Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would hardly have been human had emotion not surfaced at some point in his homily at the funeral Mass for Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square yesterday.
Head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine and with a formidable reputation as "God's Enforcer", he and the Pope had served long together. Six years younger than the Pope, he and the future John Paul II had both attended the Second Vatican Council as young theologians.
It is likely the cardinal, for his part, looks back on those days with some discomfort as, at the time, he was seen to be of a more moderate (dare one say "liberal"?) hue doctrinally.
Since then he has served the Pope at the Vatican, being prefect at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for over 20 years, where he has come to epitomise Catholic orthodoxy at its most firm.
Indeed, it is to him people point when considering less attractive aspects of Pope John Paul's papacy. He has been perceived as "bad cop" to the Pope's "good cop", - the "unbending one" to whom, some say, the letter of the law has more appeal than its spirit.
Yesterday, Pope John Paul was responsible for what will most likely be the cardinal's most public role ever.
As dean of the College of Cardinals, it fell to Cardinal Ratzinger to celebrate the Pope's funeral Mass before what was the largest television audience ever for such an event, and it also fell to him to deliver the homily.
He delivered the homily with expected ease, pausing briefly due to applause interrupting, until he reached the very last paragraph. And while his sermon was on the happy theme of Easter Sunday and what it has meant, it was what happened last Easter Sunday that shook his Teutonic reserve.
He recalled, "none of us can ever forget how in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi." Indeed, who could forget how that very ill and frail old man made such a superhuman effort to overcome his dying so he could do his duty by the faithful? Who would not be moved by his futile efforts to speak - the last magnanimous effort of the Great Communicator resulting in silence.
It was a tragedy which, as we have seen over recent days, moved the world and Cardinal Ratzinger yesterday. It also illustrated vividly the indomitable will and commitment of Pope John Paul, to the last.
"We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father," Cardinal Ratzinger continued, by way of consolation.
His homily was really a spiritual biography of Pope John Paul, book-ended and interspersed with reference to the Risen Lord and his injunction to the Pope's predecessor, Peter: "Follow me." Those were "the last words to this disciple, chosen to shepherd his flock," he said.
He recalled the Pope as a young man "thrilled by literature, the theatre, and poetry", not at the time usual in a young man who would become a priest. It was many decades later before priests were allowed attend the theatre.
Later in Karol Wojtyla's life, while "working in a chemical plant, surrounded and threatened by the Nazi terror, he heard the voice of the Lord: Follow me!", the cardinal said. Cardinal Ratzinger had some of that in common with Pope John Paul. He too grew up in the Nazi era, in Germany, and had been conscripted into the Hitler Youth as a teenager. His family were not Nazi supporters, but it meant that both he and Pope John Paul became aware while young of the evils of fascism, if from differing perspectives.
Karol Wojtyla studied secretly to become a priest and was ordained in 1946. The cardinal recalled later writings on the priesthood by Pope John Paul. These referred to three of Jesus's sayings which were to mark Pope John Paul's identity as a priest.
First was "you did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last". The second concerned the good shepherd and how he lays down his life for the sheep and, finally, that "as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love". In those sayings "we see the heart and soul" of the Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger said.
He "really went everywhere, untiringly, in order to bear fruit, fruit that lasts". He "roused us from a lethargic faith, from the sleep of the disciples of both yesterday and today". The Pope had been "a priest to the last". He had offered his life to God for his flock and for the entire human family, evident "especially amid the suffering of his final months".
"His love of words, of poetry, of literature, became an essential part of his pastoral mission and gave a new vitality, new urgency, new attractiveness to the preaching of the Gospel," he said.
And having "at an early age lost his own mother, [ he] loved his divine Mother all the more." The cardinal concluded "we entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the eternal glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen".
For Cardinal Ratzinger, too, yesterday was an Amen to a long companionship of latterly like minds.