section_path: Burial
section_name: Burial
paragraph_text: Burial
  
  Following a procession via popemobile, Francis was buried in the Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome "in the burial niche in the side aisle between the Pauline Chapel (Chapel of the Salus Populi Romani) and the Sforza Chapel of the Basilica". He had a "great devotion " to the Salus Populi Romani icon kept in that church. He was the eighth pope to be buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the first papal internment there since Clement IX in 1669, and the first pope interred outside Vatican City since Pope Leo XIII in 1903. Francis's name on the simple marble grave marker was marred by irregular kerning (spacing) of the letters; the misalignment was observed by typographers and design experts.
  
  As the wooden and zinc coffin was carried up the stairs of the Basilica, 40 mourners from the poorest and most marginalized communities – including prisoners on day release, human trafficking victims, transgender women, migrants, sex workers, and homeless people – greeted the coffin.
  
  On 27 April, the Second Sunday of Easter, members of the College of Cardinals visited Pope Francis's tomb, where they said the evening Second Vespers prayer. During the 12th general congregation of the College of Cardinals on 6 May 2025, Pope Francis's fisherman's ring and lead seal were destroyed.