How Pope Emeritus Benedict’s funeral presents unprecedented challenge

For the first time in 600 years, the Vatican is holding a historic event: the funeral of a former pope.

Pope Francis will preside over the funeral for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died Saturday at age 95, on Thursday, according to the Vatican – an unprecedented occasion for a current pope to celebrate the funeral of a former pope.

Benedict’s body went on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, and mourners can pay respects through Wednesday, the Vatican said. Pictures released by the Vatican show Benedict wearing red robes and a Catholic bishop’s mitre.

Benedict took the unusual step in 2013 to retire after almost eight years, citing his physical and mental health. Typically, popes serve until death, and Benedict was the first pope since the 1400s to leave office.

In a “spiritual testament” written in 2006 to be released upon his death, Benedict asked for forgiveness of anyone he had ever wronged and thanked God for guiding his steps. The Vatican released the testament on Saturday.

“Finally, I humbly ask: pray for me, so that the Lord may admit me to the eternal dwellings, despite all my sins and shortcomings,” Benedict wrote. “For all those entrusted to me, my heartfelt prayer goes out day after day.”

The Roman Catholic Church has about 1.3 billion members worldwide. The funeral for Pope John Paul II in 2005 drew an estimated 4 million people to Rome and Vatican City in what experts say may have been the largest-ever gathering of Christians.

The Vatican said Benedict’s funeral will take place with “simplicity,” as he requested. But the format remains uncertain.

“There is no script for this, and people in the Vatican are on the edge because they want to send a signal of respect to him and his followers and at the same time not disrespect the reigning pontiff,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. “Such funeral has no precedent in Italy.”

How would Benedict’s funeral be conducted?

Typically, funerals for a pope are an elaborate affair, befitting his station as God’s representative on Earth and the head of the nation-state Vatican City.

John Paul II’s 2005 death launched an elaborate series of ceremonies and viewings, including two celebrations of Mass, before he was buried. Benedict – at the time still known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – presided over the final Mass of Requiem, which experts say was probably the most-watched funeral in history.

Papal funerals typically draw heads of state from around the world, and President Joe Biden, who is Catholic, had met with Benedict. But was unclear whether the funeral of a former pope would draw as many high-profile attendees.

The Vatican confirmed Monday that in keeping with Benedict’s wishes, his tomb will be in the crypt of the grotto under the basilica that was last used by St. John Paul II before the saint’s body was moved upstairs into the main basilica ahead of his beatification in 2011.

What does a pope’s funeral normally look like?

After the pope’s death, a formal set of practices codified by the 1996 document “Universi Dominici Gregis” – Of the Lord’s Whole Flock – prompts formal notifications, the sealing of his rooms and papers, and the destruction of the papal signet ring. Benedict’s ring was marked with a chiseled cross upon his retirement.

Papal funerals typically draw millions of mourners to Rome, and the funeral of John Paul was also televised live.

Church doctrine calls for the pope to be buried between the fourth and sixth day after his death, unless there are extenuating circumstances. Popes are not autopsied. Funeral rites are celebrated for nine days after his death.

After a sitting pope dies, the church’s cardinals gather in a conclave to select a successor, burning special paper to emit white smoke. That won’t happen in this case because there’s already a sitting pope, Francis.

What is a pope emeritus?

While unusual, a papal retirement is not unprecedented.

Catholic church law requires a papal resignation be “freely and properly manifested” – as was the case when Benedict unexpectedly announced his resignation at the Vatican in February 2013.

Immediately upon retirement, Benedict left the Vatican for several months while cardinals selected and installed Francis. Benedict then returned to the Vatican, no longer a pope or cardinal. Instead, he asked to be known as Father Benedict, and he lived a quiet life ever since. He had been living at a monastery on the Vatican grounds since stepping down nine years ago.

Francis had visited him regularly since his retirement, but Benedict played no formal role within the church, although he continued to wear the papal white.

Could Pope Francis also step down?

Francis, upon taking office in 2013, pre-wrote a resignation letter in case he was ever incapacitated. Francis had lauded Benedict’s decision to step down because of advanced age.

Francis, who turned 86 in December, had surgery in 2021 to repair a bowel narrowing and has been hobbled by knee pain that for months saw him use a wheelchair. Lately, he has used a cane to get around in public.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC in December, Francis noted: “One governs with the head, not the knee.”

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