After the death of the former Pope Benedict XVI. The flags were set at half-mast on Saturday at the Reichstag building in Berlin. This was done in consultation with the Federal Ministry of the Interior, said a spokesman for the Bundestag on request.
Federal Ministry of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) ordered the national mourning flags to be displayed by the highest federal authorities on Saturday. The order applies to the day of his death and the day of the official funeral ceremonies in Rome, according to Faeser in Berlin.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) also ordered mourning flags to be displayed at all state offices in the Free State for today’s Saturday and the day of the funeral in honor of the deceased. The former Pope always remained very close to his Bavarian homeland.
The Catholic Church in Germany honored the deceased Pope with funeral bells in all churches. Not only the “Dicke Pitter”, the largest bell in Cologne Cathedral, loudly announced death. Also in cathedrals, parish churches and chapels, the death knells or the deepest bells should call for prayer for the former head of the church on Saturday.
In the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, for example, there is a ringing order. After receiving the death notice, all churches are to ring the church bells for 15 minutes on the next hour. This is to be repeated three days later at 4 p.m. On the day of the funeral, the bell should be rung again for 15 minutes at the end of the requiem and at the beginning of the burial ceremony
Condolence books are available in the Catholic cathedral churches, but also in the Marian pilgrimage town of Altötting and Joseph Ratzinger’s birthplace of Marktl am Inn. A portrait of Joseph Ratzinger is to be erected in the cathedrals of Bamberg and Regensburg.
People can also give their funeral notices online. Under the heading “God bless you, Pope Benedict XVI.” is on the website www.benedictusxvi.org an opportunity for digital expressions of condolences, which already has a number of entries.
The website of the German Bishops’ Conference set up its own mourning page where visitors can light a digital candle for the deceased.
Thousands of young people from all over Europe prayed for the deceased on Saturday afternoon in Rostock at a meeting of the Christian community of Taizé. According to the head of the community, Brother Alois, there was a “deep relationship” between Benedict and Taizé.
The Archdiocese of Berlin invites you to prayer. The Archdiocese explained that the deceased was already remembered during the end-of-year prayers in St. Josef im Wedding on Saturday. A requiem in St. John’s Basilica is being prepared for January 9 together with the Apostolic Nunciature.
A central funeral service for Benedict XVI. is not planned in Germany, according to Georg Bätzing, the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference. There have already been calls for prayer in many communities, Bätzing told journalists on Saturday. In many places, the bells rang at 12:00 p.m., and the deceased was commemorated in church services. “I don’t think it matters very much whether there is a central requiem or many prayer times.”
The Bishop of Limburg explained that there had already been contact with the nunciature in Berlin before the death. During the talks it became clear that it was important “to make a difference whether an incumbent pope dies or an emeritus who has been very secluded for ten years”.
After the death, some TV stations changed their programming. On New Year’s Eve, the first planned a ten-minute ARD “Focus: Mourning for Benedict XVI.”
From 7.35 p.m. on ZDF, the “ZDF special: Mourning for Benedict XVI” was included in the program (moderation: Antje Pieper) and a “heute-show” repetition was canceled for it. The television station Welt also included a special program on Saturday. Many other stations also changed their program or the order of the programs or switched live to St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
At the Four Hills Tournament of ski jumpers in Garmisch-Partenkirchen there was a minute’s silence after death. Joseph Ratzinger, who died on Saturday morning at the age of 95, was commemorated even before the qualification at the Great Olympic Hill on New Year’s Eve. Ratzinger was born in Upper Bavaria on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn. (with KNA, dpa)
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