The wake of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was opened to the public today at 9:00 am local time when hundreds of people were already waiting in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
The body of Benedict XVI, who died on December 31 at the age of 95, was placed in the central nave of St. Peter’s Basilica, in front of the so-called altar of confession, next to Bernini’s famous canopy.
The wake will be open to the faithful for the last farewell to Benedict XVI until 19:00 local time today (18:00 in Lisbon).
The remains of Benedict XVI were transferred from the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, in the Vatican Gardens, where the Pope emeritus had lived since 2013, to St. Peter’s Basilica.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI shook the Church by resigning from the pontificate for health reasons on February 11, 2013, two months before celebrating eight years in office.
Joseph Ratzinger, who was Pope between 2005 and 2013, was born in 1927 in Marktl am Inn, in the German diocese of Passau, becoming the first German to head the Catholic Church in many centuries and a representative of the most dogmatic line of the Church.
The sexual abuse of minors by priests and the “Vatileaks”, in which case confidential documents of the pope were revealed, were themes that agitated his pontificate.
Benedict XVI called the abuses a “heinous crime” and apologized to the victims.
Benedict XVI’s funeral will take place on Thursday, in St. Peter’s Square, in the Vatican, at 9:30 am local time (8:30 am in Lisbon), in a celebration presided over by Pope Francis.
*With Lusa
