The basilica was filled nearly to its capacity of 1,800, and drew about 275 priests, 60 bishops and archbishops, and four cardinals, including Cardinal Justin Rigali, Bevilacqua's retired successor.
Final rites began with a 20-minute procession of priests, prelates and seminarians escorting his closed coffin to the center of sanctuary beneath the basilica's great dome.
"I offer my heartfelt condolences to you and to all the faithful of the archdiocese," Pope Benedict XVI told the assemblage via a telegram read by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal legate to the United States.
Benedict cited Bevilacqua's "long-standing commitment to social justice and the pastoral care of immigrants," and his expert command of church law. He gave his blessing to the clergy of the diocese and to the members of Bevilacqua's large family, who filled four pews to the right of the casket.
Bevilacqua's large family was the centerpiece of the homily by Monsignor Louis D'Addezio's, who began by recalling the new archbishop's very first instructions.
"Lou," he told D'Addezio from Pittsburgh, where was then bishop, "I want a party for my family on the night I arrive in Philadelphia."
D'Addezio, then a pastor and the archdiocese's energetic event-organizer, rented the grand court of Philadelphia Museum of Art and hired Ferko String Band for the entertainment.
"The captain put his fancy headpiece on the archbishop's head - official photo taken - and the party began," said D'Addezio, who described it as the first of many family gatherings around the cardinal in the decades that followed.
"You brought nothing but joy to his life," said D'Addezio, who became one of the cardinal's closest friends and his assistant after he retired as archbishop.
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