Novemdiales
After the Rite of Interment, nine official days of mourning began. The devotional called novemdiales features a Mass of Requiem on each of the nine days at St. Peter's Basilica. Several cardinals were chosen by Cardinal Ratzinger to have the honour of presiding over each Mass. One of the most controversial honourees was Bernard Francis Law, Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, scheduled to preside a novemdiales on April 11. During his tenure as Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law was accused of having mishandled cases of sexual abuse at the hands of diocesan priests. The event sparked the nationwide Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in the dioceses of the United States.
Several members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) flew to Rome to protest saying Cardinal Law's place of honor was painful to sexual abuse victims and embarrassing to Catholics. Just as the group's members arrived at St. Peter's Basilica, led by founder Barbara Blaine, police officers escorted them outside the confines of St. Peter's Square. Blaine was unable to pass out fliers to people walking into the Mass offered by Cardinal Law.
Blaine had earlier told reporters in a press conference, "We are the sons and daughters of the Catholic family who were raped, sodomized and sexually molested by priests. At this time, we should be able to focus on the Holy Father's death, instead of Cardinal Law's prominence." The College of Cardinals responded by stating that Cardinal Law was honoured as a matter of his being the ordinary of one of the most important basilicas of the Roman Catholic Church.
The 14 April novemdiales Mass at St. Peter's Basilica replaced traditional hymns and prayers with those of the Maronite Rite, one of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, presided over the Mass. It was the first time a cardinal patriarch of an Eastern Catholic Church offered a novemdiales Mass, in his own rite, for a pope.
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