Anticipation of Benedict XVI’s funeral draws tens of thousands to St. Peter’s Square | Pope Benedict XVI

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Tens of thousands of Catholics are expected to arrive in St. Peter’s Square for the funeral of former Pope Benedict XVI.

Benedict died on Saturday at the age of 95, nearly a decade after he became the first pope in 600 years to resign. He would become the first former pope in the modern history of the Catholic Church to be buried by the current Pope, Francis.

The number of Catholics paying tribute at St. Peter’s Basilica, where his body lay in state for three days before the funeral, exceeded the expectations of Vatican officials. More than 135,000 people flocked to the Vatican in the days leading up to the celebration.

During his weekly papal audience on Wednesday, Pope Francis paid tribute to his immediate predecessor, the conservative thinker, as “a great catechist.”

Benedict led the Catholic Church for eight years before resigning in 2013, citing failing health. He chose to be called Pope Emeritus after his abdication, rather than revert to Joseph Ratzinger, and continued to live in the Vatican and wear the white robe.

A funeral will be held similar to that of the reigning Pope, and he will be buried in the tomb where Pope John Paul II was buried before his beatification.

After the funeral in St. Peter’s Square, Benedict’s remains – carried in a cypress coffin – will be placed inside a zinc coffin, and then finally in another made of oak.

He will be buried with the coins and medals minted during his time as pope, the drapes he wore as part of his robe and a metal cylinder containing a rogito – a text describing his papacy.

Only two countries—Benedict’s home country Italy and Germany—have been invited to send official delegations to the funeral, but other national leaders and members of the royal family will attend in their personal capacities.

Despite being in the background over the past decade, Benedict has advanced on a variety of issues, often clashing with Francis’ more liberal views.

Among those paying their respects at St. Peter’s Basilica were hardline conservative leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki.

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“They own a lot [popes]said Marco Tosatti, a journalist from the Vatican. “he is [Benedict] He had a great influence and was loved by many people, as much as the newspapers hated him.”

In one of his most controversial articles, published in 2019, Benedict blamed the church’s sexual abuse scandals on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and “gay groups” among priests. His opinion came two months after an unprecedented Vatican summit on tackling clerical sexual abuse, and contrasted sharply with that of Pope Francis, who blamed the scandals on a clerical culture that elevated priests above the laity.

The results of a German investigation published last January that Benedict failed to take action against four priests accused of sexual abuse of children during his tenure as Archbishop of Munich and Freising.

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