He is currently ill in hospital with double pneumonia.

But when Pope Francis‘s time does come, he will not be buried with most of his predecessors in the grottoes beneath St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

At the end of 2023, the Pope revealed he had ‘already prepared’ his tomb in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood.

The church is one of the four major papal basilicas. Seven popes – from Honorious III in 1216 to Clement IX in 1669 – were buried there. 

In a further break with tradition, new rites issued last year said Francis will be laid to rest in a single zinc-lined wooden casket.

Francis’s predecessor Pope Benedict XVI was buried in three coffins – including one made from lead – nested inside each other.

Benedict lay in state inside St Peter’s Basilica and was then buried in a crypt underneath the building.

Since St Peter’s was completed in 1626, 24 of 31 – more than three quarters – popes have been buried in its grottoes. 

Pope Francis chooses to pray at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore before and after trips overseas. 

He has made more than 100 visits to the fifth-century church. He prays in front of a sacred image of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus.

Pope Benedict was buried in the same tomb that until 2011 was occupied by his predecessor John Paul II, who died in 2005.

The wooden lid on Benedict’s outermost coffin was decorated with a simple metal cross, the emblem of his nearly eight-year-long papacy and an inscription in Latin noting that he had lived 95 years, eight months and 15 days when he died on December 31, 2022.

The inscription also records the date his papacy ended when he went into retirement, on February 28, 2013, and became Pope Emeritus. 

He was the first Pope in six centuries to retire.

In the coffin, a written account of his historic papacy known as a rogito was also placed. 

The coins minted during his pontificate and his pallium stoles, the religious garment worn over the pope’s robes, were also laid in the casket. 

Pope John Paul’s remains were moved up to a chapel on the main floor of the basilica after he was beatified in 2011. 

John XXIII, who died in 1963, was buried in a sarcophagus of marble beneath St Peter’s Basilica.

Since 2001, his body been on display in a glass sarcophagus underneath the altar of St Jerome in St Peter’s. 

Pope Francis is still set to be lie in state in St Peter’s Basilica before his funeral. 

Last year, the second edition of the ‘Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis’ (‘Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff’) updated the rites originally approved by Pope John Paul.

Instead of resting on a catafalque in St Peter’s during the lying-in-state period, Francis’s body will lie in his coffin, which will remain open until the night before his funeral, Vatican News reported.

And Francis’s death will be ritually verified in his bedroom, rather than in his private chapel.

The rites also state that he will be placed inside his coffin before being carried into St Peter’s.

A report today in Politico claimed that Francis has told confidants that he may not survive his pneumonia affliction.

He was hospitalised on February 14. 

Doctors diagnosed him with a ‘complex’ respiratory infection and barred him from taking part in several engagements, with the Vatican cancelling or rescheduling his papal audiences this week.

The Vatican on Tuesday confirmed the pneumonia and said Francis’ respiratory infection also involves asthmatic bronchitis, which requires the use of cortisone antibiotic treatment.

‘Laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture,’ the Vatican said.

The infection is of particular concern because the Pope had part of one of his lungs removed when he was 21. 

Two people close to the pontiff have claimed Francis told them that he ‘might not make it this time’, according Politico.