Pope Francis said he has decided to be buried in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major instead of in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and that he has simplified the rites for a papal funeral.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is “the mother of all mothers — a loving bridge between worlds and peoples who unifies through her maternal embrace,” the U.S. bishops’ migration chairman said in a statement issued on the Dec. 12 Marian feast.

The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has upheld a rule mandating that the ashes of the deceased be preserved in a consecrated place, but it also said family members could request “a minimal part of the ashes” be kept in a sacred place “of significance for the history of the deceased person.”

The catechism is meant as a summary of core Catholic beliefs and is widely available both in print and online — and there are a few searchable web versions of the catechism that make it fairly simple to navigate.

Overall, this is unusually intelligent fare, though some may find it a bit talky and – an interlude set in the trenches of World War I aside – somewhat stagebound.