Pope Francis entrusted this Sunday to the Virgin Mary the “beloved” Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor who died on Saturday at the age of 95 and whose funeral will take place on Thursday.
“Today we entrust our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to the Blessed Virgin to accompany him on his way from this world to God,” said the Argentine pontiff during his homily at the first Mass of the year in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Francis, who was elected in 2013 after Ratzinger’s historic resignation from the pontificate, expressed his gratitude for his service on Saturday: “Speaking of kindness, at this moment, thoughts spontaneously turn to our beloved Pope emeritus Benedict XVI (… ) we remember his personality, so noble, so kind”.
The Argentine pontiff is also expected to speak at the weekly Angelus midday prayer before a crowd in St. Peter’s Square.
Francis will celebrate Thursday morning the funeral of the first German Pope in modern history – who was head of the Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013 – an unprecedented event in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church, which is expected Thousands of faithful attend.
The public will be able to visit the body of Joseph Ratzinger from Monday morning in St. Peter’s Basilica before it is buried in a crypt after his funeral.
His funeral chapel will be inaugurated on Monday in the Vatican basilica and the faithful will be able to say goodbye to him until Thursday, when Francis will preside over his funeral in St. Peter’s Square before his burial in the church’s crypt.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI shook the Church when he resigned his pontificate for health reasons on February 11, 2013, two months before his eighth year in office.
Joseph Ratzinger, who was Pope between 2005 and 2013, was born in 1927 in Marktl am Inn, in the German diocese of Passau, becoming the first German to head the Catholic Church in many centuries and a representative of the most dogmatic line of the Church. .
The sexual abuse of minors by priests and the “Vatileaks”, in which case confidential papal documents were revealed, were issues that stirred his pontificate.
Benedict XVI called the abuses a “heinous crime” and apologized to the victims. The funeral of Benedict XVI will take place on Thursday, in Saint Peter’s Square, in the Vatican, at 9:30 a.m. local time (8:30 a.m. in Lisbon), in a celebration presided over by Pope Francis.
Source: TSF
