“Lord, I love you” were the last words spoken by the emeritus pope Benedict XVI before dying on Saturday morning, according to one of the nurses who attended him that night.
The nurse in question has reported this to the personal secretary of Joseph RatzingerMonsignor Georg Gänswein, as reported today by the official media of the Holy See, “Vatican News”.
Around three in the morning, six hours before he died at the age of 95, Benedict XV He was seriously ill but not yet dying and a nurse assured that he heard him pronounce the phrase “Lord, I love you” in Italian, since he does not speak German, according to the same source.
“Benedict XVI, with a small voice, but in a distinguishable way, said in Italian ‘Lord, I love you'”. I wasn’t there at the time, but the nurse told me later. These were his last comprehensible words because followingwards he was no longer able to express himself ”, refers the German monsignor, a close collaborator of the emeritus pontiff.
The Holy See has published a spiritual testament that Ratzinger wrote on August 29, 2006 and in which, among other things, he asks “from the bottom of my heart for forgiveness” from those he may have harmed throughout his life.
The funeral chapel of the emeritus pope, retired since his historic resignation in 2013, will open tomorrow Monday and continue until Wednesday, while his funeral will be presided over on Thursday by Francisco, his successor since then.
