Pope: I've Chosen My Tomb, and It's Not in the Vatican

Francis is working on simplifying papal funeral rites
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 13, 2023 6:30 PM CST
Pope Says He Won't Be Buried in Vatican
Pope Francis arrives in St. Peter's Basilica to attend a mass for the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe at the Vatican, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023.   (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis plans to break with tradition in death as well as in life. In an interview with Mexico's N+ television on Tuesday, the pope said he plans to be the first pontiff in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican, Reuters reports. Francis, who turns 87 on Sunday, said he has "already prepared his tomb" and plans to be laid to rest in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome's Esquilino neighborhood, the Guardian reports. Popes traditionally are buried in grottos underneath St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican or in side chapels, per the AP.

The pope has visited the basilica more than a hundred times and prays there before and after his foreign trips. Francis told the network's Vatican correspondent that he is working the Vatican master of ceremonies Archbishop Diego Ravelli to simplify the elaborate rituals for papal funerals. The pope, who has had multiple health issues in recent years, said he doesn't plan to resign like his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI did, but he's not going to rule it out. "I ask the Lord to say enough, at some point, but when he wants me to," he said.

The pope also said he's planning a trip to Argentina, which would be his first since his papacy began in 2013. He said he had been invited by the country's new president, Javier Milie, who called him an "imbecile" and a "representative of malignance on Earth" during his election campaign, the AP reports. Francis said many things are said "in jest" during campaigns. "You have to distinguish a lot between what a politician says in the election campaign and what he or she is really going to do afterwards, because then comes the moment of concrete things, of the decisions," the pope said. (More Pope Francis stories.)

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