Although he was no longer the head of the Catholic Church, the retired Pope Benedict XVI., who died on the last day of the new year at the age of 95 in a Vatican monastery, took his final farewell in Rome on Thursday.
At the farewell service, which was held “in the spirit of simplicity” at the request of the deceased, Pope Francis said the funeral mass, but the duties in front of the altar were performed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, due to the knee pains of the 86-year-old head of the Catholic Church.
In his sermon, Pope Francis spoke primarily about trust in God and devotion to God, only at the end of his speech did he directly mention the deceased former head of the church as “the faithful friend of the Bridegroom (Jesus)”.
The funeral mass was presented by 130 cardinals, 400 bishops, and 3,700 priests.
As the end of the mass approached, Francis sprinkled holy water on the coffin and burned incense around it, while saying the following in Latin: “Our Merciful Father, we commend to your grace Pope Emeritus Benedict, whom you made the successor of Peter and the pastor of the Church, and who is a fearless preacher of your word and the divine he was a faithful servant of mysteries.”
After the public mourning ceremony, the 12 white-gloved coffin bearers took it back to St. Peter’s Cathedral to lay the late archbishop to rest in a ceremony closed to the public.
Before the coffin disappeared behind the gates of the basilica, Pope Francis blessed it, touched it with his hand, and bowed before it. Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who had been the Pope’s personal secretary and chief confidant for decades, kissed the coffin.
In the church, the cypress wooden coffin was placed in a zinc coffin with a preservative effect, and it was placed in another wooden coffin, and then placed in the modest grave of the basilica’s crypt, where among his predecessors, XXIII, who was later canonized, was buried. John and II. Pope János Pál also rested there temporarily.
The scroll enclosed in the coffin before the funeral ceremony, containing a summary of the deceased’s works, praises the late head of the church as a “recognized theologian”. The document highlights that Benedict XVI. was a highly respected theologian, he left behind a rich legacy with his studies in the field of the fundamental truths of faith.
According to the report of the correspondent of MTI who was on the spot, the entrance to Szent Péter tér took place quickly, but with a security check, bottles containing liquids could not be brought in.
In the gloomy, chilly weather, people kneeled in prayer, shaken people, families with small children, old people and young people said goodbye to the retired Pope. The faithful could follow the text of the liturgy with the help of a printed booklet.
During the introduction of the coffin, the mourners said goodbye with applause and “Thank you, Pope Benedict”.
The funeral presented a challenge to the Vatican authorities because, in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church, there has never been an example of a deceased pope being bid farewell by a sitting pope. The last time a pope was buried in the Vatican was in 2005, János Pál II. was bid farewell by the now-deceased pope while he was still a cardinal.
The Vatican gendarmerie estimated the number of people gathered at the funeral at 50,000. Many of the mourners came from Germany, especially from the late Pope’s homeland, Bavaria.
The President of the Republic Katalin Novák and her husband, István Veres, and Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén took part in the funeral mass.
The late retired pope, who was head of the Roman Catholic Church between 2005 and 2013, died at the age of 95 on December 31 at 9:34 a.m.
The ceremony was broadcast live by the public media channel Duna.
Photo: The funeral ceremony of retired Pope Benedict XVI. in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on January 5, 2023. The ceremony was attended by the President of the Republic Katalin Novák and her husband, István Veres, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén. The Pope Emeritus, who died on December 31, 2022, at the age of 95, and was the head of the Roman Catholic Church between 2005 and 2013, will be laid to rest in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. MTI/Sándor Palace
