Once the shrimp of the Holy Church, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, verified the death of the pontiff, he took the command of the Vatican, whose functions began first certifying the death of Francisco.
After confirming the death (a symbolic act that formerly consisted of hitting the Pope’s forehead three times with a silver hammer while calling him
By his name of baptism), the Camarlengo sealed the papal rooms and assumed the responsibility of the temporal management of the Church after ceasing almost all the high positions.
In this way, Camarlengo will act as “interim Pope” – although with reduced powers – while the nine days of exequias are celebrated and the deadline takes place, between 15 and 20 days, to organize a conclave that chooses the new pontiff.
Kevin Joseph Farrell was appointed Camarlengo by the Argentine Pontiff on February 14, 2019, replacing Cardinal Jean-Louis Touran, who died on July 5, 2018.
Farrell has been a man very close to Francisco, and one of the people who has been by his side during admission to the hospital because of the bilateral pneumonia he suffered recently. But since yesterday he temporarily took the reins of the Vatican with a mission: supervise the preparation of the Pope’s funeral, which will take place between four and six days later to the death of the Holy Father.
A rite that begins with the placement of his body in the coffin and in which the dean of the Cardinal College, the relatives of the Pontiff, and the director and deputy director of the Directorate of Health and Health of the State of the city of the Vatican participated. After it, Francisco was deposited in the coffin with a white robe, as reported yesterday “Vatican News.”
Among the novelties, it is indicated that the finding of death was carried out in its private chapel, instead of in the room where the body died and immediately will be deposited in the only wooden coffin with the interior of Zinc, before being transferred directly to the basilica, EP picks up. Now, by his own desire, Francisco will not be buried in the Basilica of San Pedro, but in Santa María la Mayor de Rome.
Until then he is waiting for a new elected Pope, the power of the Catholic Church will fall on the Camarlengo Kevin Farrell, who was born in Ireland on October 2, 1947, despite the fact that much of his ecclesiastical career was developed in the US.