With the passing of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known as Pope Francis, the world’s first Latin American Pontiff, the process of mourning, burying and replacing the pope has begun.

Francis died on April 21 at 7.35 am. He was 88 years old. The Vatican said Francis died of a cerebral stroke that put him into a coma and led to irreversible heart failure.

In 2024, Francis revised papal funeral rites, which allowed for burial outside the Vatican, but keeping the core elements including the three key moments that must be observed between the death of a pope and his burial.