A steady stream of tens of thousands of people filed into St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, January 2, to pay their respects to former pope Benedict XVI, at the start of three days of laying in state ahead of his funeral. 📷 Vatican Media via Reuters
VATICAN CITY – A steady stream of tens of thousands of people filed into St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, January 2, to pay their respects to former pope Benedict XVI at the start of three days of laying in state ahead of his funeral., at the age of 95 in the secluded Vatican monastery where he had lived since his shock resignation in 2013.
Two Swiss Guards stood at attention on either side of the body, which bore no papal insignia or regalia, such as a crosier, the silver staff with a crucifix, or a pallium, a band of cloth worn around the neck worn by archdiocesan bishops. Benedict’s closest aide, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, sat in the first pew to the side of the body along with Benedict’s household and medics who looked after him in his final days.
“I had to come,” Sri, a woman visiting from Jakarta, Indonesia, told Reuters. “He was the pope and I am a Catholic,” she said, declining to give her surname.
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