VisualGPS Creative Trends Culture Sede Vacante: The Papal Transition From Francis's Funeral To The Election Of Leo XIV

When Pope Francis died on April 21st, it set in motion a centuries‑old process for paying tribute to the late pope and electing a successor. Over a period of several weeks, a team of Getty Images photographers captured the mix of mourning, solemnity, spectacle, faith and fanfare that defined the papal transition.

Photos and Text by Getty Images

The public tributes to Pope Francis began — albeit in a spirit of hope and tactfulness — months before his death on April 21 at the age of 88. In February, Francis entered Gemelli Hospital in Rome with a case of bronchitis, which led to a respiratory infection and pneumonia. Over his one‑month hospital stay, the faithful would gather outside his hospital room for nightly vigils, clutching rosary beads and portraits of Francis from earlier in his 12‑year papacy. Eventually, his health did improve just enough to leave the hospital and make a final public appearance at St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, on April 20th, before his death was announced on Easter Monday.

The announcement ushered in a cascade of traditions meant to mourn the passing of one pope and the election of a new one. The events were both solemn and spectacular, with moments of spontaneous mourning rooted in highly formalized, institutional ceremony. Tens of thousands of faithful — not to mention media, tourists, foreign dignitaries and simply the curious — descended on the Vatican for his three‑day lying in state, culminating in his funeral on April 26th.

Born in Argentina as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Francis was the first Latin American and the first Jesuit to become Pope when elected in 2013. Taking the name Francis, after St Francis of Assisi, he promoted a more conspicuously humble version of the papacy than many of his predecessors. In life, he declined to live in the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, opting instead for a suite in the House of Saint Martha, a kind of guest house at the Vatican. In death, he chose to be buried in a simple wooden coffin.

He was also the first pope in more than 100 years to be buried outside the grounds of the Vatican, at the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, which he often visited after returning from travels abroad. Beyond the approximately 250,000 who gathered to see the funeral in St. Peter's Square, another 140,000 were estimated to have lined the roads to see his coffin carried in a converted popemobile across central Rome to its final resting place.

Pope Francis's funeral was followed by a nine‑day mourning period called the novendiales, in which a series of masses are held in the late Pope's memory. The period is also a time for Vatican‑watchers to speculate on the so‑called "papabile," the cohort of cardinals seen as likely candidates for the papacy. Media would throng cardinals each day as they arrived at the Vatican, entering St. Peter's colonnade from the surrounding streets.

The start of the papal conclave, on May 7, would quickly render all that speculation moot. In recent decades, the church has designed a process intended to forge a quick consensus and minimize the period of Sede Vacante (Latin for "the seat being vacant"), when the Catholic flock is without its shepherd. This conclave was no exception, producing white smoke — the sign of a successful vote — by late afternoon on May 8.

The election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, an American who spent long periods of his clerical life Latin America, was a surprise to many. Taking the name Pope Leo (Leone) XIV, he became the 267th Supreme Pontiff and first American pope. Just as Francis's death set in motion a series of memorial events, the election of Pope Leo began a wave of inaugural ceremonies, starting with the Inauguration Mass in St. Peter's Square on May 18th, which was witnessed by nearly as many faithful and foreign dignitaries as the recent funeral.

"I was chosen, without any merit of my own," said the new pope in his inaugural homily. "And now, with fear and trembling, I come to you as a brother, who desires to be the servant of your faith and your joy, walking with you on the path of God’s love, for he wants us all to be united in one family."