Pope Francis has simplified papal funeral rituals to better reflect the head of the Catholic Church’s status as a humble pastor rather than “person of power”, the Vatican said Wednesday.

Deceased popes traditionally have three coffins, one made out of cypress, one of lead and one of elm, which are placed one inside the other, before the papal body is interred.

From now on there will be just one simple coffin, made of wood and zinc.

The ascertainment of the pope’s death will no longer take place in the room where he dies, but in his private chapel instead, and his body will be placed immediately in a coffin.

The open coffin will then be laid out for veneration by the faithful in St Peter’s Basilica, putting an end to the display of papal bodies on a raised platform, propped up by cushions as per tradition.

With the new rules, Francis wants to show that “the funeral of the Roman pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ, and not of a powerful man of this world”, Diego Ravelli, master of pontifical liturgical celebrations, told Vatican News.

This updated “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis”, approved at the end of April by the Argentine pope, replaces a 2000 edition which was used at the funeral of John Paul II in 2005.

Francis said last year he was working to simplify papal funerals.

The 87-year-old wants be buried not in St Peter’s Basilica alongside his immediate predecessors but in a basilica in Rome.

He will become the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican for more than 100 years.

Despite health problems in recent years that have forced him to use a wheelchair, the pope — who turns 88 on December 17 — appears in good shape and continues to travel.

Since his election as head of the Catholic Church in 2013, Francis has sought to get rid of the pomp of rituals for more simplicity, preferring to live in a low-key residence inside the Vatican instead of the gilded apostolic palace. (AFP)

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