On April 21, 2025, Monday in the Octave of Easter, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the first American to serve as Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, solemnly announced the death of Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome.
Jorge Bergoglio, former cardinal-archbishop of Buenos Aries, Argentina, the first man from the southern hemisphere and the first from the Americas to be elected pope, died at the age of 88. He was also the first member of the Jesuit order to assume the mantle of St. Peter when elected to replace Pope Benedict XVI in March 2013. Readers may be interested to know that Cardinal Bergoglio was mentioned as a candidate for the papacy in 2005, as well.
Pope Francis, always his own man, attracted attention by ignoring several traditions. He carried his own luggage, paid his own bills, and wore plain black shoes instead of the red papal slippers.
With the number of cardinal-electors set at 120 (since raised to 140), the makeshift system of lean-tos, tents and cubicles that used to be erected around the Sistine Chapel became unfeasible. Pope St. John Paul II, therefore, built Domus Sanctae Marthae as lodgings for cardinals involved in the papal conclaves, being shuttled to and from the conclave. Between elections, the Domus serves as a temporary residence for bishops making their ad limina visits every five years to the supreme pontiff to discuss the state of the Church in their dioceses.
Pope Francis refused to live in the centuries-old Apostolic Palace, appearing there only when diplomatically necessary. Instead, he remodeled a few rooms in the modern Sanctae Martae to make them into a papal suite and chapel.
Pope Francis created cardinals in an unprecedented manner, choosing men sharing his own vision of the Church, rather than raising archbishops in certain longstanding cardinalatial sees.
In daily life, Pope Francis favored wearing the white soutane in public. He refused the mozetta, a red satin or velvet shoulder cape. He donned the heavy, wide, embroidered papal stole only when demanded by protocol or sacramentality. The pope would then doff the stole as soon as he could. Both items symbolize the authority of the papal ministry as universal shepherd and Vicar of Christ.
Liturgically, Pope Francis generally shunned elaborate vestments. He seldom wore any other miter save a simple white miter with a vertical stripe, as he had worn in Buenos Aires.
Just a few months ago, Pope Francis determined that he would be buried in a single wooden coffin and not in the usual three papal coffins. His body will not be placed on an elevated bier in St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing. His body will be in a simple wooden coffin for mourners to view.
Francis eliminated the traditional three coffins made of cypress, lead and oak. Neither will his body be placed in the grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica with so many of those of his predecessors. He will, instead, be laid to rest in St. Mary Major, the oldest church in Rome devoted to the Blessed Virgin.
The last public words of Pope Francis was to call out to the crowd, “Buona Pascua!” — "Happy Easter!”
And now begins the interregnum, the period between pontificates, the sede vacante, when “the chair is vacant.” The vast machinery of the Vatican once again prepares to grind out the particulars of a papal election.
Per the reform of the ritual promulgated by Pope Francis last November, the head of the Vatican health service examined the body to ascertain the cause of death. His body was dressed in white and laid out in his personal chapel for the ritual pronouncement of death.
This was done by Cardinal Farrell, as Camerlengo, who runs the Holy See between the death of one pope and the election of another. He called out the pope’s baptismal name, “Jorge,” three times. Receiving no answer, Cardinal Farrell certified that Francis was dead.
The ceremonial tapping of the pope’s forehead three times with a silver hammer has not taken place for more than a century. St. John Paul II’s death was certified by an ECG.
The Camerlengo has sealed the pope’s apartments to protect the confidentiality of his papers. In the presence of other cardinals, the Camerlengo will deface the Ring of the Fisherman and the pope’s leaden seal to prevent any kind of fraud. The Camerlengo decides the date of the pope’s funeral to be followed by the Novemdial, the nine days of Masses mourning the pope.
For his lying in state and the funeral, the body of Pope Francis, like those of his predecessors, will wear a bishop’s miter and be vested as if for Mass. The vestments will be red, the liturgical color symbolizing fire and blood, indicating the pope’s direct connection to St. Peter and the Apostles who were enflamed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and died as martyrs for love of Jesus.
News sources are sending reporters, cameramen, sound technicians and other members of technical staffs to Rome where they already have rented facilities. During the last election in 2013, more than 4,200 journalists from all over the world descended on Rome and Vatican City.
The Camerlengo has summoned all the 138 voting members of the Sacred College of Cardinals to Vatican City, where they will stay at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. All are attached to churches in the city of Rome. It is as members of the Roman clergy they will elect the Bishop of Rome, who is, by virtue of succeeding St. Peter in that office, the earthly head of the Catholic Church.
The term “conclave” comes from the Latin words cum clavus, “with a key.” The cardinals are locked up, kept away from the cares of the world, until they make an election. Voting will take place twice a day, morning and afternoon. It takes two-thirds of the votes for someone to be elected.
The beginnings of the conclave began with the papal election of 1268-1271, the longest interregnum in Church history. In 1257, political unrest in Rome caused the papal court to flee to Viterbo, another city in the Papal States.
In 1268, Clement IV died and, after a year, the 23 cardinals, torn by familial and political infighting, were unable to settle on a candidate. A year passed. The Viterbese, tired of feeding and lodging the electors and their attendants, persuaded the city magistrates to allow them to lock them into the church adjoining the papal palace. Nothing happened. Food was rationed. Nothing happened. The roof was removed as townspeople yelled down to the cardinals that they were helping the Holy Spirit get through to them.
Nothing happened until it rained. Teobaldo Visconti, an archdeacon on crusade, was elected, taking the name Gregory X. Convening the Second Council of Lyon, Gregory made the conclave mandatory. With occasional modifications, the conclave rules remain in effect. Gregory X was beatified in 1713 by Pope Clement XI.
Sean M. Wright, MA, award-winning journalist, Emmy nominee, and Master Catechist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Santa Clarita. he answers comments at [email protected].
