Pope Francis presides over Benedict’s funeral as thousands of mourners gather – National | 24CA News
With bells tolling, tens of hundreds of devoted, political leaders and the pope himself mourned Benedict XVI, the German theologian who made historical past by resigning the papacy, at a uncommon requiem Mass Thursday for a lifeless pontiff presided over by a residing one.
The crowd applauded as pallbearers carried Benedict’s cypress coffin out of the fog-shrouded St. Peter’s Basilica and rested it earlier than the altar within the huge sq. exterior. Pope Francis, sporting the crimson vestments typical of papal funerals, then opened the service with a prayer and closed it by solemnly blessing the straightforward casket — adorned solely with the previous pope’s coat of arms. It was later entombed within the basilica grotto.
Heads of state and royalty, clergy from around the globe and hundreds of normal folks flocked to the ceremony, regardless of Benedict’s request for simplicity and official efforts to maintain the primary funeral for an pope emeritus in fashionable instances low-key.
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Many mourners hailed from Benedict’s native Bavaria and donned conventional gown, together with boiled wool coats to protect in opposition to the morning chill.
“We came to pay homage to Benedict and wanted to be here today to say goodbye,” mentioned Raymond Mainar, who traveled from a small village east of Munich for the funeral. “He was a very good pope.”
Ignoring exhortations for decorum on the finish, some within the crowd held banners or shouted “Santo Subito!” — “Sainthood Now!” — echoing the spontaneous chants that erupted throughout St. John Paul II’s 2005 funeral.
The former Joseph Ratzinger, who died Dec. 31 at age 95, is taken into account one of many twentieth century’s biggest theologians and spent his lifetime upholding church doctrine. But he’ll go down in historical past for a singular, revolutionary act that modified the way forward for the papacy: He retired, the primary pope in six centuries to take action.
Francis has praised Benedict’s braveness in stepping apart, saying it “opened the door” for different popes to do the identical.
Some 50,000 folks attended Thursday’s Mass, based on the Vatican, after round 200,000 paid their respects throughout three days of public viewing.
Only Italy and Germany have been invited to ship official delegations, however different leaders took the Vatican up on its supply and got here of their “private capacity.” They included a number of heads of state, at the very least 4 prime ministers and two delegations of royal representatives. In addition, a number of patriarchs joined 125 cardinals within the seats to the aspect of the altar, and the Russian Orthodox Church despatched its international envoy.
Among these attending was Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was given particular court docket permission to attend the funeral. Zen was detained in May on suspicion of colluding with international forces below a China’s nationwide safety legislation after he fell afoul of authorities over his participation in a now-silenced democracy motion. His passport was revoked when he was detained.
Benedict’s shut confidants have been additionally in attendance, and the previous pope’s longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, bent down and kissed a e book of the Gospels that was left open on the coffin earlier than the ceremony started.
Matteo Colonna, a 20-year-old seminarian from Teramo, Italy, mentioned he got here partly due to the historic nature of the funeral — but additionally as a result of it had private 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 mentioned, whereas sitting in prayer in St. Peter’s Square at daybreak. “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.”
But the service was additionally vital for what it lacked: the sensation of uncertainty that will usually accompany the passing of a pope earlier than a brand new one is elected. With Francis in place, Benedict’s loss of life marked the top of an uncommon decade wherein a reigning pope lived alongside a retired one.
“Benedict has been the bridge between John Paul and Francis,” mentioned Alessandra Aprea, a 56-year-old from Meta di Sorrento close to Naples. “We could not have Francis without him.”
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Early Thursday the Vatican launched the official historical past of Benedict’s life, a brief doc in Latin that was positioned in a steel cylinder in his coffin earlier than it was sealed, together with the cash and medallions minted throughout his papacy and his pallium stoles.
The doc gave ample consideration to Benedict’s historic resignation and referred to him as “pope emeritus,” citing verbatim the Latin phrases he uttered on Feb. 11, 2013, when he introduced he would retire.
The doc, often called a “rogito” or deed, additionally cited his theological and papal legacy, together with his outreach to Anglicans and Jews and his efforts to fight clergy sexual abuse “continually calling the church to conversion, prayer, penance and purification.”
Francis didn’t point out Benedict’s particular legacy in his homily and solely uttered his title as soon as, within the last line, delivering as an alternative 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,” Francis mentioned on the finish.
During St. John Paul II’s quarter-century as pope, Ratzinger spearheaded a crackdown on dissent as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, taking motion in opposition to the left-leaning liberation theology that unfold in Latin America within the Seventies and in opposition to dissenting theologians and nuns who didn’t toe the Vatican’s exhausting line on issues like sexual morals.
His legacy was marred by the clergy sexual abuse scandal, though he acknowledged sooner than most the “filth” of monks who raped youngsters, and really laid the groundwork for the Holy See to punish them.
As cardinal and pope, he handed sweeping church laws that resulted in 848 monks being defrocked from 2004 to 2014, roughly his hold forth with a yr on both finish. But abuse survivors nonetheless held him accountable for the disaster, for failing to sanction any bishop who moved abusers round, refusing to mandate the reporting of intercourse crimes to police and figuring out him as embodying the clerical system that lengthy protected the establishment over victims.
Mike McDonnell of the U.S. abuse survivor group SNAP mentioned whereas Benedict handed new canon legal guidelines, he may have carried out way more to affect John Paul to take agency motion. Referring to Benedict’s nickname as “God’s Rottweiler,’” he mentioned: “You know, in our in our view, it was a dog bark without a bite. Certainly he could have done more.”
A gaggle representing German clergy abuse survivors referred to as on German officers attending Benedict’s funeral to demand extra motion from the Vatican on sexual abuse. Eckiger Tisch requested German leaders to demand that Francis subject a “universal church law” stipulating zero tolerance in coping with abuse by clergy.
The funeral ritual itself is modeled on the code used for lifeless popes however with some modifications given Benedict was not a reigning pontiff when he died.
After the Mass, Benedict’s cypress coffin was positioned inside a zinc one, then an outer oak casket earlier than being entombed within the crypt within the grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica that when held the tomb of St. John Paul II earlier than it was moved upstairs.
While Thursday’s Mass was uncommon, it does have some precedent: In 1802, Pope Pius VII presided over the funeral in St. Peter’s of his predecessor, Pius VI, who had died in exile in France in 1799 as a prisoner of Napoleon.
