Vatican simplifies funeral rite for popes

Before the wooden coffin is closed, Pope Benedict XVI’s personal secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein and Monsignor Diego Giovanni Ravelli, the Vatican’s lead master of ceremonies for papal liturgies, place a white veil over the late pope’s face. The action on Jan. 4, 2023, is part of the funeral rites for popes. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Nov 20, 2024 / 12:55 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has updated the liturgical book regulating the funeral rite of popes, simplifying some of the rituals at Pope Francis’ request.

The second edition of the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis (“Order of Funerals for Roman Pontiffs”) is a revision of the version published in 2000 and used for the funerals of Pope John Paul II in 2005 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2023.

Among the changes in the new edition, according to Vatican News, is the elimination of the use of three coffins of cyprus, lead, and oak, and the possibility for a deceased pope to be buried outside of the Vatican basilica.

Another change is that the public viewing before the funeral will take place with the remains already in a simple, wooden coffin, not on a raised bier, as was previously done. The ascertainment of the pope’s death will also happen in the pope’s chapel, not his room.

Pope Francis “has stated on several occasions the need to simplify and adapt certain rites so that the celebration of the funeral of the bishop of Rome may better express the faith of the Church in the risen Christ,” the master of papal ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, told Vatican News. 

“The renewed rite,” Ravelli said, “also needed to emphasize even more that the funeral of the Roman pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful person of this world.”