Key points:
- About 100,000 people are expected to attend the funeral
- Pope Francis is due to preside over the event, including a rare requiem Mass
- At nearly 10 years, Pope Benedict’s retirement was longer than his pontificate
Pope Francis is due to preside over the funeral — an event drawing an estimated 100,000 people, heads of state and royalty despite Vatican efforts to keep the first funeral for an emeritus pope in modern times low-key.
Only Italy and Germany were invited to send official delegations, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Italian President Sergio Mattarella confirmed their participation.
But other heads of state and government decided to take the Vatican up on its offer and come in their “private capacity”.
They included several other heads of state, at least four prime ministers and two delegations of royal representatives.
Cypress, zinc and oak coffins
The funeral rite calls for Pope Benedict’s coffin to be carried out from the basilica and placed before the altar as the faithful recite the rosary.
The ritual itself is modelled on the code used for dead popes but with some modifications given Benedict was not a reigning pope when he died.
After the Mass, Benedict’s cypress coffin is to be placed inside a zinc one, then an outer oak casket before being entombed in the crypt in the grottoes underneath the basilica that once held the tomb of St. John Paul II before it was moved upstairs into the main basilica.
About 200,000 paid tribute to Pope Benedict during three days of public viewing in St Peter’s Basilica, with one of the last ones Friar Rosario Vitale, who spent an hour praying by his body.
He said Pope Benedict had given him a special dispensation to begin the process of becoming a priest, which was required because of a physical disability.
“So today I came here to pray on his tomb, on his body and to say ‘thank you’ for my future priesthood, for my ministry,” he said.
“I owe him a lot and this for me was really a gift to be able to pray for an hour on his bier.”
‘Opening the door’
The former pope, born Joseph Ratzinger, who died on December 31 at age 95, is considered one of the 20th century’s greatest theologians and spent his lifetime upholding church doctrine.
But he will go down in history for a singular, revolutionary act that changed the future of the papacy: He retired, the first pope in six centuries to do so.
Pope Francis has praised Pope Benedict’s courage in stepping aside when he believed he no longer had the strength to lead the church, saying it “opened the door” to other popes doing the same.
Pope Francis, for his part, recently said he has already left written instructions outlining the conditions in which he too would resign if he were to become incapacitated.
Pope Benedict never intended his retirement to last as long as it did — at nearly 10 years it was longer than his eight-year pontificate.
And the unprecedented situation of a retired pope living alongside a reigning one prompted calls for protocols to guide future popes emeritus to prevent any confusion about who is really in charge.