Pope Francis, who will celebrate his 88th birthday in December, has approved simplified liturgical rites for the death of a pontiff. Source: NCR Online.
His body will rest in a zinc-lined wooden casket, according to the new rites. Recent popes had been buried inside a cypress wood coffin surrounded by another coffin made of lead, which was then covered by a third wooden coffin.
Vatican News carried a story yesterday about the second edition of the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis (“Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff”); the book updates the rites originally approved by St John Paul in 1998, but released only when St John Paul died in 2005.
Modified versions of the rites were used after Pope Benedict XVI died in December 2022.
Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, said the revised edition was needed, “first of all because Pope Francis asked, as he himself stated on several occasions, to simplify and adapt some of the rites so that the celebration of the bishop of Rome’s funeral would better express the Church’s faith in the risen Christ”.
And, he said, the revised rites highlight “even more that the Roman Pontiff’s funeral is that of a shepherd and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful man of this world”.
Francis approved the new rites on April 29 and received the first printed copy of the book on November 4, Vatican News reported.
The new rites maintain the practice of having the deceased pope’s body placed in St Peter’s Basilica for public viewing and prayer before the funeral.
However, instead of lying on a catafalque (a decorated platform), the body will be placed inside the coffin which will remain open until the night before the funeral.
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Pope approves simplified rites for papal funeral, burial (By Cindy Wooden, CNS via NCR Online)
