resigning from the papacy because of the sailing how. nbc s molly hunter is joining us at the vatican. molly, welcome. we know every other pope since the 15th century have led the catholic church until their death. so what do we know about funeral plans, especially since there hasn t really been one for a retired pope in what, six centuries. six centuries. and certainly the vatican didn t release any plans over the last several weeks or days, alex. before i go to the actual, planning i do i don t know if you can hear the hints of the background. i do want to just bring our audience a little bit of this. this is the final prayer service of the year 2022. pope francis had already scheduled. does this was pre-scheduled. he started his plans even other news of course this. morning this is the first time that we saw him since the news of his predecessors that broke. i just want to share a little bit of what he said tonight to open up of service. he said, with emotion, we remembe
each week, and yet somehow managed to get viewers to come back for more. so that has been one of the superpowers in politics, obviously. getting attention, trying to get people to follow him. one of the things that this indicates i think is how desperate he is for attention at this point. i don t think he has got the attention that he thought he would afternoon saying that he is running again. i think the attention of course has mostly been negative in the four of the general six committee, his taxes being, released continued investigation by the justice department. so, he is looking for some way to change the subject, to get attention in a positive way, or at least a way that turns on his terms rather than everybody else s terms. well, speaking of negative, at least in his perception of this, although having read through it he was it was an extraordinary article. i m talking but the one that he slammed from new york magazine reporter olivia nitze. it is an of our article. she won it