St. Peter’s Basilica will be kept open until midnight on Wednesday and Thursday to allow the faithful to mourn.
The public has now been given access to Pope Francis’s casket as he lies in state in St. Peter’s Basilica for three days of mourning ahead of his funeral on Saturday, April 26.
The pope died aged 88 on Monday following a stroke. He was recovering from pneumonia in both lungs, which had kept him in the hospital in Rome for several weeks before his eventual release on March 23.
St. Peter’s Basilica will be kept open until midnight on Wednesday and Thursday to allow the faithful to mourn. The public mourning period will end on Friday at 7 p.m.
Francis’s body was moved there early on Wednesday morning from the Santa Marta Domus, where it had been lying in state for a private viewing for Vatican residents and the papal household.
Inside the 16th-century basilica, his casket won’t be put on an elevated bier—as was the case with past popes—but will just be placed on the main alta, simply facing the pews.
Italian police have tightened security for the viewing and the funeral, carrying out foot and horse patrols around the Vatican, where pilgrims continued to arrive for the Holy Year celebrations that Francis opened in December.
