Benedict’s Funeral Will Be a Singular Event in the Life of the Catholic Church

National Catholic Register, 31 December 2022

The funeral rites follow from the novelty of the Pope Emeritus’ abdication in 2013, which was an utter innovation in the entire history of the Church.

The death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI brings that rarest of all things — a true novelty for a bi-millennial Church. How to conduct obsequies for a former pope who died in full harmony with his successor?

The Holy See has indicated that Benedict will lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica for three days, Monday to Wednesday, with the funeral being conducted by Pope Francis on Thursday morning. Benedict will be buried in the crypt of St. Peter’s, likely in the place previously occupied by St. John Paul II.

A Funeral Without Precedent

The novelty of Benedict’s funeral is that the current Holy Father will be preaching for his predecessor. There will be a faint echo here of 2005, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger preached at the funeral of John Paul, but at the time Ratzinger was not yet elected pope himself.

The funeral rites follow from the novelty of the abdication in 2013. It was an utter innovation in the entire history of the Church — no pope had ever resigned on the grounds of “diminishing strength.” All previous resignations had been to resolve crises over the legitimacy of the pope — or “antipope.” No such crisis has been at hand in recent centuries.

The only quasi-precedent was that of St. Celestine V, who reigned as pope for five months in 1294. The elderly monk had been elected after writing to the cardinals who had not managed to elect a pope for more than two years, a true crisis. Upon receiving his letter, the desperate and floundering cardinals promptly elected him, grasping at a solution, no matter how strange. He recognized as much, and only great ecclesial and political pressure persuaded him to accept. The bizarre election brought an ill-suited man to Rome; five months later he resigned.

Far from residing tranquilly in a Roman retirement, like Benedict XVI would 700 years later, Celestine V was imprisoned by his successor and died under house arrest in 1296. He was not granted a papal funeral and was not buried in Rome.

Thus Benedict XVI’s case is singular. He is much beloved by many in the Church, and the ranks of those who admire him reach far beyond those who love him, indeed well beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church.

In the Shadow of John Paul

The funeral of Benedict will call to mind one of the great public moments in the recent history of the Church, the funeral of John Paul, at which Cardinal Ratzinger was the celebrant and homilist. Most papal funeral homilies evaporate into the Roman air; Cardinal Ratzinger captured the life of John Paul with his customary brilliance. The preacher who had moved congregations for more than 50 years with the power of his words and the clarity of his images left the world with an image of perseverance and hope — a silenced and stricken John Paul going from the window of the Apostolic Palace to the window of the Father’s house, where Cardinal Ratzinger implored his blessing one last time.

“After the great John Paul,” were the first words Benedict XVI spoke after his election, appearing on the balcony of St. Peter’s. He understood himself to be coming after the one Pope Francis has called “John Paul the Great,” and thus his pontificate was, despite its significant achievements, something of an extension of his predecessor.

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