Vatican opens Pope Francis tomb to public as thousands file past in Rome

*Event date: 2025-04-27*

The Vatican has released photographs of Pope Francis’s tomb and opened the burial site to the public at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, where tens of thousands of people are expected to file past the grave of the late pope.

ABC News reported that the tomb opened for public viewing on Sunday morning, a day after Francis was buried in the basilica. More than 13,000 people entered the church on Sunday, with several thousand more waiting outside, according to the Italian news agency ANSA cited in the report. The scene turned the basilica into both a place of mourning and a focus for the Church’s immediate transition after Francis’s death.

The report says all the cardinals in Rome were expected to visit the tomb on Sunday afternoon to pay their respects. Their visit would include a procession through the Holy Door before stopping at the tomb and then moving on to the chapel where the Salus Populi Romani icon is displayed. That sequence matters because it connects the burial site not only to public grief but to the rituals of the College of Cardinals as it prepares for the next phase of papal succession.

The basilica itself was especially significant to Francis. The report says he would pray before the Byzantine-style icon of the Madonna before and after each foreign trip, making St. Mary Major one of the places most closely associated with his personal devotion. The decision to bury him there, rather than inside the Vatican, reflected both that attachment and his wish for a simpler funeral style.

The article also notes that Francis became the first pope buried outside the Vatican in more than a century and the first buried at St. Mary Major in more than 300 years. That historical detail gives the public viewing a second layer of meaning: it is not just a memorial to a pope, but a rare moment in the modern history of the Church’s burial customs.

The practical arrangements were also plain. Security around the Vatican was tightened, and the coffin remained open for a period of public mourning before Friday evening. The report says the public viewing was part of a multi-day period ahead of the funeral, while the cardinals held private meetings to prepare for the conclave that will elect Francis’s successor.

Francis’s death left the Church to manage both grief and administration at the same time. The public viewing drew ordinary Catholics who wanted to pay respects, while the cardinals gathered to plan the election of a new pope. Those parallel tracks show how the Vatican moves from one papacy to the next: mourning in public, and planning in private.

The scale of the turnout shows how broadly Francis remained admired, even among people who were not regular churchgoers. The report described long lines, a heavy flow of pilgrims and a basilica that stayed open longer than usual because of demand. That is a sign of public affection but also of the logistical burden that follows the death of a global religious leader.

For now, the central fact is straightforward. Pope Francis’s tomb has been opened for public viewing in Rome, and the Vatican is receiving thousands of mourners while cardinals begin the formal steps that will lead to the election of his successor.