Pope Francis lies in state in St. Peter's Basilica for 3 days ahead of funeral

Most internal promotions don’t get this much attention. Most job selection processes don’t have centuries of history behind them — and few, if any, have a special name. 

But then, most job selections don’t end with a new pope. 

Catholic cardinals from around the world are converging on Vatican City in advance of the conclave that will elect the successor to Pope Francis, who died Monday. Favorites have emerged, and once the conclave begins it likely won’t be long before a new pope is announced, as data shows that conclaves don’t take as long as they used to.

Read the story: Cardinals, conclaves and popes, in five charts

Pope Francis was a believer in sport being a place of unity and he championed the Special Olympics. Chairman of the Special Olympics Timothy Shriver joins José Díaz-Balart to share more on the pope’s personal relationship with the athletes.

Pope John Paul II, who served as the head of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005, was not embalmed, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

Navarro-Valls said Paul's body underwent a treatment to "preserve" it during public viewing. Vatican officials indicated that the procedure involved the injection of a formaldehyde-based fluid, which falls short of a full embalming process.

Pope Francis’ body underwent a temporary embalming, Agence France-Presse reported.

Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, spoke of Pope Francis’ legacy and hailed his commitment to Gaza.

"He was very close to the community of Gaza, the parish of Gaza. He kept calling them many times," Pizzaballa told a group of journalists.

Next to the lines of people waiting outside St. Peter's Basilica, preparations are being made for Saturday's funeral.

Hundreds of gray chairs have been laid out for guests and scaffold is being erected for TV cameras.

Inside, hundreds of people are lining up. Some of them have been waiting for hours. There is a soft hum of conversation as they wait patiently to catch a glimpse of the pontiff.

As people approach the coffin, they file by quickly, some saying quiet prayers as they pass.

When it takes place Saturday, the funeral of Pope Francis will be a carefully choreographed and extremely public ceremony that tens of thousands of people inside Vatican City and millions of people around the world will bear witness to.

But when the rite has taken place, the coffin and body of the late pontiff will be interred at the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major in accordance with the pope's wishes.

That detail was confirmed today in a statement from Diego Ravelli, the Holy See's master of pontifical liturgical celebrations.

The Vatican may extend the time frame for pilgrims to visit Pope Francis’ body in St. Peter’s Basilica until beyond midnight in Rome (6 p.m. ET) due to the large number of visitors, it said in a statement.

To the world, he was Pope Francis, leader of 1.4 billion Catholics. To parishioners at the Holy Family Church in Gaza, the late pontiff was a “shield” who fought to provide succor to their tiny community in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

“He was a real father to us,” George Antone, a parishioner in the enclave’s only Catholic church, told NBC News’ crew in Gaza. “Pope Francis was like a shield for the Christians in the enclave. He was the fighter, he was fighting for our rights and for our protection.”

Throughout the war, parishioners and leaders of the church said, Francis had been a significant source of strength, making near-nightly calls for the past year and a half, even as he faced his own health struggles in his final months.

Read the full story here.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the acting head of the Vatican since Pope Francis’ death, is a Dublin-born naturalized American citizen who spent most of his career in the U.S.

The 77-year-old studied in Spain and Rome before being ordained as a priest in 1978. Six years later, he moved to Washington, in 1984, to join the archdiocese, according to his Vatican biography. He went on to hold a series of positions including as an auxiliary bishop of Washington in 2001.

He was elevated through the ranks at the Vatican before being personally appointed by Francis in 2019 for the official title of cardinal camerlengo, a key dignitary tasked with overseeing the crucial time of transition between popes.

During a news conference in 2016, he recounted his shock when he first received a phone call from the pope.

Streams of the Oscar-winning movie “Conclave” are on the rise after the announcement from the Vatican of Pope Francis’ death.

Viewership of the film has gone up 283% which comes in at nearly 7-million minutes watched across streaming platforms.

Visitors wait in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their respects to the late pope at the Vatican today.

Some waited five hours just to get into St. Peter's Basilica and then another hour once they entered, but everyone we spoke to said it was worth it.

Tens-of-thousands of people are waiting in three lines, but they are moving fairly quickly as people pay their respects and move on.

"It's like losing a member of your family," one worshipper said. Another woman said that all she did was blow a kiss towards the coffin, and that was her final goodbye.

For context: Back in 2023, 200,000 people lined up to see the body of Pope Benedict XVI, and back in 2005, more than 2 million people lined up to see the body of Pope John Paul II.

It was a very moving moment — a prayer inside the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where Pope Francis lived from day one of his pontificate, essentially, giving up the luxury of living inside the huge papal apartment in the Apostolic palace.

His open coffin was raised on a stretcher and taken to St. Peter's Basilica in a slow procession led by the chamberlain of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Kevin Farrell. Francis, dressed in bishop’s robes, was holding a rosary, symbolizing that the pope is first and foremost the bishop of Rome.

Eventually the coffin was carried into St. Peter's Square coming through the Arch of the Bells and weaving its way past the 20,000 people who had gathered there.

The eerie silence was broken by a round of applause when the casket was taken inside St. Peter's Basilica through the central door. It was then placed in front of the outer of the confession, raised on top of the place where Catholics believe St. Peter was buried.

While many of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics will be mourning the death of Pope Francis today, some are also looking ahead to the key and secretive meeting to choose his successor.

Conclaves have been used for about eight centuries to elect a new pope, and early meetings could last months, even years. The longest in modern times was in 1831 and lasted 54 days before Gregory XVI was elected.

More recently cardinal electors have chosen new popes in a much speedier manner. Francis himself was elected after just over 24 hours, or five ballots, and the conclave that elected Pope Benedict, his predecessor, lasted barely 24 hours.

Here is a rundown of the length of the conclaves for the last 122 years:

As we look at the crowds here in St. Peter’s Square, I’ve had a chance to speak with dozens of people who will be waiting in line for hours and hours just to get a few seconds with Pope Francis. That speaks to his impact.

The thing that really struck me is the impact that Francis had in their lives. What you get is that, regardless of your relationship with God, the people here believe there is something bigger than his life here. That's what they want to talk to Francis about.

Right after they pray for Francis, they're also very curious about what's going to happen in the conclave and who will be the next leader of the Catholic Church.

Wrapped in the flag of his homeland Argentina, Gustav Tesco told NBC News that Pope Francis fought for LGTBQ rights.

“We always liked him because he was a man who always fought for the last ones,” said Gustav, 55, who was vacationing in Rome with his partner, Cristal Riquelme, a trans woman.

The couple decided to thank the “Papa from whom I felt welcomed and embraced,” Gustav said.

Riquelme added that they had known Francis from his time as archbishop in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires.

Describing Francis as a close friend, the Rev. Emiliano Antenucci told NBC News that he not only “revolutionized the papacy,” but also always cared for others around him.

“When I visited him, he always asked me how I was doing, he even remembered my mother’s name,” said Antenucci, 46, who was wearing a friar’s robe as he lined up with thousands of others to pay his respects to the former pontiff.

Antenucci, who serves as the rector of the Shrine of the Virgin of Silence in the central Italian city of Avezzano, added that he had a “close relationship” with Francis.

“I admired him so much,” he said, adding that Francis “invited the church to come out of the sacristies and work as if it were a field hospital, in the midst of the people.”

Pope Francis was like “a grandfather or a father,” Viviana Pane told NBC News today as she lined up to enter St. Peter’s Basilica and pay her respects to the former pontiff.

“I’m shocked by the pope’s death. It’s like my grandfather died, because that’s what Francis represented to me,” said Pane, 20, adding that she took a 6 a.m. train this morning from Caserta in southern Italy with her mother and aunts.

“I’m not worried about who will come after but I know that I will miss Francis, with his simplicity and directness and above all for his desire to talk to us young people, to understand us," she said.

U.S. Cardinal and acting head of the Vatican, Kevin Joseph Farrell, carries incense next to the coffin of Pope Francis inside St Peter’s Basilica today.

Mourners began filing into St. Peter's Basilica after barriers to Vatican Square were opened, in a relief for crowds that had been standing in line for several hours.

Once inside, the crowd narrows to a slow-moving column as people pay their final respects to Francis, whose body is lying in an open casket in front of the basilica's Altar of Confession, which Catholics believe lies above the tomb of Saint Peter.

The coffin is not on an elevated platform, but placed simply facing the pews. Francis reformed his own funeral rites to ensure they reflected his wish to be remembered as “a shepherd and disciple” and “not of a powerful man of this world,” in the words of Archbishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies.

The basilica will remain open until midnight local time (6 p.m. ET).

Pope Francis' coffin will be closed on Friday at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET), the Holy See Press Office said.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell will preside over the ritual, it added.

Taiwan appears to have backed down on sending its president to Pope Francis’ funeral after discussions with the Vatican, one of the island’s only diplomatic allies.

Earlier, Taiwan foreign ministry's said that ensuring President Lai Ching-te attendance was its “most important aim.”

Democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has official relations with just 11 countries including Vatican City. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

“After discussions between the two sides,” Taiwan's foreign ministry said, it was decided that Lai’s special envoy at the funeral would be former Vice President Chen Chien-jen, a devout Catholic who met Francis six times and “had a close relationship” with him.

For most worshippers, Pope Francis’ death brought daily life to a halt. But in St. Peter’s Square the air hums with activity. There are rites to be performed, funerary events to be arranged and a conclave to be held for the election of the 267th Bishop of Rome.

Tens of thousands wait to be allowed into the St. Peter's Basilica to pay their respects to the pope. Meanwhile, bishops, recognizable by their black robes and purple stoles tied above the waists, emerge from the Holy Office Square on the right side of the vast building's main entrance.

The body of Pope Francis lies inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican this morning, where he will remain for the next three days.

Vatican authorities have temporarily stopped members of the public from entering St. Peter's Square over fears about overcrowding.

As a result no one will be able to enter the square until 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).

Vice President JD Vance said it was “pretty crazy” that Pope Francis passed away so quickly after they met on Easter Sunday.

Speaking to reporters in India, he said he was not planning to attend the funeral. President Donald Trump had said he will travel to Rome for the commemoration.

Acknowledging that he had some disagreements with Francis, Vance said he would not “soil” the legacy of the Pope, who he called a “great pastor” by talking about politics.

Even before 8 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET), a long line of worshippers were waiting to enter St. Peter's Square to pay their respects.

As Latin psalms rang out, they filed into the square, then bells rang just before Pope Francis' coffin was a carried out.

Those who couldn't get into the square looked over the surrounding barriers, hoping to catch a glimpse before the coffin was carried into St. Peter’s Basilica where Francis' will lie in state for three days.

Members of the clergy and other worshipers walked together as the coffin of the late Pope Francis arrived in St. Peter's this morning.A large sculpture looks over the inside of St. Peter's Basilica, where the late pontiff will lie in state for three days.

A crowd of worshippers in St. Peter's Square erupted in applause as Francis' body was carried through the vast space and entered the basilica for the last time. His body was placed before the Altar of Confession, facing the congregation.

Pope Francis' body is being carried through the Vatican in an open coffin accompanied by hymns, priests, Swiss Guards and those who served in his household. Prayers are playing on loudspeakers, starting with Psalm 22 and followed by Psalm 114.

Under bright sunlight, cardinals dressed in red led the procession, along with dozens of worshippers, patriarchs, bishops and other priests.

The pontiff will lie in state at St. Peter's Basilica until his funeral Saturday.

As the Vatican prepares for the election of a new pope, many around the world are doing their own preparations — by watching a movie about it. 

After news of Pope Francis’ death broke, the film “Conclave” had a viewership boost across streaming platforms it was available to watch on, according to Luminate, an entertainment data analytics company. 

Edward Berger’s drama, which won the Oscar this year for best adapted screenplay, goes behind the scenes of the Vatican for the secretive process of electing a pope. The process is complicated further by power-hungry cardinals, played by Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow. The film’s distributor is Focus Features, a unit of NBC News’ parent corporation, Comcast.

Read full story here.

Vatican Swiss Guards march in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican this morning before the body of Pope Francis will lie in state for three days.

As bells tolled solemnly, a procession of patriarchs, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, canons and other priests exited the Casa Santa Marta, carrying Pope Francis' body.

The procession will travel through the Santa Marta Square and the Square of the Roman Protomartyrs to St. Peter’s Square under the Arch of the Bells before going into the Basilica through the central door. 

The public will then be able to pay their respects starting at 11 a.m. (5 a.m. ET).

A second General Congregation is scheduled for this afternoon after Pope Francis' body is carried to St. Peter's Basilica.

These congregations are a daily gathering of the College of Cardinals, who presently govern the Vatican, to plan the funerals and the upcoming conclave. Yesterday, 60 cardinals gathered in the Synod Hall for the occasion.

NBC News’ Tom Llamas visited a local Rome shop named “Hedera,” which has made delicious desserts, including homemade gelato and award-winning cakes, for years. It also became one of Pope Francis’ favorite locations for a sweet treat.

Pope Francis' body will be transferred to St. Peter's Basicilia this morning ahead of his funeral on Saturday. His lying in state will be open to public and worshippers will be able to pay their respects to the first Latin American pope.

While estimates vary for how many people are expected to visit, over 2 million mourners lined up to view Pope John Paul II's body in 2005, according to the Italian Civil Protection agency.

For Elijah Smith, who grew up Lutheran and Southern Baptist, Pope Francis’ teachings centering on social justice and recognition of the marginalized helped to influence his decision to convert to Catholicism a year ago.

“He led by example,” said Smith, 22, a college student from Rockwell, North Carolina, “and he was very accepting. Accepting of the LGBTQ community, accepting of immigrants and very understanding of different cultures.”

But with Francis’ death Monday at 88, the Catholic Church is at a crossroads: After 12 years of his leadership, does it continue on a progressive path to invigorate new followers with a message of inclusivity, or return to traditional roots at a time when some have yearned for church doctrine bound by conservative customs and liturgy?

For centuries, the church’s traditional Mass was said in Latin and required priests to face the altar with their backs to the congregation, until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s sought to modernize rituals. Changes included Mass being conducted in local languages and laypeople becoming integral to the services’ readings.