The body of emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, his head resting on a pair of red pillows, lay in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, as thousands lined up to see off the pontiff who rocked the world with his decision to retire a month ago. decade.
On the eve of the first three days of the wake, Italian security officials said at least 25,000 to 30,000 people could arrive Monday. But by the end of the first day, some 65,000 people had filed past the coffin, the Vatican said.
At dawn, 10 white-gloved pontifical knights – lay attendants to the pontiffs and pontifical households – carried the body on a cloth-covered wooden stretcher after its arrival at the basilica to its resting place in front of the main altar, under the imposing Bernini’s bronze canopy.
A Swiss guard waved as the body entered through a side door after the remains of Benedict XVI, placed in a van, were transferred from the chapel of the monastery compound where he died on Saturday morning at the age of 95.
His secretary for many years, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, and a handful of consecrated lay women who served in the household of Benedict XVI, followed the van on foot for a few hundred meters in a silent procession toward the basilica. Some of the women reached out a hand to respectfully touch the body.
Before the faithful on foot were allowed to enter the basilica, prayers were recited and the archpriest of the basilica, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, sprinkled holy water on the body, and a small cloud of incense was released near the coffin. . Benedict XVI had his hands clasped and a rosary between his fingers.
Shortly after 9 am (0800 GMT), the doors of the basilica opened for the public, some of whom had waited for hours in the pre-dawn mist, to pay their respects to the late pontiff, who retired from the papacy in 2013, the first to do so in 600 years.
Faithful and curious, the public briskly walked up the central aisle to pass the coffin with its cloths after waiting in a line that meandered around St. Peter’s Square at midmorning.
