For Catholics and non-Catholics alike, fascination with the pope and rituals such as the papal conclave continue to transfix ...

The body rests in the pope’s personal chapel for the ritual pronouncement of death ... With the burial, the Catholic Church begins nine days of official mourning, known as the “novemdiales ...

The death of a pope sets in motion a series of carefully orchestrated rites and rituals well before the conclave to elect his ...

established rituals and ceremonial practices do capture the imagination,” said Michele Dillon, an expert on Catholicism and professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.