Esome had already lined up during the night to help the late Benedict XVI. to pay their last respects. It was a nun who was the first to pray at the corpse that was laid out. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella had previously said goodbye to the former Pope.
The longtime private secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein also accompanied his former boss in the basilica after his death. At seven o’clock on Monday morning, the body, dressed in red, was transferred from its former place of residence in the Vatican Gardens to St. Peter’s Basilica.
Benedict was taken to St. Peter’s Basilica in a silver van, accompanied by his closest friends. There he was brought on a bier to the spot in front of the main altar where John Paul II was already laid out in 2005. The people there can say goodbye to the former head of the church until Wednesday evening.
Since the morning they have been pouring into St. Peter’s Square via four entrances. The barriers originally erected were soon no longer sufficient to direct thousands of people in an orderly manner towards the basilica. Further barriers were hurriedly posted at noon.
Söder wants to come to the Requiem
With a Bavarian delegation, Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) wants to attend the funeral service for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Thursday. travel to Rome. “It is a great honor, also for many who will be there, to take part in the requiem,” said Söder on Monday after he had written a book of condolence for the recently deceased in Munich.
Representatives from politics, church and society should therefore fly to Rome from all over Bavaria. Joseph Ratzinger, as his real name was, came from Marktl in Upper Bavaria.
Burial in the former tomb of John Paul II.
The late Pope Benedict XVI. is buried in the former tomb of his predecessor John Paul II. The spokesman for the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, confirmed this to journalists on Monday. His final resting place will be in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. The body will be taken there on Thursday. Before that, Pope Francis wants to hold a big funeral service with tens of thousands of people outside the basilica for Benedict. Benedict died on Saturday morning at the age of 95.
Pope John Paul II was buried in the crypt after his death in 2005. A few years later, his remains were brought next to the Pietà Michelangelo in St. Peter’s Basilica, which is why his tomb in the grottoes is uncovered.
