370,000 people came to pray beside St. Francis's bones

ASSISI, October 4, 2026 AD — On February 21, the friars at Assisi brought the remains of Saint Francis of Assisi up out of the crypt. Most of the time, the remains lie down there in a plain stone coffin set into a pillar. The friars of the Sacro Convento, the friary beside the basilica, look after them.

For a month the remains lay in the lower church of the basilica. More than 370,000 people came to pray beside them. They had never been on public view for so long before.

Fra Marco Moroni, the friar in charge of the Sacro Convento, described the pilgrims as “a composed and praying brotherhood, which wanted to meet, in the sign of poor and fragile bones, all the power of a life moved by the Spirit.” On March 22, after the last pilgrims had gone through, the friars held a service with no one else there. Then they took the remains back down to the crypt.

He died at nightfall

The Church document that opened this year calls St. Francis the man “who, as the son of a rich merchant, made himself poor and humble”. He founded the Friars Minor, an order of friars. St. Francis died at nightfall on Saturday, October 3, 1226 AD. He died in a hut beside the Porziuncola chapel, in the plain below the town. That day he called out the words “Our sister death.” Pope Leo XIV wrote this year that St. Francis went to meet death as a man at last at peace.

Yet the Church keeps his feast today, October 4. Thomas of Celano and Saint Bonaventure counted each new day from sunset. By their count, St. Francis died on October 4.

To mark eight hundred years since his death, Pope Leo XIV declared a whole Year of St. Francis. He wanted every Christian to follow St. Francis’s example, live a holy life and always stand up for peace.

Any church with his name

On January 10, a Church office called the Apostolic Penitentiary issued the document that opened the year. It did so because the Pope wished it. Until January 10, 2027 AD, anyone who visits a Franciscan church as a pilgrim can receive a plenary indulgence there. So can a pilgrim to any church in the world named for St. Francis.

The pilgrim has to do three things: go to confession, receive Holy Communion and pray for the Pope’s intentions. The pilgrim must also not want to hold on to any sin at all.

People who can’t get to church can receive it at home. That means the old, the sick and the people who look after them. It also means anyone who has to stay home for a serious reason. They join the year in spirit and offer God their prayers and their suffering. They must mean to do the three things as soon as they can.

No one sent away

This year’s Church document links the indulgence to St. Francis’s own mercy, and to a letter he once wrote. One of the ministers who led his friars had asked him how to treat friars who fell into serious sin. In his answer, St. Francis said the minister would prove his love for God, and for St. Francis, like this: “that there be no brother in the world who has sinned, how great soever his sin may be, who after he has seen thy face shall ever go away without thy mercy, if he seek mercy.”