Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was laid to relaxation Thursday in Vatican City within the first funeral ever carried out by a sitting pope for his predecessor. Pope Francis, who has led the Catholic Church since his election in 2013, following Benedict’s shock resignation, led the funeral Mass.
The historic funeral capped a chapter of Catholic Church historical past marked notably by Benedict’s choice to step down — the primary pontiff to take action in trendy occasions. Benedict died final week on the age of 95.
Up to 100,000 folks had been anticipated to crowd into St. Peter’s Square for the Mass, which was carried out in a way just like how it could be for a sitting pope.
Andrew Medichini/AP
The physique of Pope Emeritus Benedict was carried earlier than crowds in a conventional cypress wooden coffin Thursday morning and positioned earlier than the traditional St. Peter’s Basilica. It was a solemn event, in addition to a historic one.
Among the tens of 1000’s gathered within the shadow of St. Peter’s had been greater than 100 cardinals, 400 bishops and nearly 4,000 monks from all around the world.
“He was a great pope,” mentioned Father Calistus Kahale Kabindama, a priest who got here all the way in which from Zambia to pay his respects. “He was a marvelous pope.”
The late pontiff had requested a easy funeral, and Pope Francis didn’t deviate from the notably-brief homily, which was heavy on scripture however gentle on private touches.
At the tip of the Mass, cardinals accompanied the retired pontiff’s casket into the grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, the place he was buried, concluding the somber funeral and the practically decade-long chapter throughout which there have been two males in white robes on the Vatican.
Vatican Media/handout
The extraordinarily uncommon circumstances meant this passing of a pontiff introduced not one of the typical uncertainty about “who is coming after him,” CBS News Vatican guide Monsignor Anthony Figueiredo mentioned.
Figueiredo mentioned Benedict XVI could be “remembered as a great intellectual.”
Buried together with Benedict’s physique had been cash minted throughout his papacy, and a one-page written historic account of his life, which notes his research, analysis and retirement. It additionally notes that he lived out his later years, “in prayer and meditation.”
Vatican Media/handout
Benedict lived in a monastery on the Vatican after his shock resignation practically 10 years in the past. He nonetheless wore white robes, and spent most of his time studying and writing theology.
Nothing might have outlined Benedict XVI’s tenure because the chief of the world’s Catholics so clearly as its ending — marked by his majestic farewell flight over the Eternal City in a helicopter — after he turned the primary pope in additional than 700 years to resign voluntarily.
Benedict mentioned on the time that his psychological and bodily power had deteriorated “to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”
Vatican Media/handout
A naturally shy man, Benedict all the time mentioned he by no means had ambitions to guide the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. But he was chosen in 2005 to succeed Pope John Paul II. At 78, he took on the function because the oldest pope in practically 300 years.
He entered the priesthood after World War II and rose to change into a cardinal. In the highly effective place as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he earned the nickname, “God’s Rottweiler,” as a inflexible enforcer of church coverage. It was a characterization his biographer, John Allen, mentioned Ratzinger labored arduous to vary.
“He was seen as harsh, as authoritarian, as controlling … and it was important to him, right out of the gate, to revise that … public image, and I think by and large he did so quite successfully,” mentioned Allen.
He did it by being what he naturally was: a trainer, and one who spoke clearly and with out undue theological jargon.
Only Italy and Benedict’s native Germany despatched official delegations for the Mass on Thursday, although royalty from Belgium and Spain, together with greater than a dozen heads of state and ambassadors to the Holy See from many countries additionally got here to honor the previous pope.
The U.S. convention of Catholic Bishops has referred to as for a Novena, or 9 days of prayer, in reminiscence of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, beginning on Thursday.