On Monday evening, the Vatican published the late Pope’s final testament, setting out his wishes for his burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
The Vatican said Pope Francis died of a stroke and a heart attack after going into a coma.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the carmerlengo of the papal household, presided at the rite of the ascertainment of death in the chapel of the Pope’s Casa Santa Marta residence on Monday evening. The director of the Vatican City State’s department of health read out a statement confirming the cause of death from “cerebral stroke, coma, irreversible cardiovascular collapse”.
The Pope’s other doctors and aides, along with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, were present at the service where Francis’ body was placed in its coffin to await removal to St Peter’s for public display. These arrangements, as well as the date of the funeral, were to be determined by the first Congregation of the Cardinals as they began to arrive in Rome from around the world on Tuesday morning.
On Monday evening, the Vatican published the late Pope’s final testament, setting out his wishes for his burial. This confirmed his long-expressed desire to be interred in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, outside the Vatican, “here I go to pray at the beginning and end of every apostolic journey faithfully to entrust my intentions to the Immaculate Mother and to give thanks for her gentle and maternal care”.
He directed that his tomb be prepared in the side nave between the church’s Pauline Chapel, which houses the icon of Our Lady as Salus Populi Romani to which he had a special devotion, and the Sforza Chapel, and that it be in the ground, “simple, without particular ornamentation, and bearing only the inscription: Franciscus”.
A benefactor provided the funds for these preparations, the document said, and the basilica’s coadjutor archpriest Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas had received instructions. The cardinal, who runs the operations of the basilica, was the only individual named in the document.
“Pope Francis has inscribed me in his testament,” Makrickas told The Tablet. “Unbelievable.”
The testament concluded: “May the Lord grant the deserved reward to those who have wished me well and will continue to pray for me. The suffering that marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and brotherhood among peoples.”
