Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s final words before his death have been revealed.
Pope Benedict XVI, who served as leader of the Catholic church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2005 until his resignation in 2013, died on Saturday aged 95.
Benedict died at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery inside the Vatican gardens, which had been his home for the past decade.
News of his passing came just three days after his successor, Pope Francis, issued a statement to the world saying that Pope Benedict was gravely ill.
According to his longtime secretary, his last words were heard by a nurse, before he died on Saturday.
Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, a German prelate who lived in the Vatican monastery said that Pope Benedict's last words were, “Lord, I love you".
Archbishop Gaenswein said that a nurse who was aiding the 95-year-old heard him mutter the words, as he made a short statement at about 3am, before passing later that morning, on New Year's Eve.
Gaenswein told the Vatican’s official media on Sunday: “Benedict XVI, with a faint voice but in a very distinct way, said in Italian, ‘Lord, I love you'.
“I wasn’t there in that moment, but the nurse a little later recounted it.
“They were his last comprehensible words, because afterwards, he wasn’t able to express himself any more.”
The Vatican reported that Pope Francis paid his respects to the former Pope, right after Gaenswein called to inform him that Benedict had died a little after 9.30am.
Francis prayed for Benedict’s passage to heaven, and said: “Today we entrust to our Blessed Mother our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, so that she may accompany him in his passage from this world to God."
Meanwhile, The Vatican announced that Francis would preside at Benedict’s funeral in St Peter’s Square on Thursday, at 9.30am, local time.
In line with Benedict’s wishes, his funeral will be “simple,” the director of the press office of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, has said.
From Monday, his body will lie at St Peter’s Basilica for three days, where tens of thousands of visitors are expected to pay their last respects.
A long line of the faithful and other well wishers was already seen forming early on Monday morning, before the official viewing began at 9am, Rome time.
The Vatican on Sunday released photos of his corpse, dressed in red papal mourning robes and wearing a gold-edged mitre on his head, on a catafalque in the monastery chapel.
His body was perviously displayed, on Sunday, in a chapel of the Vatican monastery where he lived.
