Rev. Billy Graham to lie in honor at US Capitol

Rev. Billy Graham will lie in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building Feb. 28 to March 1.

Graham’s casket will arrive at the Capitol on Wednesday, the 28th, and after arriving House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will take part in a bicameral service.

According to a spokesman, Jeremy Blume, Graham died at 7:46 Wednesday morning at his home in Montreat, NC, of natural causes. He was 99.

“He just wore out,” said Lucian Rice, Graham’s longtime physician upon arriving at Graham’s home Wednesday morning.

It’s a rare honor for a private citizen to lie in honor at the Capitol. According to the U.S. House, civil rights hero Rosa Parks was the last to do so in 2005.

Spokesman Mark DeMoss said a rumor that Graham had cancer was incorrect.

Graham’s body was moved Wednesday from his home in Montreat to Asheville, where a funeral home is handling the arrangements, said Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for the DeMoss Group, a public relations firm.

Graham’s body will be taken from Asheville to Charlotte on Saturday in a procession expected to take 3 hours and ending at the Billy Graham Library, DeMoss said.

He will lie in repose Monday and Tuesday in the Charlotte house where he grew up, which was moved from its original location to the grounds of the Graham library.

A private funeral for Graham will be held on Friday, March 2 in a tent at the library site and he will be buried next to his wife there, DeMoss said. Invitations to the funeral will be extended to President Donald Trump and former presidents, DeMoss said.