Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Has Died at the Age of 95
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has died on the morning of December 31, 2022, at the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae Monastery as confirmed by the Vatican Press.
His Holiness Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had declared his resignation on February 11, 2013, as his holiness read his letter in latin stating: “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”
He was thus the first pope to resign in 600 years, which many found to be a shocking decision.
Before his official resignation, on February 14, 2013, His Holiness made an address to the Clergy in Rome where he stated “I myself, secluded in prayer, will always be with you and together let us go forward with the Lord in the certainty that the Lord will conquer.”
On February 28, 2013, His Holiness concluded his farewell address with these words: “May the Lord show you the one whom he wants. And among you, in the College of Cardinals, there is also the future pope to whom today I promise my unconditional reverence and obedience. For this reason, with affection and gratitude, I cordially impart to you the Apostolic Blessing.”
After his resignation, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI moved to Castel Gondolfo, the Vatican summer residence, and shortly after he moved to the Monastery of Mater Ecclesiae in the Vatican City where he stayed until his death on December 31.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI lived a life of silence, contemplation and prayer, such as a “voluntary monastic life”, he was not though isolated from people, as he used to welcome visitors, read books, listened to music and played the piano, stated by His Holiness’s personal secretary Archbishop Georg Ganswein.
In February of 2019, after Pope Francis has called for a bishops’ conference at the Vatican to discuss the shocking crisis of revelations of clerical abuses against minors, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI wrote an article addressing this crisis, “Since I myself had served in a position of responsibility as shepherd of the Church at the time of the public outbreak of the crisis, and during the run-up to it, I had to ask myself – even though, as emeritus, I am no longer directly responsible – what I could contribute to a new beginning.” Further, in the same article he shared “A society without God – a society that does not know Him and treats Him as non-existent – is a society that loses its measure.”
In 2020, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI along with Cardinal Robert Sarah published a book titled “From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church” in which pope Benedict XVI shared “We thought in particular about the priests. Our priestly hearts wished to strengthen them, to encourage them.”
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI entered his ministry humbly, stating he was a “humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord”, and he lived the last decade of his life after stepping down from the petrine ministry in humility, working silently in the Lord’s vineyard, the Church.
He will be remembered always as a significant figure in the Church and a man of great zeal.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may Your perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Source: ACI MENA
