Thousands view Benedict XVI’s body at Vatican

VATICAN CITY  — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ‘s body, his head resting on a pair of crimson pillows, lay in state in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday as tens of thousands queued to pay tribute to the pontiff who shocked the world by retiring a decade ago.

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’s viewing, some 65,000 persons had passed by the bier, the Vatican said.

As daylight broke, 10 white-gloved Papal Gentlemen — lay assistants to pontiffs and papal households — 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’s towering bronze canopy.

A Swiss Guard saluted as Benedict’s 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, 95-year-old former pontiff died on Saturday morning.

His longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, and a handful of consecrated laywomen who served in Benedict’s household, followed the van by foot for a few hundred yards in a silent procession toward the basilica.

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

Just after 9 a.m., 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, who retired from the papacy in 2013 — the first pope to do so in 600 years.

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’s Square.

Filippo Tuccio, 35, said he came from Venice on an overnight train to view Benedict’s body.

“I wanted to pay homage to Benedict because he had a key role in my life and my education,” Tuccio said.

Public viewing was set for 10 hours on Monday, and 12 hours each on Tuesday and Wednesday before Thursday morning’s funeral, which will be led by Pope Francis, at St. Peter’s Square.