Security experts say the operation to secure the pope’s funeral in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City will be anything but uncomplicated and straightforward.
Pope Francis funeral date set as Catholics mourn
Pope Francis’ procession will be held on Wednesday, and his funeral service will take place Saturday April 26.
LONDON — Pope Francis specified in his last wishes he wanted a “simple” funeral “without particular decoration.” This was in keeping with his aim during his papacy to eschew formalities and bring the Roman Catholic Church closer to the people.
Security experts however, say the operation to secure the pope’s funeral in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City will be anything but uncomplicated and straightforward. It will be attended by dozens of religious and political leaders from around the world, including President Donald Trump, and thousands of ordinary worshipers.
“This is what I would call a ‘Grade A’ event,” said Dai Davies, a former divisional commander in Britain’s Metropolitan Police and Head of Royal Protection. Davies’ job was to keep the country’s royal family, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, safe.
“The queen’s funeral, the king’s coronation, the Olympics, President Donald Trump’s inauguration − the pope’s funeral is at that level,” he said. “You really only need one element for things to go awry, whether that’s someone in the crowd who hates Trump and what he’s doing to Ukraine to anything that’s happening in the Middle East, from public disorder to crowd control because a lot of people may be hysterical with grief.”
Matteo Piantedosi, Italy’s interior minister, told local media authorities are working on the assumption that about 200 high-profile visitors and their delegations will attend the funeral on April 26, along with a crowd of up to 200,000 well-wishers.
Pope Francis, like all popes for the last 500 years, was protected by 135 so-called Swiss Guards, whose striped blue, red and yellow uniforms paired with a feather-topped black helmet belie their elite training in counterintelligence, close-quarters combat and bomb disposal. According to the Corriere della Sera daily newspaper, they are getting substantial backup for the funeral in the form of a tight security ring around the world’s smallest country − Vatican City measures just 0.19 square miles − comprised of snipers with high-powered rifles on rooftops and specialist soldiers toting anti-drone bazookas that can disable unauthorized UAVs with radio waves.
Rome’s police chief, Marcello Fulvi, has said roughly 8,000 security agents will be on hand, including 2,000 uniformed police officers and another 1,400 plain-clothes ones who will patrol the basilica and other surrounding and nearby areas. Crowd barriers have been erected inside and outside the basilica. NATO fighter jets will enforce a no-fly zone. Anti-aircraft missiles and navy warships are on stand-by.
“It’s going to be a complex one, on par with anything I’ve experienced in half a century of security,” said Davies. “Don’t forget there’s also going to be a multitude of protection officers from countries bringing their own people.”
The ability to instantly and reliably communicate with the potentially hundreds of security teams on the ground protecting each world leader is critical, said Steven Ricciardi, a former Secret Service agent who now directs executive security for Minneapolis-based Corporate Security Advisors.
To make it run seamlessly, each country’s security team will have a specific person or team within the funeral security that they connect with, he said.
The election of a pope can be interrupted, not stopped
The pope’s funeral will end when his wooden coffin is taken in procession from St. Peter’s Basilica to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, the church in Rome where he will be buried. He is upending papal tradition by not being laid to rest in the Vatican grottoes beneath St Peter’s. But the security operation does not end there.
Attention will quickly turn to the conclave, which is the process when the Vatican’s College of Cardinals convenes to elect the next bishop of Rome − the new pope.
In medieval times, cardinals could take years to elect a new pope. Conclaves are much shorter now. Pope Francis was elected the day after the conclave began in 2013. A conclave typically begins 15 to 20 days after the death of a pope. If needed, voting takes place in a series of rounds until a clear winner emerges.
Jeffrey Guhin, a professor of religion and culture at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the election of a new pope can be interrupted, but it cannot be stopped.
He said the ceremonies and structure of the papal transition are such that even if the unthinkable were to happen, and there were to be a death among the cardinals, or of the newly-elected pope, another could and would be chosen.
“There will be a different pope, but there will still be a pope,” Guhlin said.
One person who knows something about that, at least his imagination does, is Robert Harris. His novel, “The Conclave,” was turned into a movie starring actors Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini. In the book, a series of terrorist attacks take place on Catholic institutions during the conclave. One bomb explodes near enough to the Sistine Chapel where the cardinals are meeting that windows are blow in and glass and plaster rain down on the assembly.
“It’s all there laid out in the rules,” he said. “They just continue voting and it’s not supposed to be suspended. Outside events are not meant to impinge on it at all.”
Harris said he included the scene in his book not because he’d come across any research when writing his novel that conclaves had been scenes of violence.
“I just wanted a dramatic event that would shake up the story. No more than that.”
Pope’s funeral: the challenges
Richard Broadhurst is a former senior British police officer who was in charge of security for the Summer Olympics in London in 2012. He also handled security for the royal wedding of William and Kate − now the Prince and Princess of Wales − in 2011.
Broadhurst said one aspect, perhaps an obvious one, that works in the favor of those handling the security operation for the funeral is that the pontiff himself will be safe. (Two attempted attacks on Pope Francis, including one by a suicide bomber, were foiled during a trip to Iraq in 2021, he wrote in his 2025 autobiography. Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in 1981. The would-be assassin was a Turkish national. Some researchers say his motivations remain unclear.)
“He’s not a living target. That makes it a bit easier,” he said. “Having said that, it’s a big event, and there are people out there who, if it suits their purpose, might seek to disrupt it if they believe they can use that oxygen for their publicity.”
Broadhurst said the fact that the funeral has been called on relatively short notice is a mixed bag in terms of security threats. He said those looking to do harm may not have had ample time to prepare an operation, while organizers, even though they face a myriad of last-minute logistical and technological challenges, will have a funeral plan with every conceivable detail and potential threat long worked out.
One trick often used by security personnel is to manipulate the environment to make it less easy to get a clear shot at attendees, said Ricciardi.
“You can have them arrive into tents, or underground through service tunnels. That can alleviate line-of-sight issues,” he said.
Other possibilities include bringing in potted trees and plants, or parking busses and large vehicles in strategic places. “You want to take away the possiblity of any long-range shot,” he said.
Broadhurst noted before she died, he had a copy of the funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II tucked away in his safe for a decade. It was codenamed “London Bridge.”
He said the biggest security issue facing the pope’s funeral may turn out to be the number of VIPs, in particular the “Trump entourage” – the size of the U.S. presidential convoy. He will be accompanied by his wife, first lady Melania Trump.
“It’s always big, and difficult, when the U.S. president is on the move,” he said.
Others dignitaries expected to attend include United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Britain’s prime minister and Prince William. Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden also will be there.
“Poor old pope,” added Davies, who protected Britain’s royal family.
“He wanted a ‘small’ funeral. He’s not getting one.”