Benedict XVI news: Vatican gives update on former Pope’s condition

Catholic church leaders from Germany, Italy and the United States have joined in Pope Francis’s call to pray for former Pope Benedict’s health.

German cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Municht, told churchgoers on Wednesday: “This morning I received the news that there is great concern in Rome about the health of the Pope Emeritus. And so we especially want to include him in our prayers.”

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of Italy’s bishops conference, asked Italians to keep Benedict in their thoughts “in this moment of suffering and trial”.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, said in a statement: “With great faith in God’s goodness, I join with Pope Francis in praying for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and ask the Catholic faithful of the Archdiocese of New York, and all people of good will go do the same.”

Former Pope Benedict currently lives in the Vatican, following his resignation from the position in 2013.

But what has Pope Francis said about his retirement?

The 85-year-old pontiff said in July that he would not live in the Vatican, or go back to his home-country Argentina, if he retired. He said he would prefer to find a church in Rome where he could continue hearing confessions.

He said he was not planning on retiring soon but said that “the door is open”.

Speaking about the role Benedict still plays, Francis said that having him on-hand has gone well but that the Vatican would need to better regulate the role of emeritus pope in the future.

There has been some internal criticism about the choices made by Benedict in his retirement, such as his decision to still wear the white cassock of the papacy and his refusal to revert back to his birth name, Joseph Ratzinger.

Francis said that Benedict was a “saintly and discreet man”, but added: “In the future, things should be delineated more, or things should be made more explicit. I think for having taken the first step after so many centuries, he gets 10 points. It’s a marvel.”

19 April 2005 – German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, is elected to succeed Pope John Paul II as the 265th leader of the Roman Catholic Church. He chooses the name Benedict XVI.

9-14 September 2006 – The Pope visits his Bavarian homeland. He sparks protests from the Muslim world with a speech quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor who said Islam had only brought evil to the world and was spread by the sword.

Days later, Benedict says he was “deeply sorry” about Muslim reaction to his speech, which he says was misunderstood.

28 November – 1 December 2006 – Papal trip to Turkey is a fence-mending visit including prayers with Istanbul’s grand mufti facing Mecca at the city’s Blue Mosque.

7 July 2007 – Pope issues a declaration allowing the old Latin Mass to be celebrated more widely, a demand of church traditionalists.

5 February 2008 – Pope changes a Latin prayer for Good Friday services by traditionalist Catholics, deleting a reference to Jews and their “blindness” but still calling for them to accept Jesus.

24 January 2009 – Pope causes uproar by lifting excommunications of four ultra-traditionalist bishops, including a Holocaust denier.

6 November 2010 – Benedict arrives in Spain for a two-day visit. He attacks abortion and gay marriage, recently legalised in Spain, in a Mass to consecrate Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church in another pointed criticism of what he called Spain’s “aggressive secularism”.

25 July 2011 – The Vatican recalls its ambassador to Ireland following an unprecedented rebuke of the Holy See by the Irish parliament in the wake of a report that accused church authorities of covering up sexual abuse.

2012 – Through the year, Benedict’s papacy is shaken by a scandal dubbed “Vatileaks” in which leaked documents show infighting among Benedict’s aides and general dysfunction at the heart of the Church’s central administration, known as the Curia.

The scandal exposed financial corruption and allegations about the existence of a so-called “gay lobby” that used blackmail to protect its members.

6 October 2012 – A Vatican court finds Benedict’s former butler guilty of stealing sensitive documents and sentences him to a year and a half in prison.

Paolo Gabriele said he had acted out of “visceral” love for the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. Benedict later pardoned Gabriele and the Vatican later found him a job in a hospital. Gabriele died in 2020.

11 Febuary 2013 – Benedict announces his intention to resign, saying he no longer has the physical and mental strength to run the Church. The surprise announcement shocks a meeting of cardinals.

28 February 2013 – Benedict formally steps down, moving temporarily to the papal summer residence south of Rome, and later moving to a former convent inside the Vatican gardens, with his secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, and other aides and medical staff.

20 January 2022 – An independent report in Germany alleges Benedict failed to act against four cases of sexual abuse in his archdiocese when he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982. Benedict later acknowledges errors occurred and asks for forgiveness.

28 December 2022 – His successor, Pope Francis, calls for prayers for the former pontiff saying Benedict is “very sick”.

Former pope Benedict, who Pope Francis said on Wednesday was “very sick”, resigned in 2013, the first pontiff in 600 years to take such a step rather than rule for life.

For nearly 25 years, the former pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was the powerful head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). As a theological conservative, Mr Ratzinger left Germany and his post as archbishop of Munich in 1982 to head the CDF.

His disciplining of Latin American priests who promoted Marxist-influenced Liberation Theology bestowed him with the sobriquet “God’s Rottweiler”.

The Catholic Archbishop of Westminster has said that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will be remembered as “one of the great theologians of the 20th century”, as the 95-year-old former pontiff’s health worsens.

Speaking on Times Radio, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said: “I met Pope Benedict on quite a number of occasions, and he was a very sensitive, a very thoughtful person, who was a great theologian.

“He will be remembered as one of the great theologians of the 20th century.

“But he was always so courteous. When he came to this country in 2011 he was described as ‘God’s Rottweiler’, but by the time he left I think he was considered to be everybody’s great uncle.

“There was a real gentleness about him, and when I saw him just over a year ago, September last year, that hadn’t changed. He was very very weak, but very bright and very alert and very with it.

“It’s not surprising that his life would appear to be coming to an end, he is 95 and he has been poorly for quite a long time.”

The Catholic Archbishop of Westminster has said he believes that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s historic decision to resign from his post due to advancing age in 2013 will remain “an exception”.

Speaking on Times Radio, Cardinal Vincent Nichols also described the “great affinity” between the former pope and the late Queen, and his admiration for her continuing royal duties until the end.

On the former pope Benedict resigning his post, he said: “This is the first time in 600 years, so who knows what might develop. I think it will remain an exception myself.

“I think there was a great affinity between Pope Benedict and her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” he added.

“When Benedict decided to come to this country, he decided that the first thing he had to do was visit the Queen. And she was 95, she held her office to the end and I think he admired that very much.

“It was a measure of his self-understanding and the difficulties he was getting into physically as well that he said no, it needs somebody else to do this.”

People in Pope Benedict XVI’s Bavarian homeland prayed Thursday for the retired pontiff, a favorite son of the region even 40 years after he left Germany for the Vatican and nearly a decade after his resignation stunned the world.

At the St. Oswald church in the small town of Marktl am Inn, where a future pope named Joseph Ratzinger was baptized more than 95 years ago, Sandra Maier, the lay head of the local congregation, put up a framed picture of Benedict, lit a red candle and arranged a small pew so parishioners could kneel and pray for him.

Maier, who was also baptized at the church, said she was “shaken and deeply moved by the news” from the Vatican on Wednesday that Benedict’s health had deteriorated. “I wish for him to have an easy time now and not suffer so much,” she said.

“We are proud here in Marktl that we have a Bavarian pope,” Maier, 50, said, recalling the two times she met him personally. “He’s a good man and was a great pope”

The German Catholic Church’s leadership called for prayers for Benedict after the Vatican’s announcement. “Pope Benedict XVI has prayed for us these many years; now let us pray for him,” said Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, a city where Ratzinger taught at the university in the 1970s.

Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, the diocese where Marktl is located, said Benedict was alert but physically very weak when he saw him in November. “If he is now getting even weaker, it is easy to imagine that he is on the last stretch of his earthly way,” Oster said. “Please all accompany him in prayers.”

The Vatican said Thursday that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was lucid, conscious and stable, but that his condition remains serious a day after officials revealed that the 95-year-old’s health had deteriorated recently.

A statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Pope Francis asks for continued prayers “to accompany him in these difficult hours.”

Read the full story here:

Former pope Benedict, who Pope Francis said on Wednesday was “very sick”, resigned in 2013, the first pontiff in 600 years to take such a step rather than rule for life.

For nearly 25 years, the former pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was the powerful head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). As a theological conservative, Mr Ratzinger left Germany and his post as archbishop of Munich in 1982 to head the CDF. His disciplining of Latin American priests who promoted Marxist-influenced Liberation Theology bestowed him with the sobriquet “God’s Rottweiler”.

Despite his reputation as a hardliner, his eight-year papacy was marked by missteps and scandal. He admitted a “lack of resolve in governing and decision taking.”

Read our profile of Pope Benedict from reporter Thomas Kingsley here: