{"id":166696,"date":"2023-01-02T14:44:14","date_gmt":"2023-01-02T18:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=166696"},"modified":"2023-01-02T14:44:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T18:44:14","slug":"more-than-60000-view-benedict-xvis-body-at-vatican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/more-than-60000-view-benedict-xvis-body-at-vatican\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 60,000 view Benedict XVI\u2019s body at Vatican"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(AP) \u2014\u00a0Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI<\/a>\u00a0\u2019s body, his head resting on a pair of crimson pillows, lay in state in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica on Monday as tens of thousands queued to pay tribute to\u00a0the pontiff who shocked the world by retiring<\/a>\u00a0a decade ago.<\/p>

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On the eve of the first of three days of viewing, Italian security officials had said at least 25,000-30,000 people would come on Monday. But by the end of the first day\u2019s viewing, some 65,000 persons had passed by the bier, the Vatican said.<\/p>\n

As daylight broke, 10 white-gloved Papal Gentlemen \u2014 lay assistants to pontiffs and papal households \u2014 carried the body on a cloth-covered wooden stretcher after its arrival at the basilica to its resting place in front of the main altar under Bernini\u2019s towering bronze canopy.<\/p>

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A Swiss Guard saluted as Benedict\u2019s body was brought in through a side door after it was transferred in a van from the chapel of the monastery grounds where the increasingly frail,\u00a095-year-old former pontiff died<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday morning.<\/p>

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His longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, and a handful of consecrated laywomen who served in Benedict\u2019s household, followed the van by foot for a few hundred yards in a silent procession toward the basilica. Some of the women stretched out a hand to touch the body with respect.<\/p>\n

Before the rank-and-file faithful were allowed into the basilica, prayers were recited and the basilica\u2019s archpriest, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, sprinkled holy water over the body, and a small cloud of incense was released near the bier. Benedict\u2019s hands were clasped, a rosary around his fingers.<\/p>

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Just after 9 a.m. (0800 GMT), the doors of the basilica were swung open so the public, some of whom had waited for hours in the pre-dawn damp, could pay their respects to the late pontiff,\u00a0who retired from the papacy in 2013 \u2014<\/a>\u00a0the first pope to do so in 600 years.<\/p>\n

Faithful and curious, the public strode briskly up the center aisle to pass by the bier with its cloth draping after waiting in a line that by midmorning snaked around St. Peter\u2019s Square.<\/p>

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Benedict\u2019s body was dressed with a miter, the peaked headgear of a bishop, and a red cloak.<\/p>

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