Francis has broken with recent papal tradition by choosing to be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore instead of St Peter’s Basilica. His decision is steeped in personal piety, history and Jesuit values.

With St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, it is one of four basilicas in Rome granted special status by the pope. In his will, he wrote that he had visited the Marian basilica at the beginning and the end of every apostolic trip he took during his 12-year papacy.