After three days of public vigil, this Thursday (5), Pope Francis is celebrating the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in a crowded St. Peter’s Square and under a cloudy sky, who died last December 31 at the age of 95.
The ceremony brings together dozens of political and religious authorities, such as the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and representatives of the Catholic, Islamic and Jewish churches.
“We are here with the scent of gratitude and the ointment of hope to demonstrate, once again, the love that is not lost. We want to do it with the same anointing, wisdom, delicacy and dedication that he has been able to give over the years”, he Francis said in the homily.
“Blessed, may your joy be perfect in hearing your voice definitively and forever”, said the Pope, asking that Joseph Ratzinger be “entrusted into the hands of the Father”.
“May these hands of mercy find his lamp lit with the oil of the Gospel, which he spread and witnessed during his life,” he added.
This is only the second time in history that a pope has celebrated the funeral of his predecessor. The other was in 1802, when Pius VII presided over the religious funeral of Pius VI, who had died two and a half years earlier while living in exile as a prisoner of Napoleon Bonaparte.
In the crowd, the faithful raised the flags of Germany, Ratzinger’s homeland, and posters with phrases of thanks to Benedict XVI or asking for his canonization. Even the spectators – some of whom dressed in the typical clothes of the German state of Bavaria – gave a long applause as the coffin of the pope emeritus entered the square.
The funeral brings together 130 cardinals, 300 bishops and 3,700 priests from all over the world who have arrived at the Vatican in recent days.
In the front row, to the right of the coffin (on which an open Gospel has been placed), Archbishop Georg Ganswein, personal secretary of Benedict XVI during his pontificate and after his resignation, and the “memores”, consecrated lay women who helped cure Ratzinger.
Benedict XVI’s body was enclosed in the urn with coins and medals minted during his pontificate, in addition to the palli (white wool collars worn by popes and archbishops) that he wore in his liturgical vestments.
The coffin was made with a triple coating, the first of cypress, the second of zinc and the third of oak, and, after the funeral, will be buried in the crypts of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the former tomb of St. John Paul II , whose body was carried to the top of the temple following his beatification in 2011.
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Source: Terra
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
