After a three-day public laying-out, the late Pope Benedict XVI. Buried in the Vatican this Thursday. From 9.30 a.m. a requiem for the late Pope will be held in St. Peter’s Square. The incumbent pontiff Francis will lead it. Tens of thousands of believers are expected for the funeral service. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re will celebrate Mass at the altar, Francis will read the sermon.
According to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, an estimated 3,700 priests are expected to attend the service. More than 1000 media representatives from over 30 countries have registered for the event. Just as many security forces are supposed to protect them. The language of the Mass will be Latin. Some parts, such as prayers, are recited in other languages. The liturgy has been slightly modified compared to a traditional funeral service for a dead pope – because this time a pope is burying his predecessor.
At 11 a.m. the wooden coffin with Benedict’s body is to be brought to St. Peter’s Basilica. There the deceased pope is buried in the crypt in his final resting place. The public is excluded from it.
Scholz and Steinmeier arrive, Söder comes with a delegation of 170 people
The highest representatives of the constitutional bodies are traveling from Germany, i.e. both Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) comes with a delegation of 170 people. The Catholic Church in Germany will be represented by Bishops’ Conference Chairman Georg Bätzing, Cologne Archbishop Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Munich Archbishop Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Regensburg Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer, Passau Bishop Stefan Oster and the former Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. – whose real name is Joseph Ratzinger – was laid out in St. Peter’s Basilica from Monday to Wednesday. During this time, 195,000 people came to the basilica to say goodbye. Benedict died at 9:34 a.m. on New Year’s Eve in his Vatican residence Mater Ecclesiae. The convent in the Vatican Gardens was his final residence in the years following his 2013 resignation.
Tens of thousands of believers have been waiting in St. Peter’s Square since early morning.
(Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa)
The Vatican has not yet provided any information on the exact cause of death. His longtime confidant and private secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, told the Vatican’s own media portal Vatican News that his agony should not have lasted longer than 45 minutes. According to him, Benedict’s last words in Italian were “Lord, I love you”. In the days before his death he had had breathing problems.
In the general audience on December 28 last year, Pope Francis asked for prayer for Benedict because he was “very ill”. This was the first time he made public that his predecessor, ex-head of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and former Archbishop of Munich and Freising, was doing poorly.
Since his resignation, Benedict has lived a very secluded life. In 2022, the past caught up with him again with the publication of the Munich abuse report. The experts accused him of misconduct during his time as archbishop. The Eckiger Tisch victims’ association is calling on the delegation from Germany, who is now arriving for the funeral, to side with the victims of abuse in Rome. She should counter the “myth formation about the role of the deceased” in relation to the exposure of child sexual abuse by clerics of the Catholic Church, it said in a statement.