The faithful say goodbye to Benedict
60,000 expected to attend funeral on Thursday
VATICAN CITY — Tens of thousands of people lined up outside St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on Monday to pay last respects to Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, who died Saturday at age 95 and is now lying in state.
The long line — a mix of Roman Catholic faithful and tourists — moved steadily, snaking across the square in front of the basilica and along the street leading up to it under an overcast sky. The Vatican said Monday evening that at least 65,000 people passed through during the first day of the public viewing, which ends Wednesday evening.
“I really wanted to give him a last goodbye,” said one mourner, Anna Angelini, 85, who, despite her poor health, had hitched a 90-minute ride with a neighbor from her home outside Rome. “This pope, I hold him in my heart,” she added.
Benedict led the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics from 2005 to 2013. He stunned the world a decade ago when he announced that he would retire, the first pope to do so in some 600 years, citing his declining physical and mental state.
He lived for another 10 years, however, residing in a secluded monastery on the grounds of the Vatican, remaining “hidden from the world,” as he had pledged to do.
Inside St. Peter’s, Benedict rested on a simple dais in front of the main altar, dressed in traditional red and white garments, his hands crossed beneath a rosary. He did not have a pallium, the vestment symbolizing the authority of metropolitan archbishops, because it was “a symbol of jurisdiction which is normally not used for a retired prelate,” according to the Vatican website Vatican News. There were no other papal insignia or regalia, such as the silver staff with a crucifix.
Two Swiss Guards in their colorful uniforms stood at attention as mourners passed in front of the dais, some making the sign of the cross. The Swiss Guard protects the pope and his residence.
Luciano Ippoliti, a 61-yearold high school teacher in Rome, knelt and crossed himself, keeping his eyes on the body as security guards urged mourners to proceed quickly.
“I said, ‘Thank you,’” Ippoliti said. “I owed it to him.”
The speed at which the line moved made prayers necessarily brief. A group of faithful recited the Lord’s Prayer by the pope’s body, some took photographs of Benedict, but also of the main apse and the transept of the basilica, with works by Baroque architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The frantic photographing inside the basilica disturbed some mourners.
“People taking pictures with the corpse is really outrageous,” said one woman in the line, Alessandra Erre, 49.
Silvana D’Amore, 79, held her rosary as she advanced in the line below the basilica’s golden vault. She had taken a bus from a town outside Rome to pay her respects to Benedict, who she said “is a dear person to me.”
For the first 12 centuries of the church, popes were buried on the day they died, usually in the evening, according to Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a historian and specialist in papal history. That changed with the death of Innocent III, who died in 1216 and was the first pope to lie in state, Paravicini Bagliani said, citing an account of the time.
Rules promulgated in 1274 about the election of the pope (first put into practice two years later) determined that the voting could only take place 10 days after a pontiff ’s death “and that prolonged the time of lying in state,” Paravicini Bagliani said, even though popes were still normally buried after three days.
Benedict’s body was taken to St. Peter’s before dawn on Monday morning from the monastery where he had lived, and it will remain there until his funeral on Thursday.
On Saturday, Italian officials said that about 60,000 people were expected to attend Benedict’s funeral on Thursday, which will be officiated by Pope Francis.
Benedict will be buried in the Vatican Grottoes underneath St. Peter’s Basilica, the traditional resting place of popes.