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Thousands of parishioners line up inside and outside St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to bid a final farewell to Benedict XVI, the pope who shocked the world when he became the first in 600 years to step down. The emeritus pontiff remains in the funeral chapel from this Monday, January 2, until next Thursday, when his funeral is scheduled.
Benedict XVI is fired at St. Peter’s Basilica. At 9 in the morning, local time, the Vatican opened the funeral chapel and from that moment people lined up to say their last goodbye to the pope emeritus, who passed away on December 31 at the age of 95.
Thousands of parishioners wait to approach the body of the deceased German religious, in a line that reaches St. Peter’s Square and surrounds Bernini’s columns.
The emeritus, who died after failing health due to his advanced age, as explained by the Holy See, lies on a pair of crimson pillows, in front of the main altar, after being transferred from the chapel to the monastery grounds by 10 Papal Knights with white gloves.
Two Swiss Guards stood on either side of the body, which was not wearing papal insignia such as the silver staff with a crucifix or a pallium, a cloth band worn around the neck worn by archdiocesan bishops.
Faithful and curious, the audience moved briskly down the center aisle past the cloth-draped coffin, after waiting in the cold and damp since before dawn.
“I wanted to pay tribute to Benedict because he played a key role in my life and my education. I got here around 7:30, after leaving Venice last night,” said Filippo Tuccio, a 35-year-old parishioner.
Up to the Basilica have arrived both people from different parts of Italy and abroad.
“I feel like he was a grandfather to us… I know he is in a better place because he was a holy man and he led very well,” Veronica Siegal, a 16-year-old student from Baton, told Reuters after viewing the body. Rouge, Louisiana, who is in Rome for a religious studies program, in St. Peter’s Square.
For his part, Mountain Butorac, an American who lives in Rome, assured that he “loved Benedict, since he was a cardinal,” then when he was elected pope and also after his retirement. “I think he was a kind of grandfather to the people who lived in the Vatican,” he remarked.
The body of Joseph Ratzinger, his birth name, will remain exposed for a total of 10 hours this Monday and will remain so until next Thursday, January 5, when his funeral is scheduled.
Benedict XVI, an emeritus pope loved by many, but peppered with scandals
Since 2013, Benedict XVI has been dedicated to prayer and meditation and fulfilled the role of pontiff emeritus, after presenting his resignation in 2013. An almost unprecedented situation, being the first Vatican leader to make that decision in 600 years and which he attributed to his advanced age.
However, his last years were also marked by scandals within the Catholic Church, due to the alleged cover-up of cases of sexual abuse by religious, as noted in a report published on February 8, 2022.
Although Benedict apologized to the victims on behalf of the institution, he rejected the accusations of not taking action in at least four cases of pedophilia.
“I have come to understand that we ourselves fall into this serious fault every time we neglect it or do not face it with the necessary decision and responsibility, as it happened and continues to happen all too often,” the emeritus said at the time.
His words were part of an expected response after the publication of an investigation document commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich in January of that same year, into hundreds of complaints of sexual assault, which occurred within the church between 1945 and 2019.
With Reuters and AP