The director of the Holy See Press Office, Matthew Bruni"With pain I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 am, in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican“. From the morning of Monday 2 January 2023, the body of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will be in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican for the greeting of the faithful.
He came from a shared family, with a policeman father and a cook mother, who soon left her job to devote herself to the family.
Ratzinger was born in Marktl am Inn, in the heart of very Catholic Bavaria, on April 16, 1927.
A refined theologian, a great scholar, he seemed not to be destined for a leadership role of this magnitude. Instead, since the days of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he had become one of the cardinals a point of reference for the whole Church in the world. Anyone who knew him closely reports of a great ability to listen that he maintained even in the years following his resignation, with the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery becoming a point of reference for all those who were looking for advice, a word, a blessing.
Master in preaching in an accessible way even on the most complex topics, in almost eight years of pontificate he met millions of people, made dozens of international trips and to Italy, wrote several encyclicals focusing on love and hope. He relaunched and renewed the Church's social doctrine, making it more in keeping with the difficult times of the world, between globalization and the growth of poverty, relativism and the raging ephemeral.
His numerous publications will remain in the history of the Church, starting with "Jesus of Nazareth" in several volumes. A portrait to show that faith is not a list of prohibitions but above all a relationship of friendship with God.
Benedict XVI, during his pontificate, has posed the themes of poverty and Africa, of young people, of ecumenism and of the proclamation of the faith to the by now secularized world. First she lifted the carpets to reveal the dust that had accumulated underneath: it is he who wanted to undertake the fight against pedophilia in the Church. He was still a cardinal (but in a few days he would succeed John Paul II on the throne of Peter) when in 2005, in the meditations of the Via Crucis at the Colosseum, he said bluntly: "How much filth there is in the Church, and precisely also among those who, in the priesthood, should belong completely to him!”.
After the first years in Marktl, he spent his adolescence in Traunstein; in the last months of the Second World War he had been drafted into the anti-aircraft auxiliary services, while he was ex officio a member of the Hitler Youth. A note that cost him many accusations and criticisms, despite being a 'normal' condition for Germany in those difficult years.
Having become a priest on June 29, 1951, he then took a doctorate in theology with a thesis on Saint Augustine and was enabled to teach with a work on Saint Bonaventure. He has taught at various universities in Germany: in Freising, Bonn, Muenster, Tübingen and Regensburg. He was also among the experts working alongside the bishops in the Second Vatican Council. In 77 Paul VI appointed him archbishop of Monaco and on 27 June created him cardinal.
He participated in the conclaves which in '78 elected Pope Luciani and Pope Wojtyla. In 1981 John Paul II appointed him Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was president of the commission for the preparation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, vice dean and then dean of the cardinals. He was elected Pope on April 19, 2005, on the fourth ballot. Finally, on 11 February 2013, the surprise decision to leave the Pontificate. Before him it is necessary to go back to Gregory XII on 4 July 1415, and even earlier to Celestine V on 13 December 1294, to find Popes who had made such a disruptive choice.
Two popes in the Holy City
The historic resignation of Benedict XVI, the first Pope to resign in six centuries - the last was Gregory XII in 1415 -, and his decision to stay and live in the Leonine City, albeit secluded in the former Mater Ecclesiae monastery, led to a situation truly unprecedented: for the first time in two thousand years of Church history two Popes found themselves coexisting in the Vatican.
Joseph Ratzinger, despite having abandoned the pontificate, did not want to be called “bishop emeritus of Rome”, as advised by some canonists, choosing by his own decision the denomination of "Pope emeritus" or "Roman Pontiff emeritus", also maintaining the white robe, albeit without a cape, and the title of "His Holiness".
However, the 'cohabitation' with his successor, Pope Francis - to whom he had promised "obedience" at the very moment of leaving the papacy at the end of February 2013 - was for some years without jolts, in publicly perfect harmony, absolutely free of interference in the government of the Church as of acts or declarations that could in any way cast doubt on the authority or decisions of the current Pontiff. To live “hidden from the world“, dedicated to study, meditation and prayer, was the intention announced by the outgoing Pope: a line he has always maintained, with 'Bavarian' discretion, interrupted only by a few public appearances, and in 2016 by a couple of interviews and above all from the release of the book-will, “Last conversations”, an extensive question and answer with the German journalist Peter Seewald who had already made “Light of the world” with him.
However, what constituted a 'case' – Ratzinger was already almost 93 years old – was the release in January 2020, first in France and then in Italy, of the book with the cardinal prefect for the Clergy, Robert Sarah, “From the bottom of our hearts”, text in which the two authors proclaimed their theses radically contrary to any innovation on priestly celibacy. There had just been the Synod on the Amazon, in which the bishops had voted by majority the possibility of forms of married priesthood, i.e. the conferral of the priesthood on married people, precisely to meet the pastoral needs in the impervious and endless Amazonian lands.
Pope Bergoglio he was then drafting the post-synodal exhortation and his decisions on the subject were awaited, so much so that the publication of the book together – Ratzinger, however, at a certain point removed his signature as co-author – seemed an attempt to condition the choices of the Pope in office. Attempt which, when tested, succeeded, since in hisQuerida Amazonia' Pope Francis chose not to open to any innovation on celibacy, referring to further elaborations and reflections.
For his part, Pope Francis has shown filial respect for his predecessor in every situation, also showing him closeness with frequent calls or visits.
“It's like having a wise grandfather at home”, he said several times to acknowledge the courage and support that gave him being able to have close to him the "wisdom" and '"experience", as well as the immense theological culture of the Pope Emeritus. To which he also acknowledged he opened with his courageous renunciation,"church government act“, a new road: precisely that of the “Popes emeritus”, who did not exist before, and who instead now, with the prolongation of life and with possible decisions similar to those of Ratzinger in moments in which advanced age and the weakening of strength pushed future Popes to resign, became a figure to be placed in account and also to be recognized canonically.
Among other things, Francis acknowledged to Pope Benedict that he was the one who had opened the fight without quarter against pedophilia, already carrying forward the 'Maciel case' (founder of the Legionaries of Christ) as a cardinal, against everything and everyone, when “he didn't have the strength to impose himself”.
This 'coexistence' of manifest harmony was underlined by repeated meetings: two images above all, that of 23 March 2013 when the newly elected Francesco went to visit Castel Gandolfo to the recently 'emeritus' Pope, who entrusted him with the box with the inquiryVatileaks' made by its three cardinals-007 Herranz, Tomko and De Giorgi, and that of 8 December 2015, the opening day of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, when Francis and Benedict XVI cross together, one after the other, the Holy Door of Saint Peter. However, it did not prevent the presence of the two Popes from fueling the nostalgia of the 'Ratzingerians' adverse to the innovations and reforms of the successor, of the various 'sedevacantists', who considered Benedict XVI's resignation invalid because it was not given freely, they also considered Bergoglio's election invalid due to a vote canceled due to the presence of an extra ballot.
In May 2016, the declarations of Ratzinger's secretary and prefect of the Pontifical Household, mgr. Georg Gaenswein, on the "extended (Petrine) ministry with an active and a contemplative member", who would see Benedict XVI "as if he had taken a step to the side to make room for his successor and for a new stage in the history of the Papacy". Somewhat explosive statements, which gave back, albeit briefly, no small amount of lifeblood to Bergoglio's detractors. But it was he, questioned the following month by journalists on the flight that brought him back to Rome from Armenia, who put an end to the controversy. “I heard – he said about the Pope emeritus -, that some went there to complain because 'this new Pope…', and he chased them away! In the best Bavarian style: polite, but he kicked them out ”. "But there is only one Pope", he added decisively, speaking of his predecessor as "this great man of prayer, of courage who is the Pope Emeritus – not the second Pope – who is faithful to his word and who is a man of God. He is very intelligent, and to me he is the wise grandfather at home”.
source Ansa