When Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, it was the first time in 600 years that such a thing had occurred. For the next decade, the two popes lived side by side in the Vatican, one on center stage, the other in the shadows of a monastery.
The funeral of Benedict XVI will be held on Thursday morning and will be “presided over by Pope Francis,” said Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesman. There are many questions that surround this unprecedented event, but Bruni would not answer any of them. “I don’t think now is the time for questions to leave us time for some sadness in our heart.”
According to The New York Times, no one was quite sure what exactly would happen and what the first funeral for a pope emeritus would look like. Perhaps this isn’t true. Surely the Vatican leadership knew that this day would come, and as is the practice in any government or large corporation, plans for the transition were made way in advance.
“The question is complicated,” said Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a historian of the papacy.
Those complications were immediately inescapable. Mr. Bruni said the funeral would be “simple” and “solemn but sober,” in keeping with Benedict’s wishes. But Benedict, having retained his title of pontiff, if an emeritus one, was no simple cardinal, and it was not clear if he would receive the full procedural pomp and circumstance for a pontiff who died in office, among other things.
Two official delegations will be present, those of Germany and Italy. But will other nations send representatives? Benedict’s Fisherman’s Ring — the seal used for papal documents — was already destroyed, so it would not need to be. But will his study and bedroom be closed off?
When a pope dies, cardinals come from around the world to gather to mourn, but also to vote in the conclave that elects his successor. “Clearly, that’s not an issue in this case,” Mr. Paravicini Bagliani said, adding that the cardinals who did come would do so solely “as mourners.”
The Vatican on Sunday released a photograph of the deceased pope, dressed in a miter and red vestments, his hands wrapped in a rosary as his body reclined on pillows below a crucifix and between a Christmas tree and Nativity scene.
Benedict had expressed a desire to be buried in the Vatican grottoes, underneath the basilica, in the niche where St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II were buried before the transfer of their remains to chapels in the basilica. The Vatican on Saturday confirmed he would be buried in the grottoes but has not yet announced exactly where.
All of the decisions, according to The Seismograph, a website deeply sourced in the Vatican, belonged to Francis.
The uncertainty surrounding the rituals honoring Benedict in death stemmed from the decision that generated the confusion in the last years of his life. After Benedict resigned, he promised to be “hidden from the world,” an oath he mostly kept. But to the dismay of many, he took the title of Pope Emeritus, keeping his white robes and a following of ideological conservatives who tried to make him into an alternative power center.
Now that the fateful moment has arrived for the conclusion of this decade-long drama, confusion and uncertainty as to what may happen next are the order of the day. The faithful in St. Peter’s Square are nonplussed: “I still have not really understood how this will work,” said Chiara Darida, 73, a retired schoolteacher, as she faced the basilica. “It’s a new situation, it never happened before,” she said.
