ROME (CNS) -- "The Virgin Mary told me, 'Prepare the tomb.'" That is what Pope Francis said Mary told him when he was discerning whether to be buried in the historic Marian church where his body will be laid to rest April 26.
Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, coadjutor archpriest of Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major, discussed the pope's decision to be buried at the papal basilica some three miles outside the Vatican during a news conference April 25, the day before the late pope's funeral.
The cardinal said that during a meeting with the pope in 2022 to discuss a remodeling project in the basilica, he asked the pope if he wanted to be buried there given his devotion to the Marian icon "Salus Populi Romani" ("health of the Roman people"), which is housed in the church.
"In that moment he said no, because the popes are buried in St. Peter's Basilica," Cardinal Makrickas said, but after a week the pope called him to his Vatican residence and shared what Mary told him.
In that conversation the pope added, "I am happy that Our Lady hasn't forgotten about me," the cardinal told reporters, and he was asked to begin preparing the tomb.
The basilica is the first and oldest Marian basilica in the West -- it began construction in 432, though it was completed in its present state in 1743.
Pope Francis specified that he did not want his tomb placed in the Pauline Chapel, where the Marian icon is on display, because "in this chapel people must pray to the Lord, venerate Our Lady, not look at the tomb of a pope," Cardinal Makrickas said.
The late pope visited the Marian icon in St. Mary Major before and after each of his 47 international trips and after each of his hospital stays. He told people he also had visited it each time he came to Rome as a cardinal.
His connection to the basilica is also tied to his Jesuit roots: St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, celebrated his first Mass there in 1538, making it a fitting burial place for the church's first Jesuit pope.
Cardinal Makrickas noted that the basilica's location is also symbolically important. It is connected by a straight road to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, where St. Francis of Assisi once sought papal approval for his new religious community. According to tradition, Pope Innocent III had a dream of a humble man holding up that basilica to stop its collapse -- a vision believed to foreshadow St. Francis' mission.
Pope Francis, the first to use that papal name, chose it in honor of St. Francis of Assisi.
The pope's burial place will be near the icon that was so dear to him as well as to an altar dedicated to St. Francis, so "the place seems truly perfect," Cardinal Makrickas said.
Pope Francis will be the first pope buried at the basilica since Pope Clement IX who died in 1669. The last pope to be buried outside the Vatican was Pope Leo XIII who was buried in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in 1903.
A photo of the Pope Francis' tomb released by the Vatican April 24 showed it to be simple, adorned with an enlarged rendering of his pectoral cross and made of white Ligurian marble -- a nod to the land of his Italian grandparents -- while bearing only the name "Franciscus."
"I see it as a connection between the decision to not live in the Apostolic Palace, but rather at Casa Santa Marta," Cardinal Makrickas said. "His life also ends in a place that is different and simple."
