Pope Francis...
Has passed from this mortal coil. He died yesterday morning, Rome time apparently due to a stroke and heart attack.
(AP: Alessandra Tarantino)
From Fox News-
Pope Francis' will, which was released after his death on Monday, outlined his desire to be buried in Santa Maria Maggiore, a basilica in Rome.
One of Rome’s four papal basilicas, seven popes are buried at Santa Maria Maggiore (which translates to Saint Mary Major in English).
Francis will be the first pope buried outside the Vatican in over 100 years, and the first Pope buried at Santa Maria Maggiore in over 350 years.
The last time a pope was buried outside the Vatican was in 1924. Pope Leo XIII died in 1903 and was initially buried in the Vatican in 1903; his remains were later moved to the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome in 1924.
May he rest in peace.
Next is nine days of mourning, followed by his burial, and the Conclave of 136 Cardinals under the age of 80, who will choose the next Pope, however long that may take.
I'll get the niceties out of the way first. RIP. This man was a woke social justice warrior of the Jesuit South American Liberation Theology stripe. The church will continue to wither if they pick a new Pope to continue his kind of Progressive leadership. Having stacked the voting base with Progressive Cardinals, it seems likely we'll get a Francis clone. We need someone like John-Paul II. He needn't be the spitting image, just someone with the same traditional values. Does anyone remember that Pope John-Paul II was a staunch anti-Communist...the man who put the kibosh on Liberation Theology because he saw it for what it was: Marxism Lite©? The upside of Pope Francis' reign? He never spoke ex cathedra when penning or mouthing his errancies, to my knowledge. Whew! We dodged that bullet.