Many thousands attend funeral Mass as Benedict XVI buried in Vatican

ROME — Late pope emeritus Benedict XVI was buried in the heart of the Vatican on Thursday, after tens of thousands of the faithful attended his funeral Mass in St Peter's Square.

The service was historic for being led by a living pope, after Benedict became the first pontiff in centuries to resign in 2013.

Pope Francis made little direct reference to his predecessor in his sermon. He spoke on Thursday mainly about devotion to God and trust in the Lord.

Only at the very end did the 86-year-old Argentinian pontiff say in front of the wooden coffin: "Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete when you hear his voice now and forever!" Jesus is often referred to as the Bridegroom in the Catholic Church.

Around 130 cardinals were also in attendance, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said. Among them were the German Cardinals Reinhard Marx, Rainer Maria Woelki and Gerhard Ludwig Müller.

There was an official German delegation present, including President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Markus Söder, premier of largely Catholic Bavaria, where Benedict was born as Joseph Ratzinger in 1927. Well over 200 other people from Bavaria also joined Soeder's delegation.

Benedict had expressed the wish that people from his native Bavaria attend. He was born in the village of Marktl, near the border with Austria.

Steinmeier said after the ceremony that Benedict XVI "passed on the rich treasure of the Catholic Church to the faithful with reason and with soul."

According to the Italian news agency ANSA, 300 bishops were among the guests.

In a touching moment, Georg Gänswein, the cleric who served as Benedict XVI's personal secretary and confidant during his papacy, bent over the coffin to kiss it after it was brought out onto St Peter's Square.

Gänswein was perhaps the closest person to Benedict in his final years. He served as the pope's private secretary after Benedict's election in 2005 after previously working with him in Rome.

After the service, the late pope was buried in the crypt of St Peter's Basilica.

The public was excluded from this part of the funeral service.

Joseph Ratzinger — Benedict's birth name — now lies in the tomb of his Polish predecessor John Paul II, whose remains had already been moved to another place in the church years ago.

The three-layer coffin made of wood and zinc is accompanied by other items such as a text about his life and pontificate.

Benedict XVI died at the Vatican on New Year's Eve at the age of 95. He had been lying in state in St Peter's Basilica since Monday so that the public could pay their respects.

Benedict was often criticized for being too rigid as pope, but he was not an archconservative stuck in the past, in the view of German Cardinal Walter Kasper.

"On meeting him in person, one saw that he was not a diehard," the 89-year-old cardinal — who served Benedict in the papal curia during his pontificate — told Bavarian television before participating in the funeral service on St Peter's Square.

The late pope had been a "friendly person full of hope," Kasper said, relating how he had received a letter from Benedict dated October 10 — just weeks before his death. "At the end, he was at peace with himself, with the church and with God," Kasper said.

The chairman of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference (DBK), Georg Bätzing, said on Thursday that a discussion about a canonization of the late Pope Benedict XVI was premature.

"I don't think now is the time," said the Bishop of Limburg on Thursday after the funeral service.

It was also announced on Thursday that Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg will in future look after the personal estate of the deceased church leader as director of the Pope Benedict XVI Institute.

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