Pope Francis honored his precursor, Benedict XVI, while presiding over the requiem Mass for the dead pontiff before thousands of mourners in St. Peter’s Square.
Bells tolled and the faithful applauded as pallbearers carried Benedict’s cypress coffin out of the fog-shrouded St. Peter’s Basilica and rested it before the altar.
Benedict’s longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, bent down and kissed a book of the Gospels that was left open on the coffin.
Pope Francis, wearing the crimson vestments typical of papal funerals, then took his place and opened the Mass with a prayer.
Heads of state and royalty, clergy from around the world and thousands of regular people flocked to the ceremony.
Many people came from Benedict’s native Bavaria and donned traditional dress, including boiled wool coats to guard against the morning chill.
Raymond Mainar, who traveled from a small village east of Munich for the funeral remarked, “We came to pay homage to Benedict and wanted to be here today to say goodbye.”
“He was a very good pope,” Mainar added.
A host of patriarchs joined one hundred and twenty-five cardinals in the seats to the side of the altar.
Matteo Colonna, a twenty-year-old seminarian from Teramo, Italy, said he came in part because of the historic nature of the funeral and also because it had personal resonance for him.
“The first spark of my vocation started under the pontificate of Benedict, but then it became even stronger under Pope Francis,” Colonna intimated, while sitting in prayer in St. Peter’s Square ahead of the funeral.
“I see a continuity between these two popes and the fact that today Francis is celebrating the funeral in Benedict’s memory is an historical event.”
Matteo Colonna
Official History Of Benedict’s Papacy Placed In His Coffin
Early Thursday, the Vatican released the official history of Benedict’s life, a short document in Latin that was placed in a metal cylinder in his coffin before it was sealed, along with the coins and medallions minted during his papacy and his pallium stoles.
The document gave ample attention to Benedict’s historic resignation and referred to him as “pope emeritus,” citing verbatim the Latin words he uttered on February 11, 2013, when he announced that he would retire.
The document, known as a “rogito” or deed, also mentioned his theological and papal legacy, including his outreach to Anglicans and Jews and his efforts to combat clergy sexual abuse “continually calling the church to conversion, prayer, penance and purification.”
Pope Francis did not dwell on Benedict’s specific legacy in his homily and only uttered his name once, in the final line, delivering instead a meditation on Jesus’ willingness to entrust himself to God’s will.
“Holding fast to the Lord’s last words and to the witness of his entire life, we too, as an ecclesial community, want to follow in his steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father.”
Pope Francis
After the Mass, Benedict’s cypress coffin will be placed inside a zinc one, then an outer oak casket before being entombed in the crypt in the grottos underneath St. Peter’s Basilica that once held the tomb of St. John Paul II.
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