Pope bids final farewell to ‘brother’ Benedict
Thousands gather at the Vatican for the funeral of the controversial former head of Catholic Church
P‘As an ecclesial community, we want to follow in his steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father’
ope Francis bent his head in silent prayer and placed his hand on the coffin of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI as the Vatican laid to rest the only pontiff to have resigned from the Seat of St Peter in six centuries.
It was the culmination of a moving two-hour ceremony in which redrobed cardinals, heads of state, bishops, nuns, priests and the faithful crowded into St Peter’s Square to say a final farewell to the man born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria 95 years ago.
The spectacle of one Pope presiding over the funeral of another was without precedent in modern times – the last time it happened was in 1802, when Pope Pius VII celebrated the funeral of his predecessor, Pius VI, who had died in exile in France, a prisoner of Napoleon.
As 12 pallbearers in grey suits and white gloves lifted the cypress coffin of Pope Emeritus Benedict, prior to carrying it into St Peter’s Basilica, there was applause from the crowds and cries of “Santo subito” or “Sainthood now” – an appeal to make him a saint. That is a process which, if approved, is likely to take many years.
As bells tolled across the Vatican, Swiss Guards wearing their traditional red-plumed helmets and ceremonial swords knelt either side of the coffin, saluting with white-gloved hands.
Vestments symbolising Benedict’s role as pope and bishop were placed inside the coffin, including a lead tube with a document in Latin listing the key points of his pontificate, and coins and medals that were minted during his reign.
About 50,000 mourners crowded into St Peter’s Square on a cold, foggy winter’s morning to see Pope Francis lead the Requiem Mass for Benedict, who died on Saturday at the former convent where he had spent his retirement since resigning in 2013.
At the start of the ceremony, as the crowds shivered in the freezing fog, Pope Francis was brought out to the platform in front of St Peter’s Basilica in a wheelchair – a common sight in recent months as he struggles with sciatica and knee pain.
Praying for the soul of Benedict, he said he was “commending our brother into the hands of the Father”. “Holding fast to the Lord’s last words and to the witness of his entire life, we too, as an ecclesial community, want to follow in his steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father,” he said.
At the end of the service, incense was waved over Benedict’s coffin and it was sprinkled with holy water. It was at the end of the ceremony, in front of the imposing doors of St Peter’s, that Francis placed his hand on the coffin, contemplating for a few moments the passing of his predecessor, with whom he had shared the Vatican city state for nearly a decade.
The wooden coffin was then placed in a zinc coffin which was soldered shut and in turn placed inside an outer oak casket.
In a private service, Benedict was buried in a crypt known as the Vatican Grottoes beneath the basilica, next to the tombs of nearly 90 other popes.
Although not as charismatic or as popular as his predecessor John Paul II, Benedict was much loved by many traditionalist Catholics, and about 200,000 people filed past his body as he lay in state in St Peter’s Basilica from Monday until Wednesday.
“He did great work for the Catholic Church in spreading the gospel,” said Father Selarino Diau from the Solomon Islands. “This is the end of his mission here on Earth and now he’s going home.”
Christian Stadler, 59, from Benedict’s home region of Bavaria and dressed in traditional lederhosen and felt hat, said: “For me, he was a very good Pope. I’ve come to say a final ‘auf wiedersehen’ to him.” Although many Italians struggled to warm to the man nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” and the “Panzer cardinal” for his hard-line doctrinal views, others came to pay their respects.
“He was very important for us, a great maestro who led by the example of his faith,” said Elisa Cenci, 55, from Rome.
She dismissed suggestions that Benedict had been a parallel pontiff or a lightning rod for traditionalists unhappy with Francis’ reformist tendencies. “There was no rivalry or competition between them, you could see they were friends,” she said.
Benedict’s death opens the way for Francis to follow the same path and resign, should he choose to. It was thought unlikely that he would do so while Benedict was still alive because there would have been three popes.
Francis has said on several occasions that he could step down if he feels he no longer has the mental and physical strength to continue in the role.
While there were plaudits for Benedict from the faithful, the victims of sex abuse by Catholic clergy said he had failed to tackle the scandal, first as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican department, and then as Pope.
Survivors said that he had failed to punish bishops who moved abuser priests from one parish to another and had refused to make mandatory the reporting of sex crimes to the police.
“On this traumatic issue, Pope Benedict XVI leaves a legacy of failure,” said campaigners from SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Benedict squandered opportunities to make a difference for victims and instead solidified the protection of abusers.”
While the Church could do little to “alleviate the suffering of hundreds of thousands” of sex abuse victims, it could “avoid rubbing salt into their wounds by heralding a pontiff who presided over many well-documented clergy sex crimes and cover-ups”.