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The Mausoleum of Pope Benedict XVI of His Highness St. Peter is now open for public viewing.
The pope was buried immediately after his funeral in St. Peter’s Square on January 5, and his tomb is located in the grotto below the cathedral’s main building.
The Vatican announced on Saturday that the public could visit the tomb starting Sunday morning.
Benedict has been pope emeritus since 2013, the first pope in 600 years to do so after he retired from the papacy.
He died on December 31 at the age of 95 at the Vatican monastery where he spent his final years.
On Thursday, his long-term secretary, Archbishop Georg Gainswein, gave his final blessing after Benedict’s body was encased in three coffins – at a funeral officiated by Pope Francis The cypress coffins displayed on the plaza, a zinc one, and an oak hewn from the outside – were lowered into a space on the floor.
His remains lie in the former tomb of Benedict’s predecessor, St. John Paul II. John Paul’s remains were moved to a chapel on the cathedral’s main floor after he was beatified in 2011.
Some 50,000 people attended Benedict’s funeral, which drew nearly 200,000 spectators three days after his body was laid in the cathedral.
The name of the Catholic Church’s 265th Pope, Benedict XVI, was inscribed on a white marble slab, the Vatican said.
The Vatican did not say whether Pope Francis visited the completed Benedict tomb privately before allowing the public to see it, or might do so at another time.
Francis presided over the christening of 13 babies in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday morning. The chapel, frescoed by Michelangelo, is the traditional site of the Baptism, which caps off the Vatican’s end-of-year ceremonies.
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