Benedict’s death rites could serve as a model for past popes in the future

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 30 (Reuters) – When Pope Gregory XII, the last pope to resign before Benedict, died in 1417, the world wasn’t watching.

Gregory had resigned two years earlier in 1415 and spent his remaining days in virtual obscurity hundreds of miles from Rome. He was buried quietly in Recanati, a town near the northern Adriatic coast.

It will be very different with the death of 95-year-old Benedict.

The Vatican painstakingly does an elaborate ritual of what happens after the death of a reigning pope but there are no known rituals of the previous pope. The new protocols will be written at least in part. And Vatican sources say it could serve as a model for other popes who choose to resign rather than rule for life, including one day Pope Francis himself.

Those of the reigning pope include a 30-page constitution called “Universi Dominici Gregis”, Latin for “The Shepherd of the Lord’s Full Flock” and “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis” (Funeral Rites for a Roman Pontiff) Mass of over 400 pages It contains liturgy, music and prayer.

These rules state that a pope’s burial must take place between four and six days after his death as part of the nine-day mourning period known as novendial.

The Vatican officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss such matters, said the text of Benedict’s death would depend on two key elements: whether Benedict himself left any instructions and decisions Pope Francis would make.

Solomon’s farewell

One Vatican official said that Francis often praised his predecessor as a great pope who had the courage to resign, so it is likely that he would like to say a ceremonial farewell to Benedict as sacredly as possible, perhaps even the entire Acts.

The last Pope to die, John Paul II, was buried on April 8, 2005, six days after his death. His body was first placed in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican staff frescoes and then was taken to St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing.

Millions of people lined up for hours to see him, in perhaps the largest event in Vatican history, and kings and presidents attended his funeral.

He was first buried in the crypts under St. Peter’s Basilica and moved in 2011 to a chapel on the main level of the largest church in Christendom.

Sources said many people wanted to pay their respects to Benedict, who succeeded John Paul in 2005 and resigned in 2013, so a period of lying is likely in the state.

In 2020, Benedict’s authorized biographer Peter Seewald was quoted as telling the Bavarian newspaper Passauer Neue Presse that the Pope Emeritus had prepared a spiritual will stating that he wanted to be buried in the same crypt where John Paul II was originally buried.

Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, presided over John Paul’s 2005 funeral in St. Peter’s Square, and Francis is expected to preside over the Pope’s funeral.

After the death of the reigning pope, the person in charge of the ordinary affairs of the Vatican until the election of a new pope is the pictorial or chamberlain.

The position is currently held by Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, but since the Church has a pope and there will be no conclave to elect another, Farrell will have no role.

Most of the work, including writing a libretto for an unprecedented event in Vatican history, will fall to Monsignor Diego Ravelli, the papal master of ceremonies.

(Reporting by Philip Bolella) Editing by Tomasz Janowski

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