Joseph Ratzinger, 1927-2022
The Pope Emeritus has died at 95.
Washington Post (“Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned the papacy, dies at 95“):
The moment that transformed Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy — and perhaps his church — passed so quietly that it was initially missed.
The pontiff was closing what one reporter described as an “extremely banal,” routine ceremony with Vatican cardinals on Feb. 11, 2013, when he uttered, in Latin, that he had made “a decision of great importance for the life of the church.”
The white-haired, German-born theologian, then 85, said he had “repeatedly examined my conscience before God” and concluded that the modern world, “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith,” required a pope in better physical and intellectual condition. “My strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited” to the papacy.
Many people at the meeting did not understand Latin. Confused looks were swapped until the meaning seeped in. To Angelo Sodano, dean of the cardinals, Pope Benedict’s words came like “a bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky.” A reporter in the room began to cry.
Pope Benedict, 95, died Saturday in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. His death was announced by the Vatican.
The first resignation of the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church in 600 years would crystallize the full weight of the crises then battering the world’s largest Christian denomination. An intellectual giant and rock of moral certitude who had spent a lifetime defending the faith from outside forces, Pope Benedict would ultimately see his tenure as pope undone in large part by a rot within.
Documents leaked by his former butler to the Italian media would pull back a curtain on the Roman Curia, the Holy See’s bureaucracy accused of corruption and conniving behind Vatican walls. The Vatican bank faced mounting criticism over its opaque operations, leading foreign financial institutions to temporarily suspend credit transactions in the world’s smallest state.
Yet one challenge, which first emerged under his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, towered above all the others: the ongoing revelations of rampant sexual abuse by Catholic priests and decades-long efforts by the church hierarchy to cover it up. With his resignation, Pope Benedict, a figure dubbed “God’s Rottweiler” for his fierce protection of church dogma, seemingly conceded his very human limitations, and his inability to manage a church in the face of existential crises.
His decision to leave his post would demystify an office shrouded in transcendental authority, upending the papal role that at times had seemed in danger of losing relevance.
“We can reveal the face of the church and how this face is, at times, disfigured,” Benedict would say in his final homily as pope. “I am thinking in particular of the sins against the unity of the church, of the divisions in the body of the church.”
After being for decades the guardian of Vatican orthodoxy and a barricade against change — first as head of its doctrinal office, then as pontiff — Pope Benedict ended his run as a revolutionary.
New York Times (“Pope Benedict XVI Dies at 95“):
Pope Benedict XVI, the eminent German theologian and conservative enforcer of Roman Catholic Church doctrine who broke with almost 600 years of tradition by resigning and then living for nearly a decade behind Vatican walls as a retired pope still clad in white robes, died on Saturday at the age of 95, the Vatican said.
Just as Benedict’s resignation in 2013 shook the Roman Catholic church to its core, his death again put the institution in little-charted territory.
A pope’s death customarily sets in a motion a conclave to choose a new leader of the church, but Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, was named when Benedict stepped down. It was Francis who on Wednesday announced the news of Benedict’s final decline to the world.
Now, after a life dedicated to maintaining order and tradition in the church, Benedict in death has put it into a moment of uncertainty, with questions about how and in what capacity he will be mourned, and whether a living pope will preside over the funeral of a deceased one.
Whatever ceremonies the Vatican ultimately decides on, the loss of Benedict will be particularly hard felt by church conservatives.
Even before his election as pope on April 19, 2005, his supporters saw him as their intellectual and spiritual north star, a leader who, as a powerful Vatican official, upheld church doctrine in the face of growing secularism and pressure to change to get more people into the pews.
Benedict’s critics are more likely to remember him as a crusher of dissent who did far too little to address sexual abuse in the church, stumbled in some of his public declarations and lacked the charisma of his predecessor, John Paul II.
Francis fired or demoted many of Benedict’s appointees, redirected the church’s priorities and adjusted its emphasis from setting and keeping boundaries to pastoral inclusivity.
Still, in some regards, Francis built on Benedict’s legacy, especially in addressing the child sexual abuse crisis. Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims, and he apologized for the abuse that was allowed to fester under John Paul II. He excoriated the “filth” in the church and excommunicated some offending priests.
But abuse survivors and their advocates accused Benedict of having failed to go far enough in punishing several priests as a bishop in Germany, and in his handling of accusations against some priests as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office. He was also criticized as doing little to hold the hierarchy accountable for shielding — and so facilitating — child sexual abuse.
Reuters (“Former Pope Benedict dies aged 95“):
Former Pope Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down, died on Saturday aged 95 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican where he had lived since his resignation, a spokesman for the Holy See said.
“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” the spokesman said in a written statement.
The Vatican said his body will lie in state from Monday in St.Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis disclosed during his weekly general audience that his predecessor was “very sick”, and asked for people to pray for him.
For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict was the powerful head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, then known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
Conservatives in the Church have looked to the former pope as their standard bearer and some ultra-traditionalists even refused to acknowledge Francis as a legitimate pontiff.
They have criticised Francis for his more welcoming approach to members of the LGBTQ+ community and to Catholics who divorced and remarried outside the Church, saying both were undermining traditional values.
Ratzinger will be better regarded as a theologian than Benedict will as Pope. His precedent of stepping down when no longer up to the job, though, is one that should obviously be followed not just by his successors but by leaders in all walks of life. While there is some mystical quality to a pope or monarch suffering in quiet dignity until they draw their last breath, it makes much more sense to hand over the reins to someone in better health and with more mental and physical energy.
Despite the big whitewashing efforts now that he has died, he remains a guy who will be forever tied to the horrific mismanagement of Catholic clergy sexually abusing – raping – children, and done so by men of authority in their communities. His actions and inactions negatively affected thousands of children worldwide.
The world is a safer place without him.
Aging, decline, and disability are universal features of human life. It is strange that a big organization would not have in place policies to address what happens to everybody. I am not a Catholic, and they don’t have to run according to my thinking about organizational structure. I guess that they believe that they have an in place bureaucracy that can run without input from the top guy.
It should not be forgotten that Ratzinger was a leading culture warrior within the Catholic Church. A man that viewed success even if resulted in a smaller more conservative church.
I wonder how many years will have to pass before we learn exactly what information was presented to this man along with the choice of stepping down as Pope or having it revealed to the world.
@wr: We know enough already. When he was a Cardinal in Germany he was present at a meeting where the case of a priest who had abused young children in several parishes was discussed. It was decided to move him to a new parish and, of course, not tell anyone of his past. When this came out his handlers claimed that although he was in the room, he hadn’t been listening when this was going on because he was concerned with so many other things.
Ratzinger seems to have skipped a few lessons on love, forgiveness and seeking forgiveness. If that is better regarded as a theologian, the Church has some problems.
For all Francis’s flaws — and they are many, as anyone running a massive child sex abuse ring will have, even if they are trying to reform it from within — he seems to understand that love and forgiveness require more than empty words.