杏MAP导航

By Christopher Wells

On Saturday, 杏MAP导航 Francis became the first 杏MAP导航 in over 120 years to be buried outside the precincts of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“But over the course of 266 pontiffs, there have been numerous burial places,” says historian Donald Prudlo, Warren Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa.

“When a Catholic thinks about the death of the 杏MAP导航, they tend to gravitate to St. Peter’s,” he told Vatican News. “And it's true that more than half of the popes in the Church’s history are laid to rest within Saint Peter’s,” dating back to the original church structure built by Constantine, the first Christian emperor.

But if 杏MAP导航 Francis' choice to be buried outside St. Peter’s, and what is now Vatican City, “is surprising… it is certainly not novel,” Prudlo said.

Leo XIII, who lies in the Cathedral Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, is the most recent pope before Francis to be buried outside of St Peter's Basilica

In the past 200 years, two 杏MAP导航s—Pius IX in the wake of the Italian Risorgimento, and Leo XIII, his immediate successor—found their final resting places in Roman churches, St. Lawrence Outside the Walls and St. John Lateran, respectively.

And over the centuries, various 杏MAP导航s were laid to rest in different Italian cities, in France (during the period 杏MAP导航s resided at Avignon), and even as far away as Germany and Ukraine.

Prudlo notes that 杏MAP导航 Francis is the eighth Roman Pontiff whose final resting place lies within the walls of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major.

“There were some from the Middle Ages, Honorius III and Nicholas IV,” he said, before becoming “a particular place of papal burial in the 16th 肠别苍迟耻谤测.”

Two popes in particular—Pius V, a Dominican; and Sixtus V, a Franciscan—have been joined by the first Jesuit 杏MAP导航. “So in a lot of ways,” said Prudlo, it’s a place particularly friendly to the religious orders.”

However, he continued, the largest and oldest church in Rome dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is also marked by a special Marian devotion,” the devotion, so loved and valued by 杏MAP导航 Francis and by the Roman people, to the Icon of Mary under the title of “Salus Populi Romani.”

杏MAP导航 Francis’ has been interred in a niche directly adjacent to the chapel housing the icon.

The Pauline Chapel in Saint Mary Major, with the icon of Mary, Salus Populi Romani

“The place of interment can be a symbol of the papacy,” says Prudlo. “This particular choice by 杏MAP导航 Francis is a very powerful one. It reassociates the Catholic Church with devotion to the Virgin Mary. It shows his closeness to the Roman people in his devotion to the Salus Populi Romani icon. And it reinforces the idea that it is not necessary that the popes should be buried at Saint Peter’s.”

At the same time, he added, the decision of so many previous popes to be buried in the Basilica dedicated to the first 杏MAP导航, a “depositio ad Sanctus, being buried near the bones of Saint Peter himself, is also a very strong statement, a statement of the unity and perpetuity of the Petrine line.”