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Pope Francis presided over the funeral ceremony of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. For 600 years, no acting pope had cohabited with a pope emeritus, which made this ceremony unprecedented, which was attended by thousands of faithful in Saint Peter’s Square.
After three days in the burning chamber in the Basilica of San Pedro and the attendance of around 200,000 people, Benedict XVI received a funeral on the scale of an acting pope on the morning of this Thursday, January 5 and his body already rests. in the vatican crypt
Nearly 50,000 people gathered in Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City to witness the burial of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on December 31 at the age of 95.
Several heads of State and Government attended the funeral: the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella; the Pole, Andrzej Duda; the Portuguese, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa; among others. But the most representative was the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the country where Benedict XVI came from.
The funeral of the emeritus pope was unprecedented in the recent history of the Catholic Church. Not since 1802, when Pius VII succeeded Pius VI, had a sitting pope preside over the funeral of his predecessor in St. Peter’s Square.
The funeral was attended by 125 cardinals, 200 bishops and some 3,700 priests. The Italian Government summoned more than 1,000 members of the country’s security personnel to guarantee the tranquility of the event. The airspace around the Vatican was closed throughout Thursday, and the Italian flag flew at half mast.
The homily began with the sound of the bells. 12 pallbearers removed the wooden coffin with the remains of Benedict XVI from St. Peter’s Basilica and placed it on the ground in front of the most important Christian site.
Catholic faithful from all over the world, gathered in Saint Peter’s Square, mourned the death of Benedict XVI and described the ecclesiastical event as emotional and significant. In unison, several of them clamored for the beatification of the pope emeritus.
“We are here to pay homage to him (…) We will no longer have a German pope,” said a young parishioner who arrived very early in Saint Peter’s Square. In the main cities of Germany, church bells tolled along with the funeral celebration in the Vatican to honor the memory of the 265th pope.
A sitting pope bids farewell to a pope emeritus
Francis highlighted the “wisdom, delicacy and dedication” that Benedict XVI “knew how to spread throughout the years.” He also thanked his predecessor for having carried out complex tasks within the church that, in the words of Francisco, led to misunderstandings. A possible reference to the conservative flags that Benedict XVI flew during his religious life. However, Pope Francis did not mention the specific legacy of Benedict XVI in his homily and only mentioned his name once, in the final line.
“Holding on to the Lord’s last words and the testimony of his whole life, we too, as an ecclesial community, want to follow in his footsteps and entrust our brother into the hands of the father,” Francis said at the end of the ceremony.
Benedict XVI received the title of pope emeritus in 2013 when he resigned from his position, a fact that had not happened since the Middle Ages. Benedict attributed his resignation to health problems, but critics of the church are considering other hypotheses such as the corruption scandal in the Vatican known as Vatileaks, in which alleged blackmailing of homosexual bishops associated with cases of pedophilia was discovered. by Italian journalists came to light a year before the pope’s resignation.
legacy of contrasts
Joseph Ratzinger, given name of Benedict XVI, was born on April 16, 1927 in Germany, and was considered one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, he spent his life defending the doctrine of the church.
From 1951, the year in which he began his priestly career, through his work as a professor of dogmatic theology in various German cities until his appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and finally pontificate as Benedict XVI; Joseph Ratzinger was strict and radical with the positions of Catholicism in the face of political and social struggles. Ratzinger was also not kind to other monotheistic religions such as Islam, which he considered an inhumane practice.
But the most controversial post that Ratzinger presided over was the one granted to him in 1981 by Pope John Paul II, whose right-hand man he became as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former institution in charge of the inquisition.
In charge of the Congregation, Ratzinger launched an offensive against Catholic dissent, cracking down on the left-leaning liberation theology that spread in Latin America in the 1970s, and on theologians and nuns who did not follow the hard line of the Vatican on matters such as sexual morality.
As it was the farewell to an emeritus and non-reigning pope, Benedict XVI did not have a procession of the coffin from the Apostolic Palace, where he had not resided since 2013. Nor will the nine-day period of mourning that follows each death of a Pontiff be declared.
According to tradition, the coffin of Benedict XVI contains coins and medals minted during his pontificate, he maintains his liturgical clothing; as well as a brief text that described his pontificate, located in a metallic cylinder.
With Reuters, AP, AFP and local media
