By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service Rome Bureau
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A quiet hush covered the vast expanse of St. Peter's Square Jan. 2, even though it was filled with thousands of people slowly winding their way around the colonnade into St. Peter's Basilica to pay their last respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI.
A damp chill hung in the air at 9 a.m. Rome time when the doors of the basilica opened to the public on the first of three days to view the pope's body.
Special accommodations, however, were made for officials of the Roman Curia, Vatican staff and dignitaries who were allowed access from the back of the basilica and offered a place to sit or kneel on either side of the pope's body, which was laid out in red vestments on a damask-covered platform.
Before the doors opened to the general public, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of the basilica and papal vicar for Vatican City State, accompanied Italian President Sergio Mattarella and his entourage, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other government ministers to pay homage to the late pope.
The first in line outside the basilica was a group of religious sisters from the Philippines, who said they got there at 5:30 a.m. Rome time.
People kept slowly arriving before sunrise, including a group from Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, led by Father Richard Kunst of Duluth. The priest told Catholic News Service that he was leading a tour of Rome the day Pope Benedict died.
Being able to see and pay homage to the late pope made the group part of "a really incredible piece of history," he said.
Father Kunst said he was "a big fan" of Pope Benedict and "not sad at his passing" since the 95-year-old pope had lived a long life and "this is what he lived for -- to be able to be with God."
Father Felipe de Jesús Sánchez, who is from Mexico and is studying in Rome, told CNS that he saw Pope Benedict as "a simple man, humble, a model, who didn't have as much fame as John Paul II, but he was the mind behind him.
"For me, in my personal opinion, he was an authentic testimony of what it means to be Christian and a disciple of Jesus," he said.
Father Matthew Schmitz was with a group of 90 young people from ECYD, an international Catholic youth organization affiliated with Regnum Christi.
"We were praying while we were waiting, we prayed the rosary" and went inside the basilica in silence, he told CNS.
Inside the basilica, staff and security kept visitors moving smoothly and quickly, letting people stop before the pope's remains long enough to make the sign of the cross and take a picture or two before being asked quietly to "Please, move along."
Pope Benedict's body remained in the basilica for three days until the late evening of Jan. 4; Pope Francis was scheduled to preside over the Jan. 5 funeral Mass.
Vatican police said that 40,000 people had already entered the basilica to pray by 2 p.m. Jan. 2.