Inside Pope Francis' funeral plan with two mile procession as final wishes break from tradition

Pope Francis will be the first pontiff in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican following a long and grand service less than a week following his death.

The 88-year-old, who died yesterday morning at his residence at Casa Santa Marta following a long stay in hospital with double pneumonia. While he was sick for some time, his death - which followed what appeared to be a gradual recovery after he was discharged from Rome's in late March - came as a shock to the , and has elicited an outpouring of affection from the public and global leaders alike. will be honoured with a long mourning period and multi-stage funeral this week before he is buried at a church he frequently visited on the other side of the River Tiber, in the centre of Rome.

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Pope Francis I's funeral will take place at 10am local time (9am BST) on Saturday, March 26, the Vatican confirmed today following a meeting of the Catholic Church's top brass, in St Peter's Square. Global leaders - including and - will attend the service led by Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, en masse, as members of the public watch on.

will also be in attendance, representing for the funeral, Kensington Palace confirmed. The decision for the Prince of Wales to attend is in keeping with modern tradition and will be seen as a major milestone in William’s role as a global statesman and future king. Charles, as the Prince of Wales, went to Pope John Paul II’s funeral, representing his mother the late Queen, in 2005.

Thousands of mourners are expected to tune in both in person and on screen as Cardinal Re delivers the final commendation, a solemn right placing the Pope's soul in God's care, while the coffin remains in The Chapel of Casa Santa Marta - the Vatican residence where he died this week.

Once this is completed, a two-mile-long funeral procession will carry his body into St Peter’s Basilica, where officials carry out his last rites. His body will be carried through the “door of death” on the left of the altar at St Peter's following the service while a 10-ton funeral bell tolls.

Pope Francis' body will be kept in the basilica open space for thousands of people to see and pray as the service takes place, with a funeral mass to follow at the direction of cardinals and senior clerics.

Once the funeral has concluded, the Pope will be laid to rest at the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in central Rome, a less grand but still stunning site that differs massively from the landmark Basilica San Pietro which houses 91 of his predecessors. Santa Maria's interior remains close to its origins and its central nave is lined by 40 Ionic columns and contains exquisite mosaics.

Its coffered ceiling is gilded from gold, and the chapel where Francis will lie sits tucked away in its back left hand corner. Named Chapel Paulina, Francis regularly prayed there before and after visits abroad.

The basilica holds some of the Church’s most important relics, including an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus attributed to Saint Luke. It also holds pieces of wood believed to have been from Jesus’s crib. The basilica says recent studies have dated the wood from the period of Jesus’s birth.

Popes are usually buried in the grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, but as with many aspects of Papal life, Frances chose a different path when he wrote his final testament in 2022, which was released yesterday by the Vatican.

He asked to be buried “in the ground, without particular ornamentation” but with the inscription “Franciscus”. He wrote: “I wish my final earthly journey to end precisely in this ancient Marian sanctuary, where I would always stop to pray at the beginning and end of every Apostolic Journey, confidently entrusting my intentions to the Immaculate Mother, and giving thanks for her gentle and maternal care.

“I ask that my tomb be prepared in the burial niche in the side aisle between the Pauline Chapel (Chapel of the Salus Populi Romani) and the Sforza Chapel of the Basilica, as shown in the attached plan. The tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, bearing only the inscription: Franciscus."

“The cost of preparing the burial will be covered by a sum provided by a benefactor, which I have arranged to be transferred to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major.” The Santa Maria Maggiore already holds the tombs of seven popes but the last to buried there was Clement IX in 1669.

The last pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII in 1903.