Before mourners in their thousands gather in St. Peter’s Square to grieve, before leaders from around the world arrive to pay their respects, and long before cardinals cloister themselves to consider the future, the Vatican holds a small ceremony when a pope dies.
It did so again around 8 p.m. Monday when, just over 12 hours after he died, Pope Francis was transferred from the rooms of his simple residence, a guesthouse in Vatican City, down to a chapel on the ground floor.
There, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the cardinal chamberlain — known as the camerlengo — performed a ceremony verifying that the pope was dead, with the declaration of death read aloud. The body was placed in its coffin, with only a small number of Vatican officials and members of the pope’s family present.
These photographs, which were distributed by the Vatican, capture some of the legacy of simplicity that Francis tried to create. There is the spare setting, one unlike the ornate palace rooms where other popes lived and died. And there is the less elaborate single coffin, in line with the rules Francis instituted and his insistence on leading the Roman Catholic Church through an example of humility.
At the same time, the photos make clear that however much Francis tried to shake up the status quo, he did so cautiously. And so a look at the images reveals objects and figures that embody long-held traditions of the church.
The coffin
Last year, Francis simplified the procedures for a papal funeral, specifying that only one coffin, a wooden one lined in zinc, should be used. Past popes were interred in three nesting coffins: one of wood, a second of lead and a third of wood.
Francis asked to be buried at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where seven other popes are interred — and not within St. Peter’s Basilica or the Vatican Grottoes, where around 90 popes are buried. He requested a simple, undecorated tomb with only the inscription “Franciscus,” according to the Vatican. Francis visited Santa Maria Maggiore at the beginning and end of every apostolic trip he took during his 12-year papacy, and went there on his first day as pope in 2013.
In his will, Francis also specified that “the tomb must be in the earth; simple, without particular decoration.”
A miter and pallium
Francis’s body is dressed in red robes, like those of deceased popes before him. The white papal miter, the traditional headdress worn by bishops, is on his head, signifying his status as the bishop of Rome. Over his chest lies a pallium, a strip of white wool decorated with crosses that is worn like a collar. It denotes the pope’s status as an archbishop.
The Swiss Guard
Two members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard flank Francis’s coffin, holding halberds and representing in part the pope’s role as the leader of a sovereign state. Over the five centuries since it was formed, the guard has dwindled to what is sometimes called the world’s smallest army, but it is still responsible for guarding Vatican territory and accompanying the pope on trips. (There is a separate Vatican City police force responsible for security there.)
The colors on their uniforms reflect their Renaissance origins, according to the Guard — blue, red and yellow are the traditional colors of the Medicis, the powerful Italian family that produced four popes. The halberds, too, reflect the Guard’s origins: The weapons were used by the Swiss mercenaries who were the order’s earliest members.
The ring
A rosary was draped over the pope’s hands, as one was over the hands of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, when he died in 2023.
On one of Francis’s fingers is a ring — the one he wore as a bishop, and not the one he used as pope, called the fisherman’s ring after St. Peter, the disciple who began as a fisherman and became known as the first pope. That signet ring, which was kissed by pilgrims and used by Francis to seal documents, is destroyed immediately after a pope’s death by the camerlengo in order to prevent forgeries.
A new one will be forged when the next pope is elected.
Francis will also be buried with a bag containing coins minted by the Vatican during his papacy and a canister with a deed known as a rogito that briefly lists details of his life and papacy. The rogito is read aloud before the coffin is closed.
Since the 13th century, the embalmed bodies of popes have gone on public view on a raised pedestal.
Francis, instead, ordered a public viewing with his body in a coffin that will not be on a raised pedestal.