Pope Francis announced in an interview broadcast on Wednesday that he has chosen to be buried not in St Peter’s Basilica like his immediate predecessors, but in a basilica in Rome.
“The location has already been prepared. “I want to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore,” the pontiff, who turns 87 this weekend, told Televisa’s N+ streaming service in Mexico.
In the same interview, he stated that he planned to visit Belgium in 2024, as well as Argentina and Polynesia.
Francis’ decision would make him the first pope in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican.
Leo XIII, who died in 1903, was the latest to forego a tomb in St Peter’s. His ashes are interred at Rome’s Basilica of St John the Lateran.
Santa Maria Maggiore is one of four papal basilicas in Rome, and Francis has stated that he has a “special connection” with it.
Before becoming Pope, he would frequently travel there on Sundays. He has prayed there before and after trips since his election in 2013, and he has also prayed there after surgery.
According to the Vatican News official media organization, seven popes have previously been put to rest in the basilica.
The Pope has been plagued by health concerns in recent years, and was forced to abandon a trip to the COP28 climate negotiations in Dubai owing to bronchitis.
In his Tuesday interview, in which he appeared considerably better, he praised his predecessor Benedict XVI for having “the courage” to step down when his health was failing him.
In 2013, the German pontiff became the first pope to resign since the Middle Ages.
Benedict died on December 31, 2022, and his remains was buried in the mausoleum beneath St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican after a funeral led by Francis.
It was the same tomb that housed the body of previous Pope John Paul II before it was relocated for his beatification in 2011.
Francis has stated that if he is unable to discharge his duties, he will follow Benedict’s example, but that stepping down should not become a “normal thing” for popes.