Pope Leo XIV presided this Thursday, November 5, at St. Peter’s Basilica over the Mass offered for the cardinals and bishops who died during the past year, in which seven cardinals and 136 prelates were commended to God. After the celebration, the Pope descended to the Vatican Grottoes to pray before the tombs of several of his predecessors, on the day before the start of his apostolic journey to South America.
During the Mass, the Pontiff led the faithful in chanting the Our Father in Latin, a liturgical detail that adds to other gestures of his pontificate in favor of the language of the Church. The homily, published by the Holy See on vatican.va, centered on two truths that, he said, “illuminate our prayer for the deceased”: hope in the resurrection and the communion of saints.
“Praying for the deceased means celebrating life”
Leo XIV recalled the words of Saint Monica to her children Augustine and Navigius shortly before her death: “All I ask of you is that, wherever you may be, you remember me at the altar of the Lord.” From this, the Pope explained that praying for the deceased is one of the fundamental duties of the Church and that, in doing so, “we do it not only for them, but also with them.”
The Pontiff stated that “praying in suffrage for the deceased means celebrating life,” first of all the risen life of Christ and, by his grace, that of every believer, who rises in Him. Hence his warning: “Let us not, therefore, allow the memory of the deceased to be reduced to mere nostalgia.” And he concluded that, in Christ, death does not break bonds but transforms them into a new dimension, a communion that the faithful are called to cultivate through the Eucharist until they share the joy of the heavenly homeland.
Prayer before the tombs of Pius XII, Paul VI, and Benedict XVI
After the Mass, Leo XIV visited the Vatican Grottoes, located beneath the basilica, where he prayed before the tombs of Pius XII and Saint Paul VI, and then before that of Benedict XVI. In that space also rest, among other pontiffs, John Paul I, near the tomb of the Apostle Peter.
The celebration has a recent precedent in the Mass of the Dead on November 3, 2025, the first he presided over as Pope, offered in suffrage for Francis and for the cardinals and bishops who died that year. It was also included in the calendar of celebrations for November and December published by the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.