Benedict XVI

Guests and dignitaries will be seated closer to the basilica and coffin, with thousands of other clergy and members of the public in and around St Peter's Square, similar to the funeral for Pope Benedict XVI shown below.

Both inherited messes left by their predecessors — Gomez needed to right his L.A. see after decades of sex abuse scandals under Cardinal Roger Mahony, and Francis had to figure out how to rule in the shadow of Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.

A contrast, he said, to 2013 when Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson was a strong contender for the position and 2005 when Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze was a potential candidate in the conclave that led to the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

When the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, left Argentina's capital to participate in the Vatican conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, he did not know it would be the last time he would see his hometown.

He became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. After Pope Benedict XVI resigned in February 2013, Bergoglio, at 76 year old was elected to be the first Jesuit pope as well as the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere.