Pope Fran­cis will be laid to rest Sat­ur­day af­ter ly­ing in state for three days in St. Pe­ter’s Basil­i­ca, where the faith­ful are ex­pect­ed to flock to pay their re­spects to his­to­ry’s first Latin Amer­i­can pon­tiff.

The car­di­nals met Tues­day in the Vat­i­can’s syn­od hall to chart the next steps be­fore a con­clave be­gins to choose Fran­cis’ suc­ces­sor, as con­do­lences poured in from around the world. Ac­cord­ing to cur­rent norms, the con­clave must be­gin be­tween May 5 and 10.

The car­di­nals set the fu­ner­al for Sat­ur­day at 10 a.m. in St. Pe­ter’s Square, to be cel­e­brat­ed by the dean of the Col­lege of Car­di­nals, Car­di­nal Gio­van­ni Bat­tista Re. U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said he and first la­dy Mela­nia Trump plan to at­tend, and Ar­gen­tine Pres­i­dent Javier Milei is al­so ex­pect­ed.

The Ar­gen­tine pope died Mon­day at age 88 af­ter a stroke put him in a co­ma and led his heart to fail. He had been re­cov­er­ing in his apart­ment af­ter be­ing hos­pi­tal­ized for five weeks with pneu­mo­nia. He made his last pub­lic ap­pear­ance Sun­day, de­liv­er­ing an East­er bless­ing and greet­ing fol­low­ers from his pope­mo­bile, loop­ing around St. Pe­ter’s Square.

His East­er ap­pear­ance from the same log­gia where he was in­tro­duced to the world as the first pope from the Amer­i­c­as on March 13, 2013, was a fit­ting book­end to a 12-year pa­pa­cy that sought to shake up the church and re­turn it to its Gospel-man­dat­ed mis­sion of car­ing for the poor­est.

Vat­i­can of­fi­cials re­mem­ber Fran­cis

“He tru­ly gave every­thing he had, up to the end,” said Sis­ter Nathalie Bec­quart, one of the high­est-rank­ing women at the Vat­i­can.

While the or­di­nary faith­ful will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pay their re­spects be­gin­ning Wednes­day, Vat­i­can of­fi­cials were al­lowed to say their good­byes start­ing Mon­day evening. Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter she paid her re­spects, Bec­quart mar­velled at Fran­cis’ fi­nal East­er salute to his flock. “He re­al­ly walked with his peo­ple,” she said.

Ital­ian Car­di­nal Gi­an­fran­co Ravasi said it was specif­i­cal­ly Fran­cis’ ef­fort to pro­mote the role of women in the church that will be one of his great­est lega­cies. Ravasi not­ed that Fran­cis chose to be buried near his favourite icon of the Madon­na, in a basil­i­ca across town, and not in the grot­toes un­der­neath St. Pe­ter’s, as is typ­i­cal for popes.

“He want­ed to be buried un­der the shad­ow of a woman, in this case Maria,” said Ravasi, the Vat­i­can’s for­mer cul­ture min­is­ter as he ar­rived for Tues­day’s first meet­ing of car­di­nals. “That is sig­nif­i­cant, his de­sire for the church to do more for women.”

The first im­ages of Fran­cis’ body were re­leased Tues­day, show­ing him in red vest­ments and his bish­op’s miter in a wood­en cas­ket, with the Vat­i­can sec­re­tary of state pray­ing over him in the chapel of the Do­mus San­ta Mar­ta ho­tel where he lived and died.

In his fi­nal will, Fran­cis said he want­ed to be buried at St. Mary Ma­jor Basil­i­ca, which is home to the Salus Pop­uli Ro­mani icon of Mary. Be­fore and af­ter every for­eign trip, Fran­cis would go to the basil­i­ca to pray be­fore the Byzan­tine-style paint­ing that fea­tures an im­age of Mary, draped in a blue robe, hold­ing the in­fant Je­sus, who in turn holds a jew­elled gold­en book.

Fran­cis stopped by the basil­i­ca on his way home from the Gemel­li hos­pi­tal on March 23, af­ter his 38-day stay, to de­liv­er flow­ers to be placed be­fore the icon. He re­turned April 12 to pray be­fore it one last time.

The world re­acts

Bells tolled in chapels, church­es and cathe­drals around the world and flags flew at half-staff in Italy, In­dia, Tai­wan and the U.S. af­ter Fran­cis’ death was an­nounced by the camer­len­go, who takes charge of the Vat­i­can af­ter a pope’s death. Soc­cer match­es in Italy and Ar­genti­na were sus­pend­ed in ho­n­our of the pope who was a life­long fan of the San Loren­zo soc­cer club.

World lead­ers praised Fran­cis for his moral lead­er­ship and com­pas­sion, while or­di­nary faith­ful re­mem­bered his sim­plic­i­ty and hu­man­i­ty.

“Like every Ar­gen­tine, I think he was a rebel,” said 23-year-old Catali­na Favaro, who had come to pay her re­spects in the Buenos Aires church where Fran­cis dis­cov­ered his priest­ly vo­ca­tion. “He may have been con­tra­dic­to­ry, but that was nice, too.”

In East Tim­or, where Fran­cis’ fi­nal out­door Mass drew near­ly half of the pop­u­la­tion last Sep­tem­ber, Pres­i­dent Jose Ramos-Hor­ta praised Fran­cis’ courage. “Pope Fran­cis was a brave man who was not afraid to speak out against the rulers of the world who seek war, but do not want to seek peace,” Ramos-Hor­ta said.

“He chal­lenged the pow­er­ful to act with jus­tice, called na­tions to wel­come the stranger, and re­mind­ed us that our com­mon home — this Earth — is a gift we must pro­tect for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions,” said Niger­ian Pres­i­dent Bo­la Tin­ubu, who is Mus­lim. Nige­ria is Africa’s most pop­u­lous coun­try and has around 30 mil­lion Catholics, rep­re­sent­ing about 14% of the pop­u­la­tion.

View­ing the pope’s cof­fin

The pope’s for­mal apart­ments in the Apos­tolic Palace and in the San­ta Mar­ta ho­tel were sealed Mon­day evening, fol­low­ing a cen­turies-old rit­u­al. Car­di­nal Kevin Far­rell, who as camer­len­go had the task of an­nounc­ing the death and con­firm­ing it once the cause was de­ter­mined, presided over the rit­u­als.

Fran­cis chose not to live in the palace, but in a two-room suite in San­ta Mar­ta on the oth­er side of Vat­i­can City. He died there and his body was trans­ferred to the ho­tel chapel in the lob­by, where the pri­vate view­ing was un­der­way Tues­day for Vat­i­can of­fi­cials and mem­bers of the pon­tif­i­cal house­hold.

In changes made by Fran­cis last year, his body was not placed in three wood­en coffins, as it had been for pre­vi­ous popes. Rather, Fran­cis was placed in a sim­pli­fied wood­en cof­fin with a zinc cof­fin in­side.

Once in St. Pe­ter’s, his cas­ket will not be put on an el­e­vat­ed bier — as was the case with past popes — but will just be placed sim­ply fac­ing the pews, with the Paschal can­dle near­by.

“He was a pope who didn’t change his path when it came to get­ting (his hands) dirty,” Fran­cis’ vic­ar for Rome, Car­di­nal Bal­das­sarre Reina, said in a Mass in his hon­or. “For him, poor peo­ple and mi­grants were the sacra­ment of Je­sus.”

Choos­ing the next pope

Af­ter the fu­ner­al, there are nine days of of­fi­cial mourn­ing, known as the “noven­di­ali.” Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, car­di­nals ar­rive in Rome and meet pri­vate­ly be­fore the con­clave.

To give every­one time to as­sem­ble, the con­clave must be­gin 15 to 20 days af­ter the “sede va­cante” — the “va­cant See” — is de­clared, al­though it can start soon­er if the car­di­nals agree.

Once the con­clave be­gins, car­di­nals vote in se­cret ses­sions in the Sis­tine Chapel. Af­ter vot­ing ses­sions, the bal­lots are burned in a spe­cial stove. Black smoke in­di­cates that no pope has been elect­ed, while white smoke in­di­cates that the car­di­nals have cho­sen the next head of the Catholic Church.

The one who has se­cured two-thirds of the votes wins. If he ac­cepts, his elec­tion is an­nounced by a car­di­nal from the log­gia of St. Pe­ter’s Basil­i­ca who tells the world: “Habe­mus Pa­pam” — Latin for “We have a pope.”

As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Pao­lo San­talu­cia and Sil­via Stel­lac­ci con­tributed.

VAT­I­CAN CITY (AP) —