How Pope Francis’ body was carefully embalmed to lie in state for 3 days — with no signs of decomposition

In light of Pope Francis’ death on April 21, Catholic authorities are preparing the much-anticipated process to decide upon his successor. However, many people are wondering about a more burning question — how was the late pontiff embalmed?

This was a crucial issue given that the body of the religious figure — who died at 88 of a stroke — was on display for extended periods of time, notably getting visited by thousands of people over three days while he lay in state at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

Over 200,000 are expected to attend the late papal leader’s funeral ceremony on Saturday, where the pope’s coffin will be transported to Rome and entombed at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, NPR reported.

Authorities would’ve likely needed to preserve the body quickly to prevent the rapid onset of decomposition amid the humid temperatures, the Daily Mail reported.

Fortunately, several outlets confirmed that ahead of the lie-in state, Pope Francis’ body underwent thanatopraxis, a modern embalming process regulated in Italy under a law passed in 2022 that is distinguished by less invasive substances deemed more respectful to the human body, Euronews reported.

“It involves the injection of preservative liquids through the circulatory system, followed by aesthetic care of the face and hands,”Andrea Fantozzi, founder of the Italian National Institute of Thanatopraxy (INIT) told AFP, Yahoo News reported. “The goal is to slow down the natural processes of decomposition.”

According to the Daily Mail, the modern embalming process — which needs to transpire 36 hours after death and lasts several hours — specifically involves draining the body of blood and pumping it full of preservative agents that are administered through the jugular.

This cocktail of dyes, alcohol, water, and formaldehyde flushes congealed blood out of the circulatory system, thereby staving off decay, the outlet reported.

In turn, the formaldehyde mixture kills any residual microbes and binds the proteins in the Pope’s cells to protect them from being broken down by the corpse’s enzymes.

This process allows the cadaver to lie in state for three days sans showing signs of decomposition.

Finally, according to Euronews, morticians apply corrective makeup and rearrange the hands to give the corpse a more serene appearance for public viewing.

Other potential cosmetic processes include sealing the eyes shut with plastic eye caps and wiring the jaw closed, after which pieces of cotton are often tucked in to create a composed expression rather than the unsettling scowl caused by the wiring process, the Daily Mail reported.

These aesthetic embellishments serve to counteract rigor mortis, in which the muscles seize up postmortem, causing the body to become stiff and the mouth to gape in a grimace.

The embalming ritual has evolved substantially since the 19th-century, when morticians would remove the organs from the bodies of deceased pontiffs and then lather the skin with herbs and oil.

These corpses were often bathed in lye so they could dry more easily.

Meanwhile, the orifices would have been packed with herbs, cotton, and wax to stop putrid fluids from seeping out during the open casket viewing.

While the first pope to be preserved via modern methods was Pope Pius, who died in 1914, the turning point came in 1958 after the backfired embalming of Pope Pius XII.

Following the pontiff’s death of acute heart failure, presiding physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi attempted to preserve the pope in line with the leader’s wishes that he be buried as god made him, IFL Science reported.

So instead of draining the tissues and removing the viscera as is tradition, the doctor put Pius XII inside a plastic bag — organs and all — with herbs, spices, oils, and resins like a macabre sous vide.

Unfortunately, this failure to preserve or extract the guys accelerated the putrefaction process, causing the body to bloat with gas due to the mass of bacteria accumulating inside.

Eventually, the corpse deteriorated to the point that it literally blew up in mourners’ faces.

“Over the 4-day course of the viewing and funeral ceremony, the Pope’s chest ‘exploded’ due to build-up of gas in the chest cavity, then the nose and fingers fell off and the body turned a greenish-black color,” explained Professor Ken Donaldson, a research fellow at the Senior Research Fellow at The Anatomy Lab, Surgeons’ Hall Museums in Edinburgh, UK. “The smell was so sickening that some guards fainted, and guarding could only be made bearable by changing the guard every 15 minutes.”