Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI body lying in state at Vatican
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ’s body, his head resting on a pair of crimson pillows, lay in state in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday as thousands of people filed by to pay tribute to the pontiff who shocked the world by retiring a decade ago.
As daylight broke, 10 white-gloved Papal Gentlemen — lay assistants to pontiffs and papal households — carried the body on a cloth-covered wooden stretcher after its arrival at the basilica to its resting place in front of the main altar under Bernini’s towering bronze canopy.