The funeral Mass for Pope Francis will be celebrated on Saturday, the Vatican announced overnight, while also releasing images of the deceased Pontiff for the first time.
The funeral, which will take place in St Peter's Square and be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, will also begin a nine-day period of official mourning and daily memorial Masses.
Bishop Anthony Randazzo, Bishop of Broken Bay, will be attending the funeral Mass.
The Pope’s body is expected to be carried into St Peter’s Basilica for public viewing and prayer, early today Rome time.
The public viewing is scheduled to end late on Friday, with another prayer service to close the coffin.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, will lead the prayerful procession to take the Pope’s body, already in its coffin, from the chapel into St Peter’s Square and then into the basilica.
Many pilgrims were already on their way to the Vatican when news of the Holy Father's death came through, with many traveling for the Jubilee of Teenagers and the canonisation Mass of Blessed Carlo Acutis.
While the Jubilee of Teenagers will go ahead with some slight modifications, the canonisation of Blessed Carlo has been postponed.
Pope Francis' death also brings around another curiosity. He has become the first pope to open the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica for a Jubilee without living to close it.
Only once before had a Jubilee begun under one Pope and concluded by another. In 1700, Pope Innocent XII, already gravely ill, gave his blessing for the start of the Jubilee he had declared in 1699 but was unable to preside at the opening of the Holy Door.
He died in September 1700, and it fell to Pope Clement XI, elected later that year, to close the Holy Door and conclude the Jubilee.