THE Vatican announced on Monday, April 28, that Catholic cardinals would begin the election of a new Pope on May 7.
This is coming a week after the death of Pope Francis.
Cardinals under 80 will gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new Pope, the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.
Cardinals met on Monday and set a date for the conclave to elect Pope Francis successor, with 135 eligible voting cardinals among the 252 who gathered in Rome.
The Vatican on Monday closed the Sistine Chapel to start preparations for the conclave where the election will take place.
The ICIR reported that world leaders and thousands of mourners were in attendance at the funeral of the late Pope Francis at the Vatican on Saturday, April 26.
Among the world leaders that graced the funeral are the United States President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Also at the funeral were Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The ICIR reported that Nigeria’s Senate President Godswill Akpabio led the Nigerian delegation to honour the ceremony.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, one of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church, conducted the funeral mass.
In his sermon, the 91-year-old Italian cardinal honoured Francis’s ability to lead with “an open heart towards everyone,” describing him as a “pope among the people,” CNN reported.
Following his funeral at St. Peter’s Square on Saturday, Pope Francis’s coffin was taken to the Vatican on a white popemobile.
The Argentine pontiff, who died on Monday, April 21, aged 88, sought to steer the centuries-old Church into a more inclusive direction during his 12-year papacy.
The ICIR, in a report, describes what happens when the Pope dies and how his successor is chosen.
A reporter with the ICIR
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