Programs for the Funeral Mass and Burial of Pope Francis
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    Links and the PDFs:

    https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2025/20250426-libretto-esequie-sepoltura.pdf


    https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2025/20250426-libretto-tumulazione.pdf
    Thanked by 6Chant_Supremacist CHGiffen GerardH RC_Liturgy_Music chonak M. Jackson Osborn
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 228
    I'm not familiar with what has been liturgical praxis in Rome recently but this looks pretty darn good.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    The choral anthem after the Communio is Sicut Cervus, presumably the setting by Palestrina.

    The liturgies are what I'd expect: Pope Francis's own liturgical sensibility as principal celebrant at Masses during his pontificate was unremarkably sober and straightforward. As best I could tell over the years, he seemed uninterested in both ritual improvisation on the one hand and ritual elaboration on the other hand.
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 228
    Prescinding from the unavoidable deficiencies of the NO, the only thing I find truly regrettable is the absence of the Dies Irae sequence. But I'm pleasantly surprised. Speaking as a chant supremacist, I don't mind the absence of splendiferous settings. In fact the practice of setting one fantastic piece of polyphony, gemlike, as the distribution ends and the celebrant returns to the altar, is one I'm partial to. Anyway I should really be more familiar with the Vatican's liturgy.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    The Sequence of the Dead (Nekrosimi Akolouthia) from the Byzantine Liturgy is included in the Rite of Commendation after the Mass (see pp 71-75).
    Thanked by 2monasteryliturgist CHGiffen
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 228
    So maybe the idea is to make a gesture of inclusion to the east, and to avoid some 'functional' repetition they excluded the Dies Irae.

    Do you think it is too musically simple and sober for a pope's funeral?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    I don’t like the use of the short Alleluia in lieu of a real Gregorian Alleluia. I understand the bit about congregational participation, but they have the propers in there for the people, and I think that there are, if only a few hundreds or maybe thousands at best for these who can do so, so they can manage a Gregorian Alleluia. I know that they like the psalm with its simple antiphon, but why not one of the other choices for the Alleluia in the 1974 gradual (or in the Ordo Cantus Missae cuz Vatican) and then the Requiem Aeternam whipped up with the mode VIII Alleluia before the Gospel?

    The language situation is somewhat confusing but there is a lot of Latin besides the chants. This is not exactly typical of Francis’s pontificate.

    I don’t like pairing Ego sum with anything but the Benedictus even if the NO calls for this.

    The pope’s funeral should be a more elaborate version of what we do ordinarily in chant in our parishes, i.e. the TLM, but pontifical, and I assume with the five absolutions (found in the Liber Usualis; the FSSPX did them for the funeral of Mgr Tissier I believe), the roles divvied up among the Curia and cardinals in a special way (that would have to be reinvented with two reforms, one of which now ending roles such as prefect of the Apostolic Camera that had survived past 1988).

    Someone on Facebook has made a good point that there is a secret (not so secret, in reality) semiologist at the Vatican. @Charles_Weaver made this point about the communion at the papal midnight Mass, where the bivirga is marked with an episema over each note where it is otherwise an ordinary bistropha. In this case, there is an episema on the first note of the climacus præbipunctis (whether that be an ordinary podatus or the podatus quilisma).

    Compare to Fontgombault, which does something similar to the Vatican Basilica practice with the communion In splendoribus. Here and here
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 508
    Diest Irae: maybe because of it being the middle of the Octave?
  • Cmanfro
    Posts: 22
    Can anyone answer this? At priests’ funerals, I’ve observed the Salve Regina is always sung at the end.
    If our parish holds a mass in memoriam for the Pope, do we sing Salve OR, being the Easter season, does one use Regina Coeli?
    Yet at the Papal funeral liturgy, I see The Magnificat.
    Thank you! I defer to all of you experts!!
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    The Dies Irae is suppressed in the NO, come on. And they don’t live in our (fantasy, almost) world of doing it anyway at the communion. It’s totally inappropriate for that moment too.

    The Salve Regina is sung at the funeral of priests in the NO, as I noted elsewhere.

    Otherwise, the Marian antiphon does not follow the Requiem Mass, even though it is customary in many places to sing this chant after most other Masses (but, for example, I would not sing the Regina Caeli after the pre-55 vigil, because it comes back after Compline, not Vespers). I would not sing anything after a Mass for the dead with few exceptions, and this regardless of the missal. Sometimes we do a hymn, and I like to do one verse of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” on Memorial Day (at a funeral, I would insert this right before the In Paradisum, so as to do it in the church, with the organ, and the chant can be pitched so that the transition is seamless). When the choir does the Fauré, they do the In Paradisum since they’ve prepared it. It’s not really proper without a body but whatever.

    As to the Magnificat, I should add that I don’t like singing it without an antiphon of any kind, and this is where the older rubrics are simply better: you do everything required for the procession to the burial place in and just outside the church if burial is not to take place immediately. This includes the Ego sum with the Benedictus (which to me is a more appropriate canticle for the funeral, but…).
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 228
    The Dies Irae is suppressed in the NO, come on. And they don’t live in our (fantasy, almost) world of doing it anyway at the communion. It’s totally inappropriate for that moment too.


    I was either never aware of this, or forgot it. I've also never heard of singing the Dies Irae at communion. If it's formally suppressed, I guess it moves from my "regrettable" column to my "unavoidable deficiencies" one.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    Right, it’s not in the revised gradual from Solesmes or appointed in the OCM. The only sequences are the required ones at Christmas and Pentecost, then you can pare down the Sequence of Corpus Christi to the Ecce Panis angelorum etc., and the Stabat mater is optional (honestly, it was one of the last admitted to the Roman rite, we could do without, but the chant is pretty nice).

    The Dies Irae was reused (butchered and abused) by Dom Lentini as a hymn ad libitum in the last week of the liturgical year, the (I would say mistaken) presumption being that it’s some sort of Advent sequence.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    I also am curious about the Dies Irae being done at the Communion.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    I’ve heard of this being done or at least proposed by people who want it at their NO funeral.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • CaleferinkCaleferink
    Posts: 452
    The main thing that, frankly, disgusts me is that apparently the Roman Canon will not be used for the funeral of the Roman Pontiff, but instead it will use the Mozarabic prayer (III). Normally, I like III for funerals because of that beautiful interpolation for the deceased at the end, but I would think the Roman Pontiff should get the Roman Canon. I know it wasn’t used for Benedict XVI’s, either, but I didn’t think too much of it then because he wasn’t reigning at the time.
    Thanked by 2LauraKaz ServiamScores
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    Well, not using it was sort of spiting Benedict in a way.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,090
    Hearing Cdl. Re recite his prayers and get spoken responses is a bit disappointing: how shabby that a Pope doesn't get a fully sung Mass for his funeral.

    As for singing the Dies Irae during Communion, it doesn't seem fitting. Maybe after the Postcommunion prayer and before the Absolution.
    Thanked by 2Chant_Supremacist LauraKaz
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,524
    The Sequence of the Dead (Nekrosimi Akolouthia) from the Byzantine Liturgy is included in the Rite of Commendation after the Mass (see pp 71-75).

    This was really special.
  • Elmar
    Posts: 514
    Can anyone help me to identify the polyphony sung by the schola?
    (no mention of composers in the booklet)
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 606
    As for singing the Dies Irae during Communion, it doesn't seem fitting. Maybe after the Postcommunion prayer and before the Absolution.

    The problem is you can’t add anything to the Mass. You could sing it the night before at the wake. Our parish has an evening flight path that has a low flying jet pass directly the church right at the same time it would be sung on All Souls Day. Scared the crap out of me the first time it happened.
    Thanked by 1igneus
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,524

    Can anyone help me to identify the polyphony sung by the schola?
    (no mention of composers in the booklet)
    Vatican polyphony is often from Dom Bartolucci's works. I would start guessing there.
    https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_bartolucci_d.html
    Thanked by 2Elmar CHGiffen
  • davido
    Posts: 1,150
    The polyphony is probably unpublished music by an Italian composer, either the Sistine chapel choir director, organist, or someone associated with a Roman basilica. I only heard the verses for the Introit, but they were definitely in what I think of as the modern Italian Ecclesiastical style, perhaps better termed the Bartolucci School.
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • cmb
    Posts: 92
    The Sicut got cut for time, I guess?

    Interesting that they repeated the full "Lux Aeterna" between each verse of the psalm, rather than the traditional way of only repeating the "cum sanctis…". Too bad, since that would have given them time for the Sicut.
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  • liampmcdonough
    Posts: 326
    The Mass Ordinary is the Palestrina requiem a5
    Thanked by 7cmb Kathy MatthewRoth Liam CHGiffen Elmar LauraKaz
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    The problem is you can’t add anything to the Mass. You could sing it the night before at the wake. Our parish has an evening flight path that has a low flying jet pass directly the church right at the same time it would be sung on All Souls Day. Scared the crap out of me the first time it happened.


    Good thing The Ride of The Valkryies is not liturgical music....
    Thanked by 2MatthewRoth CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    The identification of Palestrina reminded me. Martin Goldsmith had an excellent show today on SiriusXM (it’s worth a subscription just for weekend classical programming imho since you can listen anytime), and I didn’t even think to check in earlier in the day for the choral and baroque shows. I tuned in during the Credo of the Missa Papae Marcelli (a recording by the choir of Westminster Abbey), and that setting was followed by the Sixteen singing the Victoria Officium Defunctorum. I didn’t finish it, I got to the church to sing the wedding Mass which occurred this afternoon by the end of the Benedictus.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,464
    Now I think I understand the use of the Magnificat at the burial: it was sung while the pallbearers paused and held the casket facing the Pauline Chapel, as two pairs (each a boy and girl) of young children bearing baskets of white roses laid them at the foot of the altar of the shrine of the Salus Romani Populi inside the chapel, and it was only after they completed this that the pallbearers continued to the place of burial. It was a lovely gesture, as if the children - the future - continued the reverence forward on behalf of the late pontiff.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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