All Australian government flags will fly at half-mast today in honour of the late head of the catholic church – Pope Francis, who passed away yesterday aged 88.
Pope Francis died only hours after making a brief surprise appearance on Sunday, blessing thousands of people who had gathered in the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square for Easter.
Hear the full deep dive on this episode of The Briefing:
His death certificate, published by the Vatican this morning, shows he died from a stroke that led to a coma and irreversible heart failure.
His passing comes little under a month after being discharged from hospital. He had spent 38 days being treated and recovering from double pneumonia, bronchitis and minor kidney failure.
The Argentina-born pope, who led the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics since 2013 was the first Pope to be born or raised outside of Europe in more than 1,200 years.
What happens now?
The pontiff’s death will see more than 140 cardinals head to the Vatican over the next few weeks to begin the papal conclave.
The conclave is the secretive election process to choose his successor.
Historian and Catholic Church expert Dr Miles Pattenden says there is an established procedure that goes over several centuries.
Pattended told The Briefing podcast that the Cardinal Chamberlain will call out the Pope’s birth name three times.
“If there’s no response, then he will pronounce the Pope is dead,” Pattenden said.
The Chamberlain then takes the ring off the Pope’s finger, an important symbol of authority which will be ceremonially broken.
Once the Pope is pronounced dead, the Chamberlain will seal his apartments. Then an official nine-day mourning period begins.
“Everything in the Vatican will be suspended because it is still, in theory, a kind of medieval-style monarchy in which the Pope makes the law. And if there’s no Pope, nothing functions,” he said.
The Pope’s funeral must occur between four and six days after his death. The conclave then usually takes place between 15 and 20 days after the death.
Is Oscar-winning ‘Conclave’ accurate?
“That movie is very accurate,” Pattended said, “For instance, it has a very good depiction of the breaking of the Pope’s pontifical ring and of the cardinals going into the conclave.
“Where it may be less accurate is in the personalities described to the conclave.”
Pattenden said the impact of social media and 24-hour news cycles on the cardinals’ decision isn’t conveyed in the film
“They can’t take their time over this,” he said.
“I often study medieval conclaves where sometimes the cardinals took two years to decide, well, I don’t think that anyone would find that acceptable today.”
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