To applause, tens of thousands of faithful greeted the coffin of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, buried in a private ceremony in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, after a public state funeral.
This funeral sets a rare precedent, one that the Catholic Church did not know in its contemporary history, as no pope had ever led the funeral prayer for his predecessor.
The funeral ceremony began in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican at 9:30 am local time in Italy. It is customary for the Pope’s funeral service to be presided over by the Dean of the College of Cardinals and for his see to remain vacant until a new Pope is elected.
This time, the head of the Catholic Church, Francis, prayed for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who resigned in 2013.
In the homily delivered from the altar in the huge square, the pope said: “Benedict… may your joy be complete in hearing his (God’s) voice once and for all.”
The ceremony, which included prayers and hymns, lasted about an hour and a third. The mass, celebrated according to the Latin rite in several languages, was celebrated by over four thousand cardinals, bishops and priests.
At the end of the ceremony, the coffin was transferred to St. Peter’s Basilica and will be buried in the crypt where his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, lay until his beatification in 2011.
The church witnessed a similar event in 1802, when Pope Pius VII presided over the funeral of Pius VI, who had died in exile in France in 1799, but had not resigned.
Tens of thousands of people flocked to St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on Thursday morning to attend the funeral ceremony, and their number has been estimated at around 50,000, against the 3 million who attended John Paul II’s funeral.
The Holy See has officially invited only two missions to the funeral, the German and the Italian. Italy, which hosts the Vatican on its territory, and Germany, the homeland of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who became head of the Church and from 2005 to his entry into the down in 2013.
Before the ceremony began, worshipers, including a large number of priests and nuns, lined up to pass through the security gates and into the square. Some carried the flags of Germany and the province of Bavaria, where the deceased Pope came from, as well as the flags of Argentina, the country of the current Pope. German worshipers carried a banner reading “Thank you, Benedict!”
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Unusually, the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica did not ring when Benedict XVI’s death was announced, according to the Vatican website, and that only happens when the Pope, who is still in office, dies.
Likewise, there was no need to break the Pope’s ring upon his death, as Benedict’s ring had previously been broken when he resigned.
The press office of the Holy See has published details of the funeral prayer, and the media spokesman for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said that some passages relating to prayers for popes have been removed, and paragraphs have been added that are consistent in the words of the pope honorary office.
According to Bruni, the pope will be buried with a number of his personal items, including his priestly scarf, which is made of wool and symbolizes the position of pastor. Some coins and medals minted during his pontificate will also be buried with him, together with a text that summarizes the main stations of his session at the Holy See, wrapped in a metal cylinder.
“Benedict XVI’s funeral will be similar to the funerals of popes who died while still in office,” Vatican affairs specialist Philip Pullella told Reuters. He stressed that the Vatican has decided not to make major changes to the funeral ceremonies, but rather small changes to the prayers recited on similar occasions.
Benedict XVI’s resignation was the first of its kind since 1415 when Pope Gregory XII resigned during attempts to end what was known as the Western Schism which led to duality in the papacy, as there was one pope in Rome and another in the French city of Avignon.
Observers of church history say Benedict’s abdication and his decision to spend his last years in the Vatican as honorary pope created an unprecedented equation in the church, when two men dressed in white pontifical uniforms became present in the home of the Catholicism.
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According to the Vatican’s official website, the late Pope recommended that his funeral be simple. He also asked to be buried in the burial place of John Paul II, in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. That tomb has been vacant since 2011, when John Paul II was beatified and his body was moved to a higher level of the church, to be displayed to the faithful who wished to visit.
Most of the previous popes were buried in the catacombs of the cathedral itself, with the exception of those who were ordered to be buried in other churches.
As usual, the Pope’s body will be buried in three coffins. An inner coffin of cypress wood bound with red stripes, a coffin in the middle of zinc, and a third coffin of walnut wood, fastened with gold nails.
According to the Washington Post, the origins of this tradition are not precisely understood, even by specialists, but some historians suggest that the three coffins have practical purposes, including protecting the Pope’s body from decomposition and preserving it for display following the collapse. event to be beatified as a saint, as well as to protect him from theft in times of political turbulence.
Theology professor Gabriel Radl told the Washington Post that the metallic zinc symbolizes luxury and contributes to the preservation of the body, while the outer wooden coffin symbolizes that the Pope dies like any other human being and that all human beings are equal in death.
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The death of the Pope Emeritus put an end to an unusual coexistence between two Popes.
For a quarter of a century Ratzinger, a brilliant theologian who was not at ease with public speaking and in the presence of crowds, was the faithful guardian of the doctrine of the Church in Rome at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine and the Faith, before being elected pope in 2005.
His pontificate was marked by several crises, such as the “Vatelex” scandal in 2012, which exposed a large-scale corruption network.
In early 2022, a sexual assault scandal dogged the German pope, after he was accused in a press report in Germany of mishandling sexual assault in the 1980s, when he was archbishop of Munich. He broke his silence to ask for “forgiveness” but confirmed that he has never covered up child abuse and has met numerous victims.
