Benedict XVI entered history for acknowledging that he did not feel strong enough to continue leading the Catholic Church
Benedict XVI earned a place in history not because of what he did, but because of what he failed to do. His honesty in acknowledging on February 28, 2013 that he felt unable to continue as Pope – “I no longer have the strength”, he confessed in Latin – and resigning from the pontificate, an unprecedented gesture in the last six centuries, marked a milestone in the Church. Catholic and opened the door for his successors, starting with Francisco himself – who has already confessed his numerous ailments, such as his knee ailments that have even led him to appear in public in a wheelchair -, can follow his example. This humanization of the position is the greatest contribution left by the elderly pope emeritus, who died at the age of 95 in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, located inside the Vatican and where he has lived since his resignation became effective after a brief period in the Palace. Apostolic of Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the Popes located on the outskirts of Rome and today converted into a museum.
Although it could not be unexpected due to his high age and the weakness of his last years – he added hypertension, osteoarthritis and three vascular accidents when he announced that he was leaving the staff – the death of Joseph Ratzinger comes somewhat by surprise, since it was not expected knowledge that he suffered from any serious illness nor had he recently had to be hospitalized. However, in one of his last public communications, the letter he sent in October 2021 to an Austrian monastery where a former teacher friend of his who lived there died, he wrote: «Now he has reached the afterlife, where many friends surely await him. . I look forward to joining them soon.”
Benedict XVI was not the first Pope to resign. In 1294, Celestine V left the Apostolic See anguished by the weight of his position and the Vatican intrigues and ended up being buried in the city of L’Aquila, in central Italy, where Ratzinger traveled in 2009 after the earthquake that shook it. . He then took the opportunity to visit the tomb of Celestino V, remember his figure and leave his stole as a gift. It was something that none of his predecessors had done until then and that would end up uniting the figure of both. Between Celestine V and Benedict XVI, the only bishop of Rome who also left office was Gregory XII in 1415.
the scandals
The German Pope himself took it upon himself to dispel the rumors about the scandals that supposedly led to his resignation. It was in a conversation with the Italian newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’ published in March 2021, when it was eight years since his departure became effective. “It was a difficult decision, but I made it with full awareness and I think I did well. Some of my slightly ‘fan’ friends are still angry and have not wanted to accept my decision. I think about the conspiracy theories that followed,” he recounted.
Thus, he rejected the possible influence of a possible “gay lobby conspiracy”, the cases of pedophilia that dotted the Church and to which Ratzinger stood up, the financial intrigues – the president of the Vatican bank resigned, filed to clean up the entity -, and the Vatileaks scandal -the leak between January and May 2012 of dozens of internal documents that revealed intrigues and power games-. It was a tremendous blow to the image of the Vatican, and one that was launched from within. His butler, Paolo Gabriele, ‘Paoletto’, was arrested and accused of being the ‘mole’ among the ‘ravens’.
“They don’t want to believe that this is a conscious decision. I have a clear conscience,” Ratzinger said then, making it clear that he was not willing to allow himself to be manipulated by the sector of the Catholic Church uncomfortable with Francis’ pontificate. “There are not two Popes. Papa there is only one».
The death of Benedict XVI was confirmed by his personal secretary, the German Archbishop Georg Ganswein, the man who has accompanied him in recent years in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery together with the Memores Domini, the four women belonging to this lay association of Communion and Liberation who were in charge of their personal care. Almost blind, with barely a voice and needing a walker to be able to walk, the Pope emeritus spent his last years without leaving the Vatican monastery, where he received visits with droppers so as not to tire him. His last trip took place in June 2020, when he took a plane to go to Germany and say goodbye to his brother Georg, a priest like him and who died a month later at the age of 97.
The last visit he received at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery of which there is news before his worsening state of health took place on December 1, when the last winners of the Ratzinger Prizes, professors Michel Fédou, a priest, came to see him. Jesuit, and Jewish scholar Joseph Halevi Horowitz Weiler. They were accompanied by the president of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, the Jesuit Federico Lombardi, who served as the German pope’s spokesman for most of his nearly eight-year pontificate. In the photograph distributed at that meeting he was seen accompanied by Weiler, Lombardi and a smiling Ganswein.
Although he has been emeritus for the last decade, Ratzinger died being the second longest-lived bishop of Rome in history, surpassed only by Agathon, a seventh-century pontiff whose death came after having exceeded a century of life. The Vatican has not yet made public the details of the funeral or when it will be held, but sources from the Holy See explained to this newspaper that the ceremony has been prepared for years, with the office of the Pope’s Master of Liturgical Celebrations in charge of this unprecedented task. The obsequies would be an intermediate point “between those of a cardinal and those of a reigning Pope,” the same media commented.
During his brief pontificate, Benedict XVI made three official trips to Spain, which he saw as “in need of a re-evangelization.” Benedict XVI was committed to recovering the Christian roots of Europe, which in his opinion were in danger, so that countries that have turned their backs on religion can recover their faith. In this task, Spain was a strategic bridgehead, above all, due to its cultural influence in Latin America, where the lean part of world Catholicism is located. Hence the forcefulness of that phrase, pronounced on the plane that took him to Santiago de Compostela in November 2010: a pilgrimage destined to “revitalize a faith that the Spanish carry in their blood.”
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