What’s new about Pope Francis’ funeral?
The pope changed papal funeral rites. But that might not be what you think.
Much has been made in recent days of how Pope Francis simplified the papal funeral rites in advance of his own death. But whilst the revisions he made to the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis last year are certainly significant, they appear, in the grand scheme of things, to be relatively subtle — representing in large part simple updates to a text last changed in 1998.
Since then there has been a new edition of the Roman Missal, and important changes to the constitution of the Roman Curia, which affect how a papal transition is to be conducted.
For a start, the third typical edition of the Roman Missal was published in 2002, and reissued with further minor changes in 2008.
The previous edition of the funeral rites conformed to the 1975 missal, and so needed to be updated to reflect these later revisions.
The funeral of Pope Benedict XVI in 2023 already had to adapt the papal Ordo in view of his status as Pope Emeritus at the time of his death, but it also had to be accommodated to the current, 2008 edition of the Roman Missal.
The 2024 Ordo incorporates these changes into the liturgical book itself. It also updates the Latin texts to use the Nova Vulgata, which since 2001 has been the standard Latin text for scripture in the Roman Rite, and also revisions to the Litany of the Saints, so as to include additions to the General Roman Calendar made since 1998.
Second, the changes made by Pope Francis to the constitution of the Roman Curia, in his 2022 apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, required some modest emendation of the papal funeral rites.