Pope Francis paid emotional tribute to his predecessor Benedict XVI, “such a noble person”, who died on Saturday at the age of 95 and whose renunciation in 2013 took the whole world by surprise.
The funeral of the first German pope of modern times will take place Thursday morning in St. Peter’s Square in Rome under the presidency of Francis, an unprecedented event in the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church.
Benedict XVI died Saturday morning at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican where he retired after his renunciation.
On the occasion of Vespers celebrated on Saturday evening in Saint-Pierre, Francis greeted a “person so noble, so kind”. “We feel so much gratitude in our hearts,” the Argentine pope said, highlighting “his sacrifices offered for the good of the Church.”
The body of Joseph Ratzinger will be exhibited from Monday morning under the gold of Saint Peter’s Basilica to allow the faithful to pay homage to him.
The funeral ceremony of the 265th pope, “solemn but sober” according to the director of the press service of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, will take place in the presence of tens of thousands of faithful, as well as heads of state and government. He will then be buried in a crypt in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The health of the German theologian, at the head of the Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013, had deteriorated in recent days, Francis himself having gone to his bedside on Wednesday.
Tributes poured in from around the world.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hailed his “commitment to non-violence and peace” while Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill praised “a defender of traditional Christian values”.
“He will be remembered as a renowned theologian, guided by his principles and his faith, and whose entire life was devoted to his devotion to the Church,” said US President – Catholic – Joe Biden in a communicated.
Flags at half mast
On Saturday, the faithful present in Place Saint-Pierre expressed their sadness at the announcement of his death. “It is a great pain. He was a very reserved person, but we perceived his depth and he did a lot for the Church”, testified for AFP Milo Cecchetto, a Roman.
In his native village in Bavaria, Marktl, the flag of the town hall was lowered, as on all public buildings in this German region. Karl Michael Nuck, 55, said his death had “probably been a deliverance for him”, recalling that he had “the courage to resign”.
His disappearance puts an end to the unusual cohabitation of two men in white: on the one hand the German Joseph Ratzinger, a brilliant theologian not very comfortable with crowds, on the other the Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio, a Jesuit endowed with an incisive word that wanted to put the poor and migrants back at the center of the Church’s mission.
After his eight years of pontificate marked by multiple crises, Benedict XVI had been caught up in early 2022 by the drama of pedocrime in the Church. Questioned by a report in Germany on his management of sexual violence when he was Archbishop of Munich, he broke his silence to ask for “pardon” but assured that he had never covered up a child criminal.
The SNAP association for the defense of victims of religious pedophile criminals accused him on Saturday of having been “more concerned about the deterioration of the image of the Church […] only by realizing the importance of sincere apologies followed by real reparations for the victims of attacks”.
His renunciation, announced in Latin on February 11, 2013, was a personal decision linked to his declining strength and not to the pressure of scandals, Benedict XVI assured in 2016.
For Marco Politi, an Italian Vaticanist interviewed by AFP on Saturday, “it is part of the Church’s past that disappears with him. The conservatives have been waving their banners in a civil war for ten years against François. (With his death), they lose a living symbol, they can no longer say ‘here is the real pope, here is the fake’”, he judged.
HIV and Vatileaks
By his resignation, unprecedented in six centuries, the first German pope in modern history opened the way for his successors whose strength would come to decline. François, 86 years old and suffering from knee pain, left this possibility “open” himself.
Born in 1927, Joseph Ratzinger taught theology for 25 years in Germany before being appointed Archbishop of Munich.
He then became the strict guardian of the dogma of the Church for another quarter of a century in Rome at the head of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, then pope for eight years, succeeding John Paul II.
Last pope to have participated in the Second Vatican Council, he however defended a conservative line at the head of the Church, in particular on abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia.
His statements have sometimes shocked, such as on Islam and the use of condoms against HIV.
His pontificate was also marked in 2012 by the leak of confidential documents (“Vatileaks”) orchestrated by his butler. The scandal had exposed a Roman Curia (Vatican government) plagued by intrigue and devoid of financial rigour.