Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI remembered at funeral

ROME, Italy — Mourners poured into St. Peter’s Square early Thursday for the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, hoping to pay remaining respects to the German theologian who made historical past by retiring and take part in a uncommon requiem Mass for a lifeless pope presided over by a dwelling one.

Thick fog enshrouded the Vatican earlier than daybreak as civil safety crews and police manned metallic detectors and barricades to herd well-wishers into the sq.. Police estimated some 100,000 would attend, larger than an unique estimate of 60,000, Italian media reported, citing police safety plans.

Francis is because of preside over the funeral, an occasion drawing heads of state and royalty regardless of Benedict’s requests for simplicity and Vatican efforts to maintain the primary funeral for an emeritus pope in trendy occasions low-key. Only Italy and Germany have been invited to ship official delegations, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Italian President Sergio Mattarella confirmed their participation.

But different heads of state and authorities determined to take the Vatican up on its provide and are available of their “private capacity.” They included a number of different heads of state, at least 4 prime ministers and two delegations of royal representatives.

The funeral ceremony requires Benedict’s coffin to be carried out from the basilica and positioned earlier than the altar because the devoted recite the rosary. The ritual itself is modeled on the code used for lifeless popes however with some modifications given Benedict was not a reigning pope when he died.

After the Mass, Benedict’s cypress coffin is to be positioned inside a zinc one, then an outer oak casket earlier than being entombed within the crypt within the grottos beneath the basilica that after held the tomb of St. John Paul II earlier than it was moved upstairs into the principle basilica.

Some 200,000 paid tribute to Benedict throughout three days of public viewing in St. Peter’s Basilica, with one of many final ones Friar Rosario Vitale, who spent an hour praying by his physique. He mentioned Benedict had given him a particular dispensation to start the method of changing into a priest, which was required due to a bodily incapacity.

“So today I came here to pray on his tomb, on his body and to say ‘thank you’ for my future priesthood, for my ministry,” he mentioned. “I owe him a lot and this for me was really a gift to be able to pray for an hour on his bier.”

The former Joseph Ratzinger, who died Dec. 31 at age 95, is taken into account one of many twentieth century’s best 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 when he believed he not had the power to steer the church, saying it “opened the door” to different popes doing the identical. Francis, for his half, not too long ago mentioned he has already left written directions outlining the circumstances wherein he too would resign if he have been to grow to be incapacitated.

Benedict by no means meant his retirement to final so long as it did — at almost 10 years it was longer than his eight-year hold forth. And the unprecedented scenario of a retired pope dwelling alongside a reigning one prompted calls for protocols to information future popes emeritus to stop any confusion about who is de facto in cost.

During St. John Paul II’s quarter-century as pope, the previous Joseph 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 arduous line on issues like sexual morals.

His legacy was marred by the clergy sexual abuse scandal, despite the fact that he acknowledged sooner than most the “filth” of clergymen 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 clergymen being defrocked from 2004-2014, roughly his hold forth with a 12 months on both finish. But abuse survivors nonetheless held him accountable for the disaster, for failing to sanction any bishop who moved abusers round and figuring out him as embodying the clerical system that lengthy protected the establishment over victims.

“Any celebration that marks the life of abuse enablers like Benedict must end,” mentioned the principle U.S. survivor group SNAP.

While his funeral is novel, 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.