Pope Francis updates: Vatican releases plan for Saturday’s funeral

Thank you for joining our live coverage of Pope Francis’s death and the preparations for his funeral.

You can continue following the story by reading our report from Vatican City, where mourners and the curious have gathered after the pontiff’s death.

For more on the pope’s last days, check out our story here.

And if you’re interested in what happens next – and who could be the next pope – see our explainer here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• The Vatican has released detailed plans for Pope Francis’s funeral ceremony, which will take place on Saturday morning in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
• Members of the public will be able to pay their respects over the pope’s body at St Peter’s Basilica starting on Wednesday.
• Catholic pilgrims and other mourners are flooding into Rome to commemorate the pontiff, who has been hailed as a defender of the world’s poor and marginalised.
• Flags will be flown at half-mast across Italy as the country declares five days of national mourning.

• Argentina – President Javier Milei
• Belgium – Prime Minister Bart De Wever, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde
• Britain – Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Prince William
• Brazil – President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
• European Union – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola
• East Timor – President Jose Ramos-Horta, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Bendito Freitas
• France – President Emmanuel Macron
• Germany – President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz
• Hungary – President Tamas Sulyok
• Italy – President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
• Latvia – President Edgars Rinkevics
• Lithuania – President Gitanas Nauseda
• Poland – President Andrzej Duda
• Romania – interim President Ilie Bolojan
• Spain – King Felipe, Queen Letizia
• Switzerland – President Karin Keller-Sutter
• Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
• United States – President Donald Trump

William will attend Saturday’s funeral on behalf of the United Kingdom’s King Charles, Kensington Palace says.

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, has hailed Pope Francis’s support for people in Gaza and engagement with the small Catholic community in the war-battered Palestinian territory.

The Catholic Church’s highest authority in the region and a potential successor to the late pontiff, Pizzaballa told reporters in Jerusalem that “Gaza represents, a little bit, all what was the heart of his pontificate.”

Pope Francis advocated for peace and demonstrated a “closeness” to the world’s poor and neglected, the patriarch said – positions that became particularly evident in Francis’s response to the war in Gaza.

“He was very close to the community of Gaza, the parish of Gaza,” said Pizzaballa, noting that Francis called them every evening. By doing so, the pope “became for the community something stable, and also comforting for them, and he knew this”, the patriarch said.

Pope Francis repeatedly called for an end to the war. The day before his death, in a final Easter message on Sunday, he condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in the besieged territory.

Meanwhile, Pizzaballa thanked the numerous Palestinian and Israeli public figures who have offered their condolences on the pope’s death. He did not comment on the lack of any official message from Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, says Francis was “a great man”.

“He was humble. He was courageous. And he was responsible for giving the First Peoples, in particular survivors of the residential school experience, hope for true reconciliation,” Fontaine told The Canadian Press news agency after the pope’s death.

In April 2022, Pope Francis apologised for the Catholic Church’s role in residential schools – the forced-assimilation institutions that Indigenous children were forced to attend in Canada for decades and that were rife with abuse.

A few months later, Francis travelled to Canada to deliver an apology directly to Indigenous communities.

“I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry,” he said during a ceremony in the western province of Alberta attended by Indigenous leaders, survivors, elders and others.

As a steady flow of condolence messages arrive from all over the world following Pope Francis’s death, one country’s leaders have remained silent.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented at all, nor did Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

Now, Israeli media are reporting that tweets posted by the Foreign Ministry saying “Rest in peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing” have been deleted.

The Israeli authorities have resented Pope Francis’s critical stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians since October 2023.

In the last message before his death, the pontiff called for a ceasefire and condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in the besieged enclave. He also said that what was happening in Gaza was “not a war” but “cruelty”.

For more on what’s happening in Gaza, check out our live page here.

Father James Oyet, a Catholic priest and general secretary of the South Sudan Council of Churches, says the pope’s efforts came amid years of war in the African nation.

“He brought this to light when he invited the political leadership of South Sudan to the Vatican,” Oyet told Al Jazeera of a summit in 2019, during which Francis kissed the feet of South Sudan’s rival political leaders and urged them to make peace.

“That gesture made a U-turn in a lot of hearts,” the priest said.

“Even the political leadership, some of them said they were renewed.”

Reverend Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor in Bethlehem, says that while Pope Francis was widely respected and beloved by many around the world, he was particularly appreciated by people living in the “context of oppression”.

“For us, as Palestinians, we truly lost a friend, someone who spoke with compassion, with full humanity about the plight of Palestinians,” Isaac told Al Jazeera.

“I would argue that his position on Palestine reflected his overall theology of solidarity with the marginalised and the oppressed.”

Francis’s position on Palestine started long before Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, said Isaac, who pointed to the pope’s 2014 visit to Bethlehem, where he prayed at the Israeli separation wall.

It was “a prayer that touched many, many millions of hearts; a prayer that left an impression on us Palestinians that he sees our pain, he recognised the cruelty of the situation we live in, of the oppression of the occupation”, Isaac said.

“And we truly were touched by that moment.”

Pope Francis wanted to be known as the priest of the streets. However, you can’t get away from the fact that a pope’s burial is a huge occasion.

And the guest list proves it: US President Donald Trump; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; leaders of the UK, France; the EU commission’s chief; and many other world leaders.

But it’s not just the politicians – it is also thousands of thousands of pilgrims expected to come to Rome to pay their respects.

Authorities here in Rome have been preparing for a huge influx of people. Transport links have been beefed up as well as transports between airports and the city’s centre.

What is quite interesting is how international the makeup of the crowd is – people from all over the world.

It is testament of Pope Francis’s work to really embolden far and wide the dioceses of the Catholic Church, not just focusing on Europe, but strengthening the church in countries across Africa and Asia, where he was greatly popular.

Let’s get you up to speed on the latest developments:

• Rome has been inundated with pilgrims and the faithful streaming into the majestic square of St Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to the late Pope Francis.
• At 9am (07:00 GMT) on Wednesday, Pope Francis’s coffin will be transferred from his residence at Casa Santa Marta to St Peter’s Basilica, where he will lie in state before his funeral on Saturday at 10am (08:00 GMT), the Vatican says.
• Also on Wednesday, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, the camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, will preside over a prayer, after which the pope’s coffin will undertake a short itinerary that will culminate at the basilica.
• The camerlengo will then preside over a liturgy at the altar, at the end of which it will be possible for the public to begin paying visits to Pope Francis’s body, the Vatican says.
• The list of world leaders expected to join the event is getting longer, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz among the latest to confirm their attendance.
• Italy has announced five days of national mourning during which flags on public buildings will be flown at half-mast.

Miguel Cofarro, a 61-year-old devout Catholic from Rome, was at St Peter’s Square with three friends on Monday evening.

He told Al Jazeera he felt like he had lost his grandfather – an “honest” character who had the people’s best interests at heart.

“Pope Francis took charge of the Vatican, fought corruption, and was more open with information. He felt authentic,” he said firmly, his friends nodding in agreement.

When Cofarro finished work, he made his way to the square with no real plan. He was, he said, like many Romans, still in shock.

Jessica Hernandez, a hotel worker originally from Mexico, said she had spent most of the evening on the phone with her mother back home, describing the mood in St Peter’s Square.

The 39-year-old said although she is not particularly religious, she was raised in a Catholic household, and the news had been a “powerful and upsetting shock”.

Read more here.

The Vatican’s Sistine Chapel chimney released white smoke on March 13, 2013, indicating that a new leader of the Catholic Church had been elected.

Francis succeeded Benedict XVI, who stunned the world on February 11, 2013, when he announced that he no longer had the strength of body and mind to keep up with his obligations.

A papal conclave was held on March 12-13, and on the fifth ballot, its cardinals elected 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires. After accepting his election, he took the name of Francis.

Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius has been described by some as being among the potential favourites to succeed Pope Francis at the coming conclave – but he says he does not expect to be elected.

“It would be fun to have a Swedish pope, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. Highly unlikely,” the 75-year-old told Swedish public broadcaster SVT.

Arborelius, the first Swedish Catholic bishop since the Protestant Reformation more than 500 years ago, was appointed as the country’s first cardinal in 2017.

He confirmed his participation in the conclave but told SVT he had asked Francis to release him from his duties as cardinal because he wanted to return to live in his monastery in southern Sweden.

Arborelius said the pope had approved his request, but no date had been set for the end of his tenure. “So now I’m left hanging a little,” he said.

A former Carmelite monk, Arborelius is known as a staunch defender of Church doctrine, notably opposed to allowing women to be deacons or blessing same-sex couples. Like Francis, Arborelius advocates welcoming migrants to Europe.

• The funeral will be held under tight security in front of the basilica in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
• Leaders from around the world and thousands of Catholics are expected to be in attendance.
• The dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, will lead the service, which is due to start at 10am (08:00 GMT).
• The coffin will be brought inside St Peter’s Basilica for the conclusion of the service.
• Francis will then be buried at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.