Former Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral was held on the Vatican : NPR

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Former Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral was held on the Vatican in the present day. It delivered to an finish an unprecedented decade during which a reigning pope lived aspect by aspect together with his predecessor. Pope Francis presided over the requiem mass in the present day in St Peter’s Sq.. Afterwards, Benedict was buried within the crypt underneath the basilica alongside his predecessors. From Rome, NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli has this report.

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UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing, inaudible).

SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: The air was damp and thick with fog as mourners started arriving at St Peter’s Sq. in darkness, hours earlier than the funeral mass. Safety was tight. When the service ended, the solar was shining and the temper extra joyful among the many 50,000 folks Italian officers say had been current.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in non-English language).

POGGIOLI: The Vatican had mentioned that in accordance with Benedict’s needs, the ritual could be easy and solemn. However ultimately, it differed solely barely from the frilly liturgy used when reigning popes die. Just a few particular prayers and readings had been eradicated. Pope Francis, sporting crimson vestments related to papal funerals, arrived in a wheelchair and sat more often than not as a result of his ailing knee. He con-celebrated the mass, together with 125 cardinals, a whole lot of bishops and 1000’s of monks. In his homily, Francis provided a meditation on Christ however didn’t eulogize his predecessor. He invoked the picture of the ladies within the gospel tales who prayed on the tomb of the deceased Jesus.

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POPE FRANCIS: (By interpreter) We, too, have include the perfume of gratitude and the balm of hope to be able to present him as soon as extra the love that’s timeless. We need to do that with the identical knowledge, tenderness and devotion that he bestowed upon us through the years.

POGGIOLI: And Francis talked about his predecessor by identify solely as soon as, commending his spirit into God’s fingers.

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FRANCIS: (By interpreter) Benedict, could your pleasure be full as you hear his voice now and ceaselessly.

POGGIOLI: Earlier in the present day, the Vatican launched the official historical past of Benedict’s life. The doc, written in Latin, cited the late former pope’s outreach to Anglicans and Jews and his efforts to fight clerical intercourse abuse. It was underneath Benedict’s papacy that these scandals erupted the world over. Benedict can also be remembered because the enforcer of orthodoxy underneath his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, when, as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he spearheaded a sweeping crackdown on dissent, disciplining theologians in Latin America and the USA. After he grew to become the primary pope to resign in 600 years, Benedict was revered as the usual bearer for conservative Catholics who opposed the liberal reforms of Pope Francis.

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POGGIOLI: A few of these followers had been current in the present day, and so they ignored appeals for decorum, breaking out in cheers and shouting santo subito, sainthood now – an echo of the chants that marked the funeral of his predecessor, John Paul II. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR Information, Rome.

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