“Tomorrow we will have a Council of Ministers where our decision to decree three days of national mourning will be finalised, which will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” he explained.

Luís Montenegro was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a visit to the construction site of the Madeira Central and University Hospital, in Funchal, where he visited as president of the PSD and candidate for the legislative elections on May 18.

“Everything indicates that I will participate, with His Excellency the President of the Republic (Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa), with the President of the Assembly of the Republic (Aguiar-Branco) and the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs (Paulo Rangel) in the funeral ceremonies that will take place in Rome on Saturday,” he said.

He indicated that Portugal's participation in Pope Francis' funeral ceremonies will be “at the highest level”.

“We are in an organisational phase, but what is planned at this moment is exactly that, participation at the highest level with the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs,” he said.

Pope Francis died on Monday at the age of 88 from a stroke, after 12 years of pontificate.

Born in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936, Francisco was the first Jesuit and the first Latin American to reach the leadership of the Catholic Church.

His last public appearance was on Easter Sunday, at the Vatican, on the eve of his death. Pope Francis was hospitalised for 38 days due to bilateral pneumonia and was discharged on March 23.