The corpse of Maltese Cardinal Prospero Grech will be brought to Malta on Wednesday and will lie in state the following day.

Mass and burial will take place on Thursday. 

Cardinal Grech, who passed away aged 94, will lie in state at the St Mark Convent in Rabat where people can pay their last respects and sign the book of condolences.

Then at 2pm Archbishop Charles Scicluna will lead Mass at the Mdina cathedral. 

Cardinal Grech’s funeral was held on Thursday at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome after a Vatican official signed the traditional Rogito - a testament to his life that will be placed inside the coffin. 

At the end of the Mass, attended by President George Vella and his wife Miriam, Foreign Minister Carmelo Abela and Malta’s ambassador to the Vatican, Frank Zammit, Pope Francis presided over the final part of the funeral rites. 

The funeral Mass was led by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the vice-dean of the College of Cardinals. 

Born Stanley Grech, Cardinal Grech turned 94 on Christmas Eve and died on December 30. He joined the Augustinian Order in 1943, was ordained to the priesthood at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome in 1950.

Nine years later, he was appointed lecturer at the Augustinian Theological College, Rabat. He also served as secretary at the Vatican Vicariate and professor at the Augustine Institute in Rome.

During his time in Rome, one of his duties included dressing Pope John XXIII and Paul VI for liturgical functions. During the 1963 Papal conclave, he was asked to hear Giovanni Battista Montini's confession a couple of hours prior to his election as Pope Paul VI.

The College of Cardinals is now composed of 223 cardinals from 24 religious orders and 90 countries, including 25 European countries.