By: HighCelebritySquard
Pope Francis led the funeral of his predecessor Benedict XVI on Thursday in front of tens of thousands of mourners in St Peter’s Square, an event unprecedented in modern times.
Red-clad cardinals, dignitaries and thousands of priests and nuns from around the world gathered to say goodbye to the German theologian, who stunned the Catholic church in 2013 by becoming the first pontiff in six centuries to resign.
For the first time in modern history, the proceedings were led by a sitting pope, Francis, who delivered the homily in Italian as part of a multi-lingual service with a Latin mass.
“Benedict… may your joy be complete as you hear his (God’s) voice, now and forever!” the pontiff said in tribute to his predecessor, who died last Saturday aged 95.
At the end of the service, Francis made the sign of the cross over Benedict’s simple cypress wood coffin and bowed his head, before 12 besuited pallbearers carried it into St Peter’s Basilica.
Benedict will be interred in a tomb in the crypt beneath the basilica, where John Paul II’s body lay in state before it was moved for his beatification in 2011. He was made a saint in 2014.
Born Joseph Ratzinger, the ex-pope had not been a head of state for a decade, but world leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were among those in 
