Before his hospitalization, the pope gave his reflections on old age. (2025)

Pinned

Here’s more on the pope’s legacy and what comes next.

On Tuesday, the pope’s body lay in rest at his residency, Casa Santa Marta, a guesthouse in Vatican City. Images released by the Vatican showed Francis in an open coffin, dressed in red and white vestments and holding a rosary. On Wednesday, the coffin will be taken in a procession to St. Peter’s Basilica to lie in state for about three days, with mourners allowed to visit and pay tribute.

Memorial Masses for Francis were being offered across the world on Tuesday, including at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney and Manila Cathedral in the Philippines. Flags flew at half-staff at government buildings and days of official mourning began in a number of countries including Italy, Brazil, Lebanon, India and Argentina, the pontiff’s homeland.

Political and religious leaders from around the globe are expected to attend the pope’s funeral service. Francis had confronted some over their treatment of dispossessed groups, especially migrants. President Trump, who was one of them, said he planned to attend, adding another wrinkle for Vatican planners, given the size of his entourage. It is likely to be Mr. Trump’s first overseas trip this term.

Here’s what else to know:

• Choosing a new pope: Within hours of the announcement of Francis’ death, cardinals from around the world began heading to the Vatican to bury the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and to prepare to choose his successor, a process that takes place behind closed doors. Cardinals under the age of 80 have a vote, meaning that 135 men will soon begin making a decision that will shape the future of a church with 1.3 billion adherents around the world. The conclave, as it is called, begins sometime after the funeral rites. A date has not been announced yet.

• Francis’ health: The Vatican said Francis died of a cerebral stroke that brought on a coma and the collapse of his cardiovascular system.

• His will: The Vatican released the pope’s will, in which he said he wanted to be laid to rest at the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, where seven other popes are buried. He requested an undecorated tomb with only the inscription “Franciscus” and specified that “the tomb must be in the earth; simple, without particular decoration.”

• Papal legacy: Francis’ admirers remembered him for his openness to members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community. The pope also created thousands of bishops and appointed more than half of the College of Cardinals, at times transforming the inner workings of the church, and spotlighted issues like climate change and the plight of migrants worldwide.

• Francis’ life: Read the full obituary for Pope Francis here.

Francis was the pope who made the most saints.

The record Francis set can be attributed in great part to the first such ceremony he held early in his papacy. In 2013, when he was about two months into the job, the Vatican recognized the sainthood of more than 800 people who were killed in a 1480 Ottoman invasion of Otranto, Italy, among other saints recognized that day.

The decision to recognize those killed in an attack on their coastal town in southeastern Italy was first made by Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis’ predecessor. But Francis was the one who ultimately saw through their sainthood when he took over and got a big jump start on his canonization count.

After that canonization ceremony at the Vatican, Francis went on to recognize more than 100 additional saints in rites at home and abroad during his papacy.

Mother Teresa, the nun who died in 1997, had already been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 in recognition of her work over decades caring for the indigent and ill in India, and she was considered a “living saint” by many. But when she was officially canonized, Francis, who shared her respect for all religions and concern for the less fortunate, noted that she might always be best known as Mother Teresa.

“I think, perhaps, we may have some difficulty in calling her St. Teresa: Her holiness is so near to us, so tender and so fruitful, that we continue to spontaneously call her Mother Teresa,” he said.

In 2017, Pope Francis added a category for beatification and canonization, opening a path to sainthood that did not exist before. Broadly speaking, saints generally attain that honor through martyrdom or miracles, meaning they either died for the faith or performed extraordinary feats worthy of veneration (although there are some other recognized modes). The new category was created to recognize those Christians who sacrifice their life for others inspired by their beliefs, among other steps.

The category, known as “offer of life,” applies to Christians who “have voluntarily and freely offered their life for others and persevered with this determination unto death,” as Francis put it when introducing the concept. “The heroic offering of life, inspired and sustained by charity, expresses a true, complete and exemplary imitation of Christ,” he said, deeming it equally “deserving” of admiration as the other saintly behaviors the faithful recognize.

One prospective saint that Pope Francis beatified and soon intended to canonize will now have to wait just a bit longer. The first millennial set to be canonized will be Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian teenager who died of leukemia in 2006 when he was 15. In his short life he had gained a reputation for his faith and power to perform miracles. His canonization ceremony, previously scheduled for this coming Sunday, will be delayed during the mourning period for Pope Francis, according to the Catholic News Agency.

As for the pope, he could someday be named a saint, although not all popes have qualified for this distinction. The first pope was Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, who led the church around 30 A.D. and was declared a saint. He and most of those who followed him in the role of pope for the first 500 years of Roman Catholicism were recognized as saints, while fewer than 10 popes were named as saints in the next 1,000 years, according to Pew Research Center.

It said in 2014 said that only about 30 percent of popes over the years were ultimately declared saints.

The quiet farewell before Pope Francis’ funeral.

There, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the cardinal chamberlain — known as the camerlengo — performed a ceremony verifying that the pope was dead, with the declaration of death read aloud. The body was placed in its coffin, with only a small number of Vatican officials and members of the pope’s family present.

These photographs, which were distributed by the Vatican, capture some of the legacy of simplicity that Francis tried to create. There is the spare setting, one unlike the ornate palace rooms where other popes lived and died. And there is the less elaborate single coffin, in line with the rules Francis instituted and his insistence on leading the Roman Catholic Church through an example of humility.

At the same time, the photos make clear that however much Francis tried to shake up the status quo, he did so cautiously. And so a look at the images reveals objects and figures that embody long-held traditions of the church.

The coffin

Last year, Francis simplified the procedures for a papal funeral, specifying that only one coffin, a wooden one lined in zinc, should be used. Past popes were interred in three nesting coffins: one of wood, a second of lead and a third of wood.

Francis asked to be buried at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where seven other popes are interred — and not within St. Peter’s Basilica or the Vatican Grottoes, where around 90 popes are buried. He requested a simple, undecorated tomb with only the inscription “Franciscus,” according to the Vatican. Francis visited Santa Maria Maggiore at the beginning and end of every apostolic trip he took during his 12-year papacy, and went there on his first day as pope in 2013.

In his will, Francis also specified that “the tomb must be in the earth; simple, without particular decoration.”

A miter and pallium

Francis’s body is dressed in red robes, like those of deceased popes before him. The white papal miter, the traditional headdress worn by bishops, is on his head, signifying his status as the bishop of Rome. Over his chest lies a pallium, a strip of white wool decorated with crosses that is worn like a collar. It denotes the pope’s status as an archbishop.

The Swiss Guard

Two members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard flank Francis’s coffin, holding halberds and representing in part the pope’s role as the leader of a sovereign state. Over the five centuries since it was formed, the guard has dwindled to what is sometimes called the world’s smallest army, but it is still responsible for guarding Vatican territory and accompanying the pope on trips. (There is a separate Vatican City police force responsible for security there.)

The colors on their uniforms reflect their Renaissance origins, according to the Guard — blue, red and yellow are the traditional colors of the Medicis, the powerful Italian family that produced four popes. The halberds, too, reflect the Guard’s origins: The weapons were used by the Swiss mercenaries who were the order’s earliest members.

The ring

A rosary was draped over the pope’s hands, as one was over the hands of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, when he died in 2023.

On one of Francis’s fingers is a ring — the one he wore as a bishop, and not the one he used as pope, called the fisherman’s ring after St. Peter, the disciple who began as a fisherman and became known as the first pope. That signet ring, which was kissed by pilgrims and used by Francis to seal documents, is destroyed immediately after a pope’s death by the camerlengo in order to prevent forgeries.

A new one will be forged when the next pope is elected.

Francis will also be buried with a bag containing coins minted by the Vatican during his papacy and a canister with a deed known as a rogito that briefly lists details of his life and papacy. The rogito is read aloud before the coffin is closed.

Since the 13th century, the embalmed bodies of popes have gone on public view on a raised pedestal.

Francis, instead, ordered a public viewing with his body in a coffin that will not be on a raised pedestal.

At the pope’s hospital, Francis was a calming and mischievous presence.

Over its 156-year history, the so-called pope’s hospital has grown into one of Europe’s most important research hospitals and transplant centers. And yet it’s still a place that puts a lump in the throat of most Roman parents and their children.

Francis betrayed no such qualms about the place. Throughout his papacy, he made multiple visits there, and sometimes delegations of children would visit him at events held inside the walls of the Vatican. As was his style, he often showed up with little fanfare.

“We’d get the call 10 minutes prior,” marveled Tiziano Onesti, the president of Bambino Gesù and a Francis appointee. “He could be mischievous like that.”

“He was always very informal,” recalled Dr. Pietro Bagolan, a surgeon who for years ran the hospital’s neonatal surgery unit. “Never any press,” he added.

Francis didn’t shy away from the most fragile patients. That included a visit in 2013 to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. Surrounded by beeping machines, the pope met with anguished moms and dads. He did his best to console them, or just listen.

“The parents were really moved by his presence,” Dr. Bagolan said. “He spoke with them as if they were a friend, or part of the family. He had this manner of putting them at ease, giving the sense that he was suffering with them.”

Francis also had a playful side. Dr. Bagolan recalled one time when the former president of the hospital, Giuseppe Profiti, gathered the staff in a hospital playground along with a distracted Francis and a small papal delegation. After speaking a few words, Mr. Profiti had to cut short his prepared remarks because Francis had walked off to play with the children.

He had a way with children, Mr. Onesti said. He could get the shy ones to come out of their shells and share what was weighing on them. With the more boisterous ones, he let them have their say. An icebreaker: chatting about his beloved soccer.

The pope’s final official gathering organized by Bambino Gesù was held last March to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Holy See assuming control of the hospital. (Bambino Gesù, which has since expanded to six locations around Italy, was donated to the Holy See in 1924.)

The event was held in the Vatican’s main auditorium, Paul VI Hall. Francis looked quite frail that day and was pushed around the hall in a wheelchair by an aide.

The children didn’t hold back though. One child after another leaped from their chair to smother Francis. For more than a half-hour, the hugs continued. Francis looked far from physically comfortable, but he instructed the aide to snake through the rows, determined to greet each child.

“There were 200 children, and 200 hugs,” Mr. Onesti said.

‘Vacancy of the Holy See’: The Vatican slows down but doesn’t stop between popes.

After a pope dies, the cardinal chamberlain, or camerlengo in Italian, of the Roman Catholic Church is in charge of running the ordinary affairs of the Vatican. Currently, that position is held by Cardinal Kevin Farrell. He is one of the few high-ranking people in the Holy See to keep their jobs after a pope passes.

While waiting for a new pope to be elected, the Vatican’s bureaucracy continues to run, though at a decidedly lower hum. Major decisions are put off until a new pope is elected, though provisions are made for urgent situations.

“The machine continues, even though it is a moment of suspension,” the historian Giovanni Maria Vian said of the Vatican’s inner workings.

The dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 91, is in charge of convoking the world’s 252 cardinals to Rome and of convening meetings ahead of the conclave to chose Francis’ successor. As per John Paul II’s 1996 document on the election of a pope, “the government of the Church is entrusted to the College of Cardinals solely for the dispatch of ordinary business and of matters which cannot be postponed.”

Top officials, like the heads of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia, as the Vatican’s administration is known, including the secretary of state, “cease to exercise their office,” the document states. But there are a number of people who stay put.

The Vatican’s chief of staff, the secretary for relations with states and the pope’s almoner, who carries out works of charity, keep their offices. So do the so-called major penitentiary, the head of a church court that deals with matters of conscience; the cardinal vicar general for the Diocese of Rome; the cardinal archpriest of the Vatican Basilica; and the vicar general for Vatican City. They report to the College of Cardinals.

There’s an entire section in the 1996 document on what the cardinals should do in case some of the posts happen to be vacant or if the vicar general for the Diocese of Rome were to die during the vacancy of the Apostolic See.

In theory, the new pope could start from scratch and choose whom he wants to fill the top posts of what could be described as a sort of ecclesiastical cabinet. In practice, it has been the tradition of recent popes to reinstate people to the jobs they held under their predecessors, said Alberto Melloni, an Italian church historian who recently published a book about the history of conclaves.

Popes since Paul VI “have all renewed everyone,” he said. “So it’s an ambiguous system because, on one hand it gives power,” but popes haven’t made use of it in the past 50 years.

Should the next pope chose new heads of dicasteries, he said, “it would be a great novelty.”

I watched the pope visit the forgotten and convert the skeptical.

Earlier, in Morelia, it didn’t matter that Francis was running late. A band played. Nuns waved pompoms. Priests and seminarians formed a conga line, hands on shoulders, knees pumping, punching the air and dancing until Francis appeared.

From the moment he became an unexpected pope on a rainy night in Vatican City in 2013, Francis centered his papacy on what he called “the peripheries,” the places forgotten in a supposedly interconnected, globalized world. He talked about people “on the margins,” about immigrants and the poor, and when he traveled the globe, he always found them, and they found him.

Any pope can draw a crowd, but Francis had something intangible. He wasn’t an especially riveting speaker yet his sheer presence captured people.

In Paraguay in 2015, thousands of poor people waved homemade signs as the papal motorcade pushed through the capital of Asunción toward yet another teeming outdoor Mass. There was none of the gilded opulence of the Vatican. A local artist had decorated the altar with 32,000 corncobs and 200,000 baby coconuts, pumpkins, gourds and seeds. (Vatican radio described it as a vegetable masterpiece.)

I covered the early years of Francis’ papacy, including his first trips to Latin America, Greece, the United States and the Caucasus, and on that expectant first night in Vatican City, I stood in the rain with two Roman priests. A funnel of white smoke had sent the Rev. Adriano Furgoni and the Rev. Maurizio Piscola into the gathering crowds beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, everyone waiting to see who emerged onto the balcony as pope.

The two priests were rooting for Christoph Schönborn, a progressive Austrian cardinal, and when the announcement of the new pontiff finally came, it was instead an Argentine named Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was taking the name of Francis. You could hear a gasp in the great square, then a confused silence.

“We don’t know him,” Father Piscola told me.

Father Furgoni said, “He has a reputation as a very tough man.”

Francis stepped through red curtains onto the balcony and looked out on the crowd. He was silent for a moment, maybe a little startled, then greeted his new followers with a simple “buona sera,” or good evening. He told a joke about how his fellow cardinals had gone to the end of the world to find a new pope. And then he asked everyone to pray for him.

His quiet informality seemed to carry an electric current, charging the wet air with an unexpected alchemy. People began singing and swaying.

“Viva il papa!” a man in the crowd shouted. Others began cheering, “Francesco! Francesco!”

My two skeptical priests were among the converted. An unknown pope had used a few simple words and gestures to win them over. They had not gotten the pope they hoped for, but now said they had the pope they wanted.

“I expect big changes,” Father Furgoni said. “I’m really moved.”

There is already much discussion and debate about Francis’ legacy. His death comes as his political worldview is under siege. His enemies thought he tried to change the Roman Catholic Church too much; some of his supporters thought he did too little. He was never just the gentle grandfatherly man who charmed the world on that rainy first night; he could be steely and ruthless, too.

But as the cardinals return to the Vatican in the coming weeks to pick his successor, Francis will always be remembered for that alchemy that could charge the wet air. He made it a point to always go to the forgotten places, to find the forgotten people, so that they could find him.

Who is the dean of the College of Cardinals? (It’s not Ralph Fiennes.)

The dean, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, will preside over Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, but unlike Mr. Fiennes’s character, he will not run the conclave. He will not even attend, since only cardinals below the age of 80 can cast a ballot for the pope in the Sistine Chapel. Still, Cardinal Re will play an important role.

He has already summoned cardinals to Rome after the death of the pope, and he will preside over all the congregation meetings — the first of which took place on Tuesday — that the cardinals hold in the run up to the conclave.

In those meetings, cardinals decide on the logistics of the pope’s funeral rituals, but they may also give speeches and attract attention to specific issues. Some of the meetings can also set the agenda for the conclave, experts said. “The sausage of a papal election really gets ground” in the congregation meetings, said John Allen, the editor of Crux, an independent online news site covering the Catholic Church.

Before the 2013 conclave, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio gave a speech during one of the congregation meetings that emphasized the church’s duty to come out of its comfortable shell to reach people at the “peripheries.” The speech made a significant mark and helped Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio rise to become Pope Francis.

But these meetings are also sometimes important for the dean.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, while he was serving as dean of the College of Cardinals. His handling of the cardinals’ meetings — his ability to read the room, be respectful and keep the meetings on track — elevated his position, experts said.

Cardinal Re is unlikely to be elected pope, but his role remains central in the meetings.

Mr. Allen predicted that Cardinal Re — a veteran Vatican official who is regarded as an influential figure in the Vatican — would handle the meetings in a largely “traditional” and serious way.

“He is not going to make anything up as he goes along,” he said, adding, “He is not going to be Ralph Fiennes from the movie.”

Once the conclave starts, the dean’s role is largely ceremonial. Since both Cardinal Re and his deputy, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 81, are too old to preside, the duty will fall on the oldest cardinal bishop among those who can vote, according to the Vatican’s apostolic constitution.

In 2013, during Francis’ election, Cardinal Re, who was then the deputy dean, filled in for the dean at the time, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was 85. It was Cardinal Re who asked the newly elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio which name he would choose as pope.

Easter Monday, the day of Francis’ death, has particular significance for Catholics.

In the Catholic and Orthodox calendars, Easter Monday is known as the Monday of the Angel because of a Bible story in which an angel appeared to Mary Magdalene, who was a friend and follower of Jesus, and encouraged her to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. More broadly, the period between Easter and Ascension Day, the day on which many Christians believe that Jesus went to Heaven, is associated with a time of reflection on the meaning of the just-passed festival.

The day after Easter is marked in some countries as a holiday and is known by Catholics as Monday of the Octave of Easter, which is an eight-day liturgical celebration.

The precise resonance may not have been apparent one day ago. When Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced that the Pope had “returned to the home of the Father,” at 7:35 a.m. local time, many Christians greeted the news with shock, especially since Francis had blessed an Easter crowd at St. Peter’s the day before.

But at different levels of the church’s hierarchy of believers, people associated the timing with the Christian holiday.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, said in an interview with Channel 4 News in Britain that Easter Monday was a “wonderful day on which to be called home,” noting that in the Gospel, there are accounts that Jesus had appeared to his disciples a day after his Resurrection and encouraged them to keep going. The cardinal is set to vote in the conclave, the secretive conference that will select the next pope.

Grace Etuk, 42, who runs a market stall in the southern Nigerian town of Eket, told The New York Times that the timing of the pope’s death was “epic and spiritual.”

Francis may have “held on” through the most important day in the Christian calendar because he wanted to deliver an Easter blessing, Gemma Simmonds, an author and senior research fellow at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology at Cambridge University, said on Tuesday.

But as a result, Francis’ death will always be associated with the period of reflection that follows Easter, said Ms. Simmonds, who is also a sister in the Congregation of Jesus, a Catholic religious order for women.

“He wanted to die in the light of the Resurrection, the biggest feast of the Christian church and the feast that gives significance to life after death,” she said. “It puts his stamp of faith and hope on his own life.”

Tina Beattie, a professor emerita of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton in London, argued that Francis would have relished being connected with the Easter period.

“He was a pope who placed great value on symbolism and seeing the deeper meaning in things,” she said. “He would not see it as inappropriate to see the timing of his death as symbolic.”

Pope Francis had given a series of addresses on the day after Easter in which he emphasized the value of continued reflection on the festival that had just passed. In his final Easter Monday address, delivered on April 1, 2024, Francis reflected on the joy that Mary Magdalene, who was at the tomb, shared with a friend who was also there. He also said that the news they had heard from the angel about Jesus’ Resurrection was life- changing.

“Brothers, sisters, the joy of the Resurrection is not something far away,” he said. “It is very close; it is ours.”

‘The Two Popes,’ ‘Conclave’ and Francis’ autobiography: the papacy in recent culture.

“The Two Popes” (movie)

In the first few minutes of the 2019 film, cardinals assemble in Rome after the death of Pope John Paul II. It’s all very somber.

Then, in a bathroom, someone starts whistling.

“What’s the hymn you are whistling?” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (a brooding Anthony Hopkins) asks the whistler, speaking in Latin.

“Dancing Queen,” answers Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who was played by Jonathan Pryce and would eventually become Pope Francis.

Ratzinger looks up, his shocked reaction reflected in the bathroom mirror as Bergoglio washes his hands.

“By ABBA,” Bergoglio says, clarifying.

The film chronicles their friction, faith and friendship — and also offers a mini-biopic of Francis. It was directed by Fernando Meirelles (“City of God,” “The Constant Gardener”). In the movie, Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, then later shocked the world by resigning. And Bergoglio, who was the runner-up to his election, became Francis in an unusual power transfer.

“The filmmakers want us to see Bergoglio as a redemptive figure, a man who has faced up to his own failures with humility and whose ascension to the papacy portends an era of reform and renewal,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review.

Watch: “The Two Popes” is on Netflix.

“Hope: The Autobiography” (book)

Francis published his autobiography in January. He vividly writes about his childhood in Buenos Aires, but offers few insights into his papacy.

Francis traces his strong support for migrants and his abhorrence of war to his own family. His parents immigrated to Argentina from Italy, and his grandfather lived through World War I. He writes about his youth with feeling, chronicling his “bag-lady” aunt, among other colorful relatives, as well as the migrants and prostitutes.

But although his early years shine bright in “Hope,” the book is flatter on his time in the Vatican. The most newsworthy part concerned his time in Iraq. Francis wrote that he had survived two foiled assassination attempts, which Iraqi officials have denied.

Read: The New York Times published an excerpt from the book, published by Penguin, in which Francis advocated for finding faith in humor.

“Conclave” (movie)

The 2024 movie, directed by Edward Berger, gave viewers a rare glimpse inside the Sistine Chapel during the selection of the next pope.

That will begin soon, when cardinals younger than 80 gather in a conclave to choose a leader.

The filmmakers spent a lot of effort trying to get the details right — the process of destroying a pope’s ring when he dies, the Latin oaths, the threading of the paper ballots and the need to sweep the Sistine Chapel for listening devices.

Manohla Dargis called it a “sly, sleek election potboiler about the selection of a new Catholic pope” in her review for The New York Times.

Watch: Berger narrates a sequence in the film, which stars Ralph Fiennes. It’s available on many streaming services.

For his final resting place, Francis chose simplicity in a place of beauty.

With St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, it is one of four basilicas in Rome granted special status by the pope. In his will, he wrote that he had visited the Marian basilica at the beginning and the end of every apostolic trip he took during his 12-year papacy.

He asked that his tomb be placed in the aisle next to the Pauline Chapel, where an important Marian icon, the Salus Populi Romani, is located.

According to the basilica’s website, since the Jesuit order was founded, Jesuits have “fostered devotion to the icon” and it was an image Francis was particularly devoted to. On his first day as pope in 2013, he slipped out of the Vatican to pray at the basilica.

He visited the church every time he was dismissed from stays in the hospital. And in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as millions died and many more lived in fear, he had the icon brought to St. Peter’s Square during a moving and dramatic moment of prayer delivered on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“We find ourselves afraid,” the pope said at the time. “And lost.”

Tradition has it that the church was founded in the fourth century by Pope Liberius on the site of a miraculous snowstorm said to have taken place in the summer of Aug. 5, 356. That event is recreated every Aug. 5, drawing thousands of faithful and tourists.

For the faithful, the basilica is best known for the icon which, according to tradition, was created by St. Luke, the patron saint of painters. The basilica also houses what is believed to be a relic of the holy crib, part of the manger where Jesus Christ lay as a baby.

The first midnight Mass was celebrated there, and popes carried on that tradition for centuries, according to the Vatican.

For art lovers, the Basilica houses some of the oldest extant mosaics in Rome, dating to the fifth century, while the mosaics in the apse are by Jacopo Torriti, one of the most celebrated artists of the 13th century.

A sculpted Nativity scene by Arnolfo di Cambio, the 13th century sculptor and architect, is now in the basilica’s museum.

Like St. Peter’s, the basilica has a Holy Door for pilgrims to walk through.

Francis had disclosed his desire to be buried in the basilica in a 2023 interview with a Mexican TV program. On Saturday, he will have his wish fulfilled.

In the preface to a soon-to-be published book on old age by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Francis wrote: “Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something.”

During a trip to Mexico, Francis addressed the immigration debate.

Francis electrified crowds in Juárez and other cities on his six-day visit to Mexico, the country with the largest number of Catholics in the Spanish-speaking world. He spoke out on issues including drug trafficking, corruption and poverty.

For Francis, the Argentine-born son of Italian immigrants, the trip underscored his efforts to cast attention on the inequality that has long festered in Latin America, driving millions in the region to seek a better life in the United States.

“The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today,” Francis said at Mass in Juárez. “This crisis, which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want instead to measure with names, stories, families.”

In the highlands of Mexico’s southern frontier, in the state of Chiapas, Francis prayed at the tomb of a bishop who had adhered to liberation theology, a movement centered in Latin America that sought to aid the poor through involvement in politics.

Expressing shame in Chiapas over the discrimination and exploitation of Indigenous peoples, Francis called on people to examine their conscience, proclaiming, “Forgive me!”

Francis’s trip to Mexico, where an estimated 80 percent of the population of 130 million is Catholic, also showcased efforts to revitalize the Catholic Church as evangelical Protestant congregations made inroads across Latin America.

He faced ambivalence, even some distrust, on the visit. Mexico has a strong history of anticlericalism, including efforts to prevent priests meddling in politics and outright armed conflict between Catholic rebels and anticlerical authorities.

But he also displayed in Mexico a capacity to tread carefully. While alluding to corruption and bemoaning the country’s drug-related violence, he avoided direct criticism of Mexico’s political leaders.

Still, he could be pointed in his assessments of Mexico’s problems. He went to Michoacán, a state in western Mexico that today remains a cartel bastion, and delivered a full-throated assault on “criminal organizations that sow terror.”

The pope also clashed with elements in the Mexican clergy, particularly with some high-ranking members whom he saw as more interested in their personal gain than in protecting the most vulnerable.

“He told them that they were climbers, that the only thing they were interested in was money,” said Mónica Uribe, a Mexican expert on the political influence of the Catholic Church.

Still, some of the harshest reactions to Francis came from the United States as he wrapped up his visit to Mexico.

In 2016, Mr. Trump called Francis’ criticism of his hard-line immigration proposals “disgraceful,” helping to open the way for the president’s conservative Catholic supporters to ramp up their own criticism of the pope.