Pallbearers carried Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s cypress coffin out of St. Peter’s Basilica and rested it before the altar in the piazza outside as red-robed cardinals looked on on Thursday.
Bells tolled and the crowd applauded as Benedict’s coffin was carried out ahead of the rare requiem Mass for a dead pontiff presided over by a living one.
Heads of state and royalty, clergy from around the world and thousands of faithful flocked to the Vatican, despite Benedict’s requests for simplicity and official efforts to keep the first funeral for a pope emeritus in modern times low-key.
