Diocesan priests concelebrate pope's funeral

By Father Michael D. Hoye
Special to The Catholic Free Press

As a seminarian in Rome, my assignment for two years was offering pilgrims tours of St. Peter’s Basilica. This job made me familiar with elbowing my way through large tour groups to offer my flock some words on the sacred art. I was never surprised by human chaos in that holy space. When we visited Pope Benedict’s body as he lay before St. Peter’s tomb, however, there was a solemn and prayerful atmosphere. We came in droves through the usual security lines, but I never saw the universal Church pray for the dead as I did that morning.
On Jan. 5, we awoke very early to attend the papal funeral Mass. Despite weather forecasts for sun, the towering basilica was veiled by the clouds as if Michelangelo’s dome was mourning the loss of her leader yet again. We concelebrants waited two hours in the dew-ridden chairs before the Mass began, praying the rosary and reading some excerpts of Benedict’s finest works. When his coffin emerged, a thunderous applause came from the 50,000 in attendance.
While his wooden coffin lay for the last time in the open air, I silently read the first few paragraphs of Spe Salvi, his encyclical about hope, where he consoles the Church: “In our language we would say: the Christian message was not only ‘informative’ but ‘performative.’ That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known – it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life” (No. 2).
The golden cross atop St. Peter’s dome reflected the sun through the veiling fog three times. We sat in the clouds, and the cross triumphantly shone through. We sat with Pope Francis around the coffin in hope for Pope Benedict XVI not because of his holy life, not because of his theological genius, but because Jesus rose from the dead and offers us a share in his life.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux and St. Dominic both said they would be more help to us from heaven than from the world. With this same logic of grace, we hope for similar help from our beloved Pope Benedict XVI. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.


– Father Hoye, ordained a priest for the Worcester Diocese last June, is in Rome, doing graduate studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He was privileged to be a concelebrant at Pope Benedict’s funeral Mass.


By Father Lucas M. LaRoche
Special to The Catholic Free Press

The funeral of a pope is a rare enough occasion in the life of the Church; the funeral of a “pope emeritus” is something even rarer. On Thursday, Jan. 5, the Church celebrated this event: The funeral of Pope Benedict XVI who, having resigned the Petrine ministry in 2013 and spent nine years in quiet prayer for the Church, was called to his Father’s house on the last day of 2022.
Being among the 50,000 people who attended the funeral was a strange event; in many ways, we had been mourning the man who had been the vicar of Christ for some nine years before his passing. And yet, while it was not a surprise (owing to his frailty, which had been reported by Pope Francis in the previous days), the loss of our dear Pope Benedict was still a shock.
Looking back at the life of a man who had seen so much, it’s hard to put into a few words what his life was. He was, in retrospect, the singular figure of the Second Vatican Council: As a theologian he authored many of the conciliar documents and later as pope did much to lead the Church out of a divisive period that emerged after the Council. Add to this work hundreds of books, articles, and other publications and you have the image of a theologian of the highest caliber.
But, to those who knew him, he wasn’t a distant, scholarly figure, but a quiet, genuine man who took on an encouraging, grandfatherly role. He was soft-spoken and had a childlike joy that would often creep out when he was speaking with people. He was a man who genuinely believed all that he taught, someone who was as much a mystic as he was a scholar.
May he whom Benedict loved reward him for his faithful service.

 – Father Lucas LaRoche, ordained a priest for the Worcester Diocese in June 2021, is finishing the licentiate in patristic theology and the history of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He concelebrated Pope Benedict’s funeral Mass.