While insisting that he continues to improve and has no present plans to resign, Pope Francis nevertheless has revealed in a new interview that he’s begun making plans for his own funeral and burial, including his desire to be entombed in Rome’s famed Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Speaking to Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki in an interview with Spanish-language news site N+ that was published Wednesday, Pope Francis gave an update on his health after being forced to cancel a Dec. 1-3 trip to Dubai for a United Nations climate summit, saying he is better, but people should be “a little bit” worried.
“I need you all to pray for my health,” he said, saying old age “does not put on makeup,” but it does come with many gifts, such as learning to see things “from another perspective.”
Francis admitted that he has had to slow down, and that his international trips have had to be “rethought” in light of mobility problems that have at times confined him to a wheelchair, acknowledging that “these are limits.”
However, the pontiff, who turns 87 on Dec. 17, insisted that “old age matures you a lot, it’s nice,” and that he generally feels better, despite a year marked with hospital stays and various health challenges.
Asked whether he had reconsidered resigning due to his health challenges this year, the pope said, “It didn’t occur to me,” and that while he admired his predecessor Benedict XVI’s “courage” in stepping down, “I ask the Lord to say enough, at some point, but when he wants.”
Pope Francis affirmed that the papacy is a permanent job, but also stressed the need to be prepared for when the end comes.
To this end, he revealed that he has met with the Papal Master of Ceremonies, Italian Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to plan out his own funeral and to modify the papal funeral rite, which he said, “We simplified quite a bit.”
“It had to be done,” he said, saying his place of entombment “is already prepared,” and that he will be buried in the Roman Basilica of Saint Mary Major, his favorite of four papal basilicas, which is home to the famed Roman icon of Maria Salus Populi Romani and which he visits on special Marian holidays, and before and after every international trip he takes.
Though noteworthy, Pope Francis’s decision to be buried outside of St. Peter’s Basilica is not a novelty. In fact, St. Mary Major contains the remains of five previous popes: Pius V, Sixtus V, Clement XIII, Paul V e Clement IX.
