. Over it was placed the pallium, a white stole made from the wool of two lambs reared by Trappist monks. The pallium symbolises the lamb Christ carried on his shoulders in depictions of him as the Good Shepherd.
The white mitre was placed on his head, representing holiness and authority – a simpler form of the mitre with an orphrey of brilliant gold cloth that popes historically wore after their death.
The angular simplicity of the chapel itself also seemed suggestive of Pope Francis's misgivings about tradition. He was not ready to dispense with it entirely, nor did he see the point of embracing it for its own sake.
It is little wonder that in his last testament he chose an unorthodox resting place, requesting that his 'last earthly journey' end at the shrine of Santa Maria Maggiore, the Roman basilica he visited at the beginning and end of every apostolic trip he undertook during his papacy.
Here he will be laid in the earth in a plain, undecorated tomb bearing only the inscription 'Franciscus', in accordance with his wishes, near a Marian icon known as the Salus Populi Romani.
'I have always entrusted my life and episcopal ministry to the Mother of Our Lord, Mary Most Holy,' he wrote in his final testament.
'For this reason, I ask that my mortal remains rest awaiting the day of resurrection in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.'
Before the crowds are let in on Wednesday morning, Cardinal Farrell, who governs the Catholic Church during the sede vacante, the period during which there is no pope, will preside over the Liturgy of the Word, after which the doors of St Peter's will be opened.
Three days of lying in state will end on Friday evening, when the coffin will be closed after the Pope's face has been covered with a veil of white silk. As the coffin is sealed, the cardinals in attendance will sing Psalm 42, which begins: 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.'
The funeral will take place on Saturday at 10am and will be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Dean of the College of Cardinals.