Funeral
German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be in Mainz tomorrow, 21 March, for the funeral of Cardinal Karl Lehmann. The website of the Diocese has released information on the celebration that will also be attended by Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner and the Presidents of some German länder. Numerous public and ecclesial authorities have confirmed their attendance. The celebration will be presided over by the Bishop of Mainz, Mgr. Peter Kohlgraf. Concelebrants will include Card. Gerhard L. Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Card. Friedrich Wetter, Archbishop Emeritus of Munich; and Card. Walter Kasper, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, together with about 30 German Bishops and French and Polish prelates (Mgr. Wiktor Skworc, Katowice). At the end of the celebration, the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany Nikola Eterović, the President of the German Bishops, Card. Reinhard Marx, and the President of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, will address the participants. The coffin of the Cardinal will reach the cathedral in a silent funeral procession that will depart at 2pm from the church of the seminary, where the corpse has remained these days. When St Martin’s bell tolls, the procession, with about 200 priests of the Diocese, the bishops, the members of the Mainz Chapter, will pass through the city centre. The Südwestrundfunk will broadcast the funeral live. The cardinal will rest in a grave in the Episcopal Cathedral.
