President Higgins and his wife Sabina with the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor, after Mr Higgins signed a book of condolences for Pope Francis at the Apostolic Nunciature on the Navan Road, Dublin.
A book of condolences has been opened in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral where Pope Francis visited in 2018. Video: Enda O’Dowd
There is obviously going to be a lot of people referencing the film Conclave in the days ahead – this live story has already mentioned it today. In many respects, the conclave that is coming down the tracks will be as interesting as the film – although some of the plot twists are likely to be missing.
The Guardian has an interesting piece this afternoon about how things might play out. Here are some snippets.
The death of Pope Francis will throw into sharp relief the internecine power struggle that has been a hallmark of his papacy.
In the coming days, a ferocious battle for the future of the church will be played out, with the highest of stakes within the sanctity of the Sistine Chapel.
There are more than 250 cardinals in total, but those over the age of 80 are ineligible to take part in the conclave. That leaves 135 eligible cardinals, who will begin making their way to Rome in the coming days.
In the 12 years after Francis became pope, he appointed about 110 of those eligible, casting his net wide across the globe. Some Vatican observers have suggested he stacked the conclave in favour of a successor likely to embrace his outlook and continue his work.
The appointments make it “difficult for an ‘anti-Francis’ pope to emerge”, said Iacopo Scaramuzzi, a Vatican journalist with La Repubblica newspaper and author of the book Tango Vaticano. La Chiesa al Tempo di Francesco (Vatican Tango. The Church in the Time of Francis).
“But it doesn’t mean this group is unanimous and cohesive, or that they have the same ideas. Almost all the cardinals he has chosen are pastors from great dioceses around the world.” There were conservatives as well as progressives among them, Scaramuzzi added…
For much of Francis’s papacy, the figurehead for conservatives who opposed him was none other than his immediate predecessor. Benedict had promised to remain “hidden from the world” after vacating the papal throne in 2013 – the first pope to resign in 600 years – but had stayed at the Vatican, holding meetings, giving interviews and writing books and articles – and expressing views sharply at odds with those of Francis.
But the staunch opposition to Francis did not fade after Benedict’s death on New Year’s Eve in 2022…
Conservatives were infuriated by his softening of the church’s stance on divorced and remarried Catholics, opening the door to some of them receiving communion. Enraging those who adhered to the doctrine that divorce is a sin, the move prompted a group of conservative clerics to accuse Francis of heresy for that too…
Foremost among his critics was the US cardinal Raymond Burke, who has long pushed back against the pope’s stance on gay rights and social justice issues and who, like Müller, aligns with the views of Donald Trump. Francis marginalised Burke, even stripping him of his salary and Vatican-subsidised apartment. But Burke is still popular among conservative Catholic Americans.
Cardinal Robert Sarah emerged as another arch-rival in January 2020 when he published a book, apparently co-authored with Benedict, which defended clerical celibacy at the moment when Francis was considering a relaxation of the rules. The Guinean cardinal has also railed against Islam, migrants, gay people and the role of women.
Several variables will influence the outcome of the conclave, especially world politics.
“Trump, China, nationalists … these are variables that will somehow count,” said Scaramuzzi. “Also, maybe there is a desire for someone more orderly, and less charismatic [than Francis]. Several things can carry weight at the time of the vote, which can either move towards a more progressive or conservative choice.”
Pope Francis is being honoured at San Lorenzo de Almagro, the Buenos Aires football club where he remained a member during his 12-year papacy.
Fans from the first-tier Primera División club started gathering from Monday at the club’s chapel to the southwest of the Argentinian capital to bid farewell to their best-known member.
“The pope leaves an unbreakable legacy,” San Lorenzo Club president Marcelo Moretti told Reuters. “For all San Lorenzo fans, he was a source of great pride. It is a very sad day.”
At the chapel, fans lit candles near a statue of Francis adorned with the team’s red and navy blue colours.
San Lorenzo fans took to social media on news of the pope’s death to point out that his club membership number – 88235N-0 – coincided exactly with his age and the time of death.
“He died at 88 years old, at 2:35am (in Buenos Aires) and was member 88235. It really caught my attention,” wrote one San Lorenzo fan on X.
The club confirmed the pope’s membership number to Reuters.
It has now been confirmed that Ireland will be represented at the funeral of Pope Francis by President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina Higgins, Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD and Tánaiste Simon Harris TD.
Pope Francis will lie in state in St Peter’s Basilica from Wednesday until Friday, the Vatican has confirmed.
People will be invited to pay their respects from 11am local time to midnight on Wednesday, from 7am to midnight on Thursday, and for 12 hours from 7am on Friday.
Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell signs the book of condolences in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral for Pope Francis. Picture: Enda O’Dowd
The President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina have arrived at the papal nunciature in Ashtown, Dublin 7, to sign a book of condolences for Pope Francis.
The prospect of Pope Francis visiting Northern Ireland remained “live and open” right up until shortly before his death, a priest who helped organise his historic 2018 visit to the island has said.
Father Tim Bartlett said Irish bishops had extended an “ongoing invitation” to the pontiff to come to the region after an initial proposal to journey north of the border seven years ago was shelved because of time pressures.
He said that “as the time got closer, the Holy Father and those organising the visit realised we can’t just make a short visit to this part of the island, and it wouldn’t fit into that particular event well. (But) the question of him coming back remained very live and very open.”
Abuse survivor Bernadette Fahy said Pope Francis did not know what an industrial or reformatory school was when she met him in 2018, reports Ronan McGreevy.
Ms Fahy was sent to the notorious Goldenbridge orphanage with her three brothers when she was seven, in 1961, and stayed there until she was 18.
She and her siblings were placed there because their father, who was married with another family, walked out on them.
Ms Fahy was one of eight survivors of clerical abuse who met Pope Francis when he visited Ireland in August 2018.
The pope was “totally perplexed” by the concept of industrial schools, she recalled. “He did understand more about mother and baby homes because they exist in Argentina, so he has some sense about that.”
She said the pope was only aware of male-on-male sexual violence. She asked him: “How come you don’t know about this? Why has all of this been kept from you?”
The pope, she believed, was only concerned about abuse perpetrated by diocesan priests and bishops, not abuse carried out by nuns and priests in Orders.
Nevertheless, she told RTÉ Radio 1’s News at One programme that she liked the pope “as a person. He was doing his best, and I think that the Catholic community has lost somebody really good.
“Right up until the last minute he was doing what he said he was going to do with people, and be out among them.”
News of the death of Pope Francis has seen churches in his native Argentina crowded with people paying their respects to the first Latin American pontiff, as president Javier Milei decreed seven days of national mourning.
This outpouring of emotion has been tinged with regret that during his 12-year papacy, Francis never returned home to visit, reports Tom Hennigan. Seven of his trips to 66 countries around the world were to Latin America but the closest he came to Argentina were trips to neighbouring Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile.
This was in sharp contrast to his two immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II, who returned to their native Germany and Poland respectively early in their pontificates.
For years after his election, Francis spoke of a trip being under consideration. The country’s episcopal synod maintained an open invitation, as did each of the four presidents to hold office during his papacy. But he never made it.
After the death of Pope Francis the Vatican enters nine days of mourning followed by a secretive conclave.
Italy – as is tradition – has confirmed there will be a five-day period of mourning which will continue until Saturday, the day of the funeral of Pope Francis.
Among Pope Francis’s final words was a thank-you to his nurse, who had helped the pope surprise crowds in St Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday with a short tour in his Popemobile for the first time since surviving a five-week bout of double pneumonia.
“Thanks for bringing me to the square,” Francis told Massimiliano Strappetti, who was providing 24-hour care for the pontiff, the Vatican’s official news outlet reported on Tuesday.
About 35,000 Catholic faithful lined the aisles inside St Peter’s Square on Sunday as the pope made his tour, seated in a raised chair in the back of the Popemobile.
There were shouts of “Viva il papa” (long live the pope), and the vehicle stopped occasionally so Francis could bless babies brought forward by papal aides.
The rest of the pope’s final Sunday was spent normally, the Vatican’s outlet reported. He had a “peaceful dinner”, it said. The first signs of a “sudden illness” occurred at 5:30am on Monday.
“A little more than an hour later, making a farewell gesture with his hand to Strappetti … the pontiff went into a coma,” said the outlet. “He did not suffer, and it all happened very fast.”
Francis Xavier Sedona and Camilo Fernandez paying their respects in St Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin on Tuesday morning at the book of condolence for Pope Francis. Photograph: John Mc Elroy.
The British prime minister Keir Starmer has become the latest world leader to confirm he will attend the funeral of Pope Francis next weekend. Outgoing German chancellor Olaf Scholz will also attend.
In what can only be described as a moment of serendipity that Hollywood executives could scarcely have dreamed of, the critically acclaimed film Conclave – about the election of a pope – is set to land on the Amazon Prime streaming service tomorrow. It is full of drama and intrigue and plot twists – obviously – but it does paint a pretty accurate and engaging picture of how the process to elect a pope unfolds and is likely to be even more popular given the passing of Pope Francis yesterday.
A book set to be published this week contains what are most likely to have been Pope Francis’s last words on the topic of death.
“Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something. It is a new beginning … because eternal life, which those who love already begin to experience on earth, is the beginning of something that will never end,” Francis wrote in the book on old age by Italian cardinal Angelo Scola.
“For this reason, that (death) is a ‘new’ beginning, because we will live something we have never fully lived before: eternity,” he said.
Rosane Zucconi paying her respects to the late Pope Francis at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral, Dublin, on Tuesday morning, at a table holding the book of condolences and a portrait. Photograph: John Mc Elroy
Leo Varadkar has said the papal visit to Ireland in 2018 was “one of the highlights of my time as Taoiseach”.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio 1, the former taoiseach noted that the visit happened at a time when “relations between the church and state weren’t very good for a number of reasons”.
“There was obviously all the different scandals around child abuse and various institutions, mother and baby homes, laundries, industrial schools,” Mr Varadkar said.
Pope Francis pictured with then taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Dublin Castle on August 25th, 2018. Photo: Niall Carson/PA
He added that he saw the visit as “a reset” in relations.
“I saw it, and I think the Pope, Pope Francis, saw it as well as an opportunity, maybe, for a bit of a reset.”
Mr Varadkar said it was a chance for the church and state to “shake hands again” and agree to have “mutually respectful” relationship, while acknowledging that the Catholic Church “wasn’t in charge of that relationship anymore, in the way it was for most of our history”.
The former Fine Gael leader, Ireland’s first openly gay taoiseach, said he appreciated efforts by Francis to make the church a more welcoming place for members of the LGBT+ community.
He also said it was “very significant” that Pope Francis asked survivors of clerical abuse for forgiveness while in Dublin in 2018.
When asked about the fact that most religious orders have not offered to contribute to the redress scheme for survivors of mother and baby institutions, Mr Varadkar said this was “disappointing”.
Alphonsus Cullinan, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, has said Pope Francis “helped the world to remember the poor and to keep in mind those whom society can reject”.
“Pope Francis, seemed to me had no problem with saying and doing unpopular things. He was not courting popularity. He was made of strong stuff,” Bishop Cullinan said in a statement.
“I was touched by the way in which he dealt with his visit to Ireland in 2018. He reached out with love and of course the people loved him.”
During his visit to Ireland in August 2018, Francis met with survivors of clerical abuse and asked for their forgiveness.
Following the death of Pope Francis, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will gather next month to elect a new pope in one of the most famous buildings in the world, the Sistine Chapel.
The funeral mass and burial will take place before the cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave next month. Photo: Pier Paolo Cito/AP
Below are some facts about the chapel:
Named after Pope Sixtus IV and built from 1473-81, it is 40 metres (131 feet) long, 13 metres (43 feet) wide and 21 metres (69 feet) high, lit on either side by high windows.Michelangelo was commissioned by Julius II to paint the ceiling frescoes, completed between 1508 and 1512. The frescoes show scenes from the Bible’s Old and New Testaments, most famously “The Creation of Adam” in which God reaches with his finger to touch the outstretched hand of the first man.More than 20 years later, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the awe-inspiring “Last Judgement” on the wall behind the altar, which was unveiled in 1541.Michelangelo was immediately accused of immorality and obscenity for depicting naked figures in a church. After his death, a law was passed to cover up the offending genitalia with “modesty breeches”, which were added by an apprentice.The side walls are decorated by other artists, including Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio.From 1980 to 1994 specialists conducted one of the most ambitious art restoration projects in the world, stripping away centuries of accumulated dirt and soot that had darkened the frescoes. The results divided experts and amateurs, with some criticising the dazzling colours as too bright.The Sistine Chapel was first used for a conclave after the death of Sixtus IV in 1484. A number of conclaves have been held elsewhere, including several in the 19th century at the Quirinale Palace, formerly a summer palace for the popes and now the official residence of the Italian president.Some 6.8 million people visited the Vatican Museum, which includes the Sistine Chapel, in 2023 – the second most visited museum in the world after the Louvre, according to data site Statista.com.German writer Goethe once remarked: “Without having seen the Sistine Chapel, one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving”.
– Reuters
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will attend Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, her office has confirmed.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen holds a press conference in Samarkand on April 3rd. Photo: Getty Images
Among other heads of state set to attend are Javier Milei, president of Francis’ native Argentina, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US president Donald Trump.
As we reported earlier, both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris are expected to accompany President Michael D Higgins to the Vatican for the funeral.
Pope Francis broke with tradition in choosing St Mary Major as his burial place.
His funeral will be held on Saturday in St Peter’s Square, in front of the Basilica of St Peter, where most of his predecessors rest.
But his chosen resting place is the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major), one of the main four churches of Christendom in Rome.
In his final testament, Pope Francis asked to be buried “in the earth, simple, without particular decoration” and with the inscription only of his papal name in Latin: Franciscus.
The last pope to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII, who died in 1903.
People pictured in Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica (the Basilica of Saint Mary Major) following the death of Pope Francis. Photo: Getty Images
St Mary Major, around 4km from the Vatican, was dear to Francis because of his devotion to Mary. He prayed there before setting off on and returning from each overseas trip.
“I’ve always had a great devotion to St Mary Major, even before I became pope,” Francis said in his 2024 book El Sucesor (The Successor), a long interview with journalist Javier Martinez-Brocal.
Argentina-born Francis prayed in the basilica early on March 14th, 2013, the day after he became the first Latin American pope. The church’s gold-leaf ceiling is said to have been made from a batch of the precious metal brought back from the New World by explorer Christopher Columbus.
Francis returned at key moments in his papacy, praying for an end to the Covid-19 pandemic in a locked-down Rome in 2020 and after his abdominal surgeries in 2021 and 2023.
– Reuters
Mourners are gathering in Rome, his native Argentina and other locations across the world to mark the passing of Pope Francis.
Pilgrims follow a cross outside St Peter’s basilica in Rome on Tuesday. Photo: Getty Images
A woman holds a picture of late Pope Francis during a mass at the San Jose de Flores Basilica in Buenos Aires on Monday. Photo: Getty Images
A woman prays at the Cathedral Sainte Thérèse in Port-au-Prince in Haiti on Monday. Photo: Getty Images
People line up to give an offering next to a picture of the late Pope Francis at the Caridad del Cobre church in Havana in Cuba on Monday. Photo: Getty Images
Pope Francis’s funeral mass, which will take place on Saturday morning, will be celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re, the Holy See has confirmed.
The pope’s funeral will draw major political figures to Rome at a time of escalating geopolitical tensions.
US president Donald Trump watches during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
US president Donald Trump said on Monday that he and first lady Melania Trump will attend the funeral, embarking on the first foreign trip of his second term.
A day before his death, Francis met with US vice-president JD Vance, a recent Catholic convert.
– Bloomberg
Dermot Farrell, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, has said that Pope Francis’s life was “marked by numerous profound changes”.
“All that he became was rooted in his deep prayer, in his trust in the journey of Jesus, and in his abandonment of himself to the will of God. He has now set out on the final stage of his pilgrimage to God,” Archbishop Farrell said in a statement.
Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell (left) with Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin speaking to the media in Armagh on Monday. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire
He noted that, at the end of almost every audience and address, Pope Francis “would assure those present of his prayers, and ask them – with great simplicity – to pray for him”.
“As we give thanks for the extraordinary gift he was and is for us all, let us do the one thing he asked for himself, let us pray for him,” Archbishop Farrell added.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio has praised Pope Francis as “a transformational leader – not only for the Catholic Church, but also for environmental reform and activism”.
In a post on Instagram, Mr DiCaprio wrote that the late pontiff “demonstrated a deep and unwavering commitment to environmental stewardship, most notably through his groundbreaking 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’”.
“This powerful document served as a clarion call for a fundamental shift in how we relate to the planet,” he added.
Mr DiCaprio said Francis’s words helped catalyse momentum ahead of the global COP21 conference in 2015, “ultimately contributing to the formation of the Paris Agreement”.
Archbishop Eamon Martin, Primate of All Ireland, has said the most important thing about Pope Francis was the way he presented himself as a person of prayer.
He told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that he felt encouraged by Francis to communicate the joy of the gospel as a church leader, noting many people feel lost in today’s world.
The Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, pictured on Monday. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire
“They feel that they are vulnerable, they feel that the world is fragile and fragmented. And to try and bring that message of hope and the joy of the gospel to everyone, that for me has been his fundamental contribution,” Archbishop Martin said.
Both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris are expected to accompany President Michael D Higgins to the Vatican on Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis.
Pope Francis with President Michael D Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin’s Phoenix Park in August 2018. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Government sources said that while no invitations have been issued yet, it is expected that the leaders of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will travel to represent the Government, along with President Higgins, Jack Horgan-Jones reports.
With the Dáil Easter break in effect, no full cabinet meeting is planned for this week, but it is expected that an incorporeal meeting of the Government will be held to sign off on the plan for President Higgins to travel.
The funeral of Pope Francis will take place on Saturday, with his body going on public display from Wednesday at St Peter’s Basilica for mourners to pay their respects.
Irish-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell – the camerlengo or senior Vatican official – will carry out the administrative and financial duties of the Holy See until a new pope takes over.
Pope Francis in his open casket. Photo: Vatican Media
Cardinal Nichols, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, presided over a requiem mass for Francis at Westminster Cathedral on Monday evening.
He told worshippers gathered in the London church that Francis had been a pope “filled with compassion, mercy, righteous indignation and irrepressible hope, for which we thank God”.
Asked about the next pope at a separate press conference on Monday, Cardinal Nichols told reporters: “He has to be a man of great inner strength, and I think great inner peace.”
“I think those inner capacities of closeness to God and peace are the absolute essentials.”
– PA
In a different take on the role of women in the church, Justine McCarthy said Pope Francis wasn’t necessarily the reformer many people have dubbed him.
“Some commentators have hailed him as a reformer for women in the church because of a few measures he instituted, such as appointing a small number of them to vote in the synod general assembly,” she wrote.
“Yet, despite travelling to the Marian shrine at Knock and despite then taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s reminder to him in a welcome speech about the cruelties the church dispensed in Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes and in fixing illegal adoptions, the pope steered clear of the subject of prejudice against women.”
Sr Pat Murray, a Loreto Sister in Rome, said that Pope Francis was a warm person who “had the capacity to reach people and searched for those fragile or vulnerable in any way”.
She told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that Pope Francis put a great emphasis on listening to the voices of women and creating space for women to take up roles of leadership and authority in the church.
Sr Murray said there are many sisters and lay women in leadership roles in the Vatican who have influence on changing culture.
She added that when you are changing culture in any organisation, patience is needed.
“This will take time, but I’ve seen that change happening already,” she added.
The meeting of cardinals at the Vatican has now confirmed some details about the pope’s funeral.
It will take place on Saturday 27th April at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome at 9am Irish time (10am local time).
This will also begin the first of nine days of mourning.
The conclave to choose a new pope will likely begin around May 5th, at the end of the nine-day mourning period.
There has been much commentary over the past 24 hours regarding Pope Francis’ legacy.
Fr Brendan Hoban wrote that, despite some flaws, Francis was his hero.
Fr Hoban said that Francis’s different approach to his predecessors, and efforts to make the Church more inclusive, brought about a “sea change”.
“There were mistakes and gaps too in Francis’s legacy. It took him some time to get up to speed on clerical child sexual abuse, but when he did, as on his visit to Ireland, he hit the ground running – placing an unswerving focus on the needs of victims,” Fr Hoban wrote.
Read his full reflection here.
Britain’s King Charles has worn a black tie as a mark of respect to the Pope as he met the prime minister of New Zealand at Windsor Castle.
King Charles, who is head of the Church of England, carried out his first official engagement since the death of the pontiff, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, on Easter Monday.
Britain’s King Charles III during an audience with the prime minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon, at Windsor Castle on Monday. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
The King and New Zealand’s premier Christopher Luxon, who was also wearing a black tie, were said to have taken the opportunity to “reflect on Pope Francis’s remarkable life and legacy”, a source said.
Charles and Queen Camilla had a moving private meeting with Pope Francis on their state visit to Italy, just 12 days before the 88-year-old died after a cerebral stroke.
– PA
Pope Francis will be taken to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome at 9am local time (8am Irish time) on Wednesday, the Vatican has confirmed.
Pope Francis in his open casket. Photo: Vatican Media
The Vatican has released images of Pope Francis in his open casket, lying in his apartment in Rome.
World leaders are set to attend Pope Francis’s funeral, details of which are yet to be confirmed.
Among them will be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses a press conference in Kyiv on April 17th. Photo: European Pressphoto Agency
“The office of the president is awaiting the date of the Pope’s burial and preparing the president’s visit to Rome to bid farewell to the pontiff,” the source said.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Monday said he would be honoured to go to the funeral of the pope but added that “all the arrangements have to be worked out”.
China’s foreign ministry has expressed condolences following Pope Francis’s death.
“In recent years, China and the Vatican have maintained constructive contact and carried out friendly exchanges,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.
“China is willing to make joint efforts with the Vatican to promote the continued improvement of China-Vatican relations,” he added.
Dublin-born Irish-American cardinal Kevin Farrell will run the Vatican until a new pope is elected.
Cardinal Farrell (77) was born in Drimnagh and has spent most of his clerical life in the United States. He is the most senior Irish man at the Vatican.
Cardinal Farrell was educated by the Christian Brothers, as was his older brother, Bishop Brian Farrell, but neither man served as a priest in Ireland.
Brian Farrell started working at the Vatican in 1981 and served as secretary to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity until his retirement last year.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell pictured at press conference during the World Meeting of Families in Dublin in 2018. Photo: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill / The Irish Times
Cardinal Farrell was the Vatican official responsible for co-ordinating efforts around the World Meeting of Families in Dublin in August 2018, which included a visit by Pope Francis.
That same year, the Vatican barred former president Mary McAleese from taking part in a conference in Italy to mark International Women’s Day. Her attendance was opposed by Cardinal Farrell, who had previously held the position of prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
Pope Francis in 2019 named Cardinal Farrell as camerlengo, the prelate who runs the Vatican between the death or resignation of a pontiff and the election of a new one.
The camerlengo cannot make any big decisions or change church teachings. When a pope dies, the camerlengo officially confirms the death, oversees the destruction of that pope’s papal ring and seals the papal residence and office.
The camerlengo is entrusted with orchestrating the funeral rites and overseeing preparations for the forthcoming conclave to elect a new pontiff.
Mary Carolan has written a summary of Mr Farrell’s career here.
Who will be the next pope after Francis and how does the process work?
Speculation around who is in the running to succeed Pope Francis comes with health warnings as favourites, or papabiles, often remain cardinals.
Cardinals attends the Pro Eligendo Pontifice Mass at St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican ahead of the Conclave which elected Pope Francis in 2013. Photo: Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis via Getty Images
Currently there are 252 members of the College of Cardinals, 138 of whom are under 80 and so eligible to vote in a conclave. Ireland’s only cardinal, former Archbishop of Armagh Seán Brady, is 85 and so cannot vote.
Of the current College of Cardinals, 163 were appointed by Francis. They come from 76 countries, of which 25 have never represented at the College before, including Haiti, Myanmar, El Salvador, Sweden, Luxembourg and South Sudan.
Altogether 110 (79 per cent) of cardinals eligible to vote in a conclave anytime soon have been appointed by Francis, with 24 (17 per cent) appointed by Benedict XVI and six (4 per cent) appointed by pope John Paul.
It is, therefore, probably safe to say then that the next pope will be in the Francis mould, though that is not guaranteed. After all, the cardinals who elected Francis in 2013 had been appointed by popes Benedict and John Paul II.
Read Patsy McGarry’s overview of the process here.
The upcoming gathering of cardinals will also review the day-to-day running of the Catholic Church in the period before a new pope is elected.
A conclave to choose a new pope normally takes place 15 to 20 days after the death of a pontiff, meaning it should not start before May 6th.
Some 135 cardinals are eligible to participate in the highly secretive ballot which can stretch over days.
At present there is no clear front-runner to succeed Francis.
– Reuters
All cardinals currently in Rome have been invited to gather in the Vatican at 9am on Tuesday (7am local time), where they were expected to make funeral plans.
Cardinal Pablo Virgilio Siongco David, Bishop of Kalookan, touches a portrait of Pope Francis after a holy mass at the San Roque Cathedral in Caloocan City, Metro Manila, Philippines, on Tuesday. Photo: EPA
The Vatican has said it expects the ceremony to take place sometime between Friday and Sunday. In a break from tradition, Francis confirmed in his final testament released on Monday that he wished to be buried in Rome’s Basilica of St Mary Major and not St Peter’s Basilica.
Much of the focus is now turning to what happens next.
Cardinals are due to meet on Tuesday to plan Pope Francis’ funeral, which leaders from around the world will attend before a conclave next month to elect a new head of the Catholic Church.
Francis’s death set in motion ancient rituals, as the 1.4-billion-member Church started the transition from one pope to another, including the breaking of the pope’s “Fisherman’s Ring” and lead seal so they cannot be used by anyone else.
Tributes have been pouring in from around the world following the death of Pope Francis, who died on Monday.
President Michael D Higgins led the tributes in Ireland, expressing his “profound sadness”, saying Francis’s voice constituted a “consistent invocation of a shared humanity”.
The pontiff died of a stroke and “irreversible heart failure”. The death certificate, prepared by Vatican doctor Andrea Arcangeli, said the 88-year-old had fallen into a coma before his death early on Monday.