Mourners Bid a Quiet Farewell to Pope Benedict

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VATICAN CITY—The body of Pope Benedict XVI lay before the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, his head resting on a pair of velvet cushions, his face waxy and ashen, with rosary beads entwined through his folded hands. The twisting baroque columns of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s altar canopy towered behind.

The late pope, who retired in 2013, wore a bishop’s miter but, unlike his predecessor, St. John Paul II, when he lay in state, not the woolen cloak around his neck signifying papal office.

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