The funeral ceremony began at 10:00 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. IST) in the historic Baroque square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. Before the service, his body was placed in a cypress-wood coffin, which will later be enclosed within two additional coffins made of different types of wood, each nesting within the other, for his final burial.
Francis recently returned to the Vatican after 38 days in a hospital for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy
