Status: 01/01/2023 12:57 p.m
In the Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin, mourners can read the official book of condolences on the death of former Pope Benedict XVI from Monday. enter. Funeral services are planned in all German bishoprics.
For Christians, the turn of the year is also a sign of mourning for the deceased former Pope Benedict XVI. German bishops called for prayer in New Year’s Eve and New Year’s prayers and paid tribute to the deceased.
Mourners can sign the official book of condolences in Berlin from Monday. The Catholic German Bishops’ Conference announced that the book would be laid out in the Apostolic Nunciature, the diplomatic representation of the Holy See in Germany, in the Neukölln district of Berlin. The book is accessible from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. up to and including Wednesday.
According to the information, the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, and the Apostolic Nuncio Nikola Eterović want to register for the Catholic Church in Germany on Monday morning. “Entries by the constitutional bodies” are also planned – these are primarily the Federal President, the Federal Government, the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the Federal Constitutional Court.
Digital condolences
According to the Bishops’ Conference, other books of condolence are available in Limburg Cathedral (Hesse) and at the headquarters of the German Bishops’ Conference in Bonn. Under the heading “God bless you, Pope Benedict XVI.” also exists on the website www.benedictusxvi.org a possibility for digital expressions of condolence, the German Bishops’ Conference has also set up a mourning page.
Solemn Requiem in Munich
Funeral services are planned in all German bishoprics in the next few days, it said. As announced by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, the deceased will be commemorated on Tuesday evening with a solemn requiem in Munich’s Liebfrauendom. Benedict XVI was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982. According to the diocese, a memorial has also been set up in the Liebfrauendom.
There are other memorial sites in Freising’s Mariendom and in the parish church of St. Oswald in Traunstein – this is where the future Pope Joseph Ratzinger celebrated his first Holy Mass in 1951 after his ordination to the priesthood.
Benedict XVI died on Saturday morning at the age of 95 in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican. On Thursday he will be buried in the crypt under St. Peter’s Basilica. According to the bishops’ conference, Bätzing is traveling to Rome for the funeral ceremonies.