ROME \/\/ The cardinal stewarding Saint Mary Major Basilica, where Pope Francis will be buried, revealed this week that the pontiff initially intended to be buried in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, but changed his mind in 2022, saying Our Lady had inspired him. <\/a><\/p>\nThe late Holy Father was known for his devotion to the Marian icon \u201cSalus Populi Romani\u201d (\u201cSalvation of the Roman People\u201d), which is housed in the St. Mary Major Basilica. He would pray before this Marian icon every time he was set to go on an international apostolic trip and every time he returned from one. <\/p>\n
Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, the co-Archpriest of St. Mary, said at a press conference outside the basilica April 25 that he had asked Pope Francis on May 13, 2022, if he was considering choosing St. Mary as the place for his tomb because of his strong devotion to the Marian icon. Only seven other popes are buried there. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo\u201d was Pope Francis\u2019 response that day, and he said that he thought popes have to be buried at St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, the cardinal recalled.<\/p>\n
One week later, the pontiff called Cardinal Makrickas and said he had changed his mind. <\/p>\n
The Pope said to the cardinal on the phone: \u201cMary told me, \u2018Prepare your tomb,\u2019\u201d Cardinal Makrickas recalled. \u201cAnd he added: \u2018I am very glad that Mary didn\u2019t forget me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are seven other Pope's also buried in St. Mary Major. Hit the link for some pictures of the burial site. ROME \/\/ The cardinal stewarding Saint Mary Major Basilica, where Pope Francis will be buried, revealed this week that the pontiff initially intended to be buried in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, but changed his mind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7002,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/7002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}