At 95 years old, Benedict XVI has already survived his presumed death twice. The last one took place last week, when a false Twitter account of Georg Bätzing, bishop of Limburg and president of the German Episcopal Conference, reported the alleged death of the pope emeritus.
(Read: The status of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the false news of his death)
this fake news joined the rumor that emerged two years ago when a false profile on social networks of Cardinal Juan José Omella, archbishop of Barcelona and president of the Spanish episcopate, gave the alleged news of the unfounded death.
(You are interested in: Could Pope Francis resign due to his health problems?)
In both cases it was a planetary hoax orchestrated by the Italian journalist Tommasso Debenedettilover of appropriating other people’s identities in social networks and placing invented interviews with writers and other personalities in the media.
Debenedetti has achieved an enormous reach with his lies. Even former Mexican President Felipe Calderón came to mourn the death of Joseph Ratzinger these days, although he later acknowledged that he had been deceived, like so many others.
I regret having followed the news (now I know that it is not confirmed) of the death of Benedict XVI. I reiterate the virtues of deep thought, humility and wisdom that I said of him and my gratitude for his visit to Mexico when I had the honor of being President. I pray for his health.
– Felipe Calderón 🇺🇦 (@FelipeCalderon) July 12, 2022
The credibility of the hoax is explained in part by the delicate health of the pope emeritus, who has been residing in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery for nine years, located within the Vatican walls and where he retired to live “hidden from the world” once his pontificate ended. .
There he dedicates himself mainly to prayer and study under the care of his faithful personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, who has accompanied him for 26 years, and the four consecrated lay women who are part of Memores Domini, the international association of faithful emerged within the Communion and Liberation movement.
The latest official news about the health of the former pontiff was offered by his successor, Pope Francis, in the interview he gave this week to the Univision News channel Vix 24/7.
In his conversation with Mexican journalists María Antonieta Collins and Valentina Alazraki, Jorge Mario Bergoglio assured that his predecessor “supports the Church with his goodness and his retirement” and that “he is quietly praying and still studying.
The Argentine pope said that he goes to visit him on important dates or when there is a consistory, such as the one he will preside over at the end of August, and on those occasions he introduces the new cardinals, whom Ratzinger receives “smiling and with his bright eyes ”.
As Bergoglio explained, Benedict XVI, who has to use a wheelchair to get around, speaks “very softly and it is not easy to understand him”, so Ganswein’s help is needed to know what he is saying.
The personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus himself indirectly contributed to increasing public opinion’s concern about the health of the German Pontiff by not being able to contain his emotion on several occasions in the speech he made on June 18 at a meeting organized by the Joseph Ratzinger-Pope Benedict XVI Foundation.
On that occasion, a tearful Ganswein affirmed that the pope emeritus had become “a very old man, physically frail, but whose mind and eyes, thank God, are still awake and bright.”
He also commented that recent years had “exhausted his strength” and showed that Benedict XVI has never lost his peculiar sense of humor.
In fact, he likes to say that he had never thought “that the path between the Mater Ecclesiae monastery and the gates of paradise would be so long”.
It was a difficult moment amplified by the media. This situation created suffering. And it is necessary to point out that none of the accusations are grounded
In an interview published last April by the weekly Oggi on the occasion of the pope emeritus’s 95th birthday, Ganswein offered some additional details about his state of health and how he spends his days.
“He is physically weak, but his mind works very well. He is methodical and the way he spends his days has not changed in this last period. In the morning he concelebrates mass at 7:30. Then he is on the couch listening to music. He has now recovered the habit of taking a walk in the Vatican Gardens, ”explained the German archbishop, former prefect of the Papal Household.
Ganswein then confessed that he is linked to Ratzinger by a “personal, as well as professional bond” and acknowledged the bitterness that the publication, last February, of a report on pederasty in the German Church in which it is stated that when Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich and Freising, between 1977 and 1982, he knew of the existence of some cases of sexual abuse of young people and minors, but he did not act forcefully enough against the perpetrators.
He was also defended by the Jesuit Federico Lombardi, who was his spokesman during the pontificate and who now chairs the Joseph Ratzinger-Pope Benedict XVI Foundation.
Lombardi clarified that, unlike Saint John Paul II, Ratzinger does not live old age “in the obvious suffering of illness”, but in “prayer, meditation, dialogue with Jesus Christ and the serene acceptance of growing fragility, despite waiting to meet loved ones in eternal life.”
What did Benedict do?
Joseph Ratzinger was elected on April 19, 2005 as pope after the death of John Paul II, by the cardinals who voted in the conclave.
But, on February 28, 2013, he resigned from the papacy assuming the title of pope emeritus, with the intention of dedicating himself to prayer and spiritual retreat.
His resignation was announced by himself days before, on February 11, becoming an exceptional decision in the history of the Catholic Church since, although the closest Supreme Pontiff who resigned from the papacy was Gregory XII (1415), the precedent of Celestino V (1294) is the only one that can be assured that it was freely and voluntarily.
His election immediately generated some criticism, centered on his alleged neoconservative profile. He was also accused of wishing to restore the organization and doctrine of the Church to the one he had before the Second Vatican Council.
Some analysts anticipated that with him the Church would harden its positions regarding the prohibition of abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia or the use of contraceptive methods.
His supporters argue that during his prefecture only one of the open processes ended in excommunication: that of the ultra-conservative Archbishop Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre and they stressed that during the Second Vatican Council he was one of the most progressive and proposed innovative reforms.
The pope emeritus also faced controversy earlier this year when a report came to light from an investigation commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich into hundreds of allegations of sexual assault that occurred within that institution between 1945 and 2019.
The report concluded that Benedict XVI had knowledge of at least four cases of abuse against minors, committed by religious under his hierarchy when he served as archbishop of Munich and Freising between 1977 and 1982, and did nothing about it.
The report’s authors accused Ratzinger of failing to punish or expose accused priests, even after they were criminally convicted.
The pope emeritus acknowledged that there were “mistakes” in handling sexual assault cases when he was archbishop of Munich and asked for forgiveness, but stressed that he did not commit any crime. As of September 2020, Benedict XVI is the longest-serving pontiff in the modern history
Darius Minor
Correspondent THE TIME
Rome Italy
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