A photo of the late Pope Francis is displayed during mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Martin KEEP / AFP)
The Argentine pontiff, 88, died on Monday from a stroke
By Valentine Amanze
World leaders from U.S. President Donald Trump to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky are set to attend the late Catholic leader Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday.
The Vatican, which disclosed this on Tuesday April 22, 2025, further explained that the Argentine pontiff, 88, died on Monday from a stroke, less than a month after returning home from five weeks in hospital battling double pneumonia.
His funeral, which is expected to draw huge crowds, will take place at 10:00am (0800 GMT) on Saturday in the square in front of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
Francis’s coffin — which he previously ordered should be of wood and zinc — will then be taken inside the church and from there to the Rome basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore for burial.
The date was set by the first “general congregation” of cardinals on Tuesday morning, which kicked off a centuries-old process that culminates in the election of a new pontiff within three weeks.
Besides, the Vatican had published the first images of the pontiff in his open coffin, ahead of its transfer to St Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday at 9:00 am (0700 GMT), to lie in state.
The pope’s body was photographed during a service Monday evening in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where he lived during his 12-year papacy, and where he died.
Francis was wearing his red papal vestments, a mitre on his head and had a rosary between his fingers.
Tributes have poured in from around the globe for Francis, a liberal reformer who took over following the resignation of German theologian Benedict XVI in 2013.
His home country, Argentina, prepared for a week of national mourning while India began three days of state mourning on Tuesday — a rare honour for a foreign religious leader in the world’s most populous nation.
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