CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis shared in a recent interview that he wants to be buried in St. Mary Major’s Basilica, where he goes to pray before an image of Our Lady every time he returns from an international trip.
“As I always promised to the Virgin,” Francis said on December 12 during an interview with veteran Vatican journalist Valentina Alazraki. “The place is already prepared. I want to be buried in St. Mary the Major.”
On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Francis shared the Marian roots of his desire to be interred in a basilica that only six other popes have been buried at. Pope Clement IX is the most recent pope to have been buried in St. Mary Major, and he died in 1669, according to Catholic News Agency.
Francis regularly goes to pray before the image of Our Lady “Salus Populi Romani,” or “Salvation of the Roman People,” every time he returns to the Vatican from an international trip. Since his election as pope Francis has visited the image more than 100 times.
“It is my great devotion. My great devotion. And before [my election as pope], when I used to come, I would always go there on Sunday mornings when I was in Rome, I would stay there for a while. There is a very great bond,” said Francis, according to an EWTN Vatican post on X.
Francis also shared in the interview that he has been working with the papal master of ceremonies to simplify the papal funeral rite.
On December 13, Francis celebrated 54 years as a priest. Francis turns 87 on December 17.
The pope, “recently stricken with bronchitis, and having undergone surgery twice in the past two years at Gemelli hospital – admits the fragility of his health, but is reassuring about his condition,” according to Vatican News:
“I feel well, I feel better,” [Francis] said, while adding, “I need you to pray for my health,” because “old age does not come by itself … it does not make itself up, it presents itself as it is”. On the other hand, he said, “You have to know how to accept the gifts of old age” and “that you can also do very well from another perspective.” “Sometimes,” the Pope revealed, “they tell me that I am reckless because I feel like doing things and moving about.” It is a sign, he said, that “I am quite well.”
In the interview, Francis also addressed the topic of resignation. Vatican News reported,
As on other occasions, the Pope said he would not rule out the possibility of one day following in Benedict’s footsteps, but repeated that now is not the time. A year ago, in an interview with ABC, Pope Francis revealed that at the beginning of his pontificate he had delivered – as is customary – a letter of resignation in the event of medical impediment to the then-Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone.
That letter remains where it is: “I don’t think about it. And I saw Benedict’s courage when he realized that he could not continue, he preferred to say, ‘Enough.’ And this is good for me as an example, and I ask the Lord to say, ‘Enough,’ eventually, but when He wants.”
Francis shared that in 2024 he hopes to travel to Belgium, Polynesia, and Argentina. Argentina’s recently-elected president Javier Milei invited the Pope to Argentina last month during a brief phone call exchange.
Francis also addressed a question regarding some of Milei’s remarks, which were strongly critical of Francis. According to Vatican News, Francis said,
In the electoral campaign things are said in jest, I say in quotes: they are said seriously, but they are provisional things, things that serve to create a bit of attention, but then fade away by themselves. You have to distinguish a lot between what a politician says in the election campaign and what he actually does afterward, because then comes the moment of concreteness, of decisions.
Though Francis shared that his plan to travel to Belgium is “safe”, he said that “we will see how things go” regarding the other two trips, which remain “pending.”
