Today, this should be precisely Christianity’s philosophical strength, in so far as the problem is whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is not other than a ‘sub-product,’ on occasion even harmful of its development – or whether the world comes from reason, and is, as a consequence, its criterion and goal … In this connection, the Enlightenment is of Christian origin and it is no accident that it was born precisely and exclusively in the realm of the Christian faith. In the discussion with secularism and rationalism, one of Benedict’s basic ideas can be found in his address on the “Crisis of Culture” in the West, a day before Pope John Paul II died, when he referred to Christianity as the “religion of the Logos” (the Greek for “word”, “reason”, “meaning”, or “intelligence”). And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego.

His papacy testifies to both a scholarly churchman, having extensively studied theology and philosophy, and pastoral sensitivity. Benedict served his final day as pope on February 28, 2013. Ratzinger defended and reaffirmed Catholic doctrine, including teaching on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and interreligious dialogue. He was known for his rigid views on Catholicism, including on the topics of birth control and homosexuality, but sought a more inclusive image as the leader of the Catholic faith. The Vatican also denounced as “false and calumnious” the charge that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Benedict had been responsible for a policy of covering up cases of sexual abuse, declaring that his handling of the cases showed “wisdom and firmness.”

• Benedict’s writings were prolific and generally defended traditional Catholic doctrine, values, and liturgy.
• Following the death of Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns in December 2016, Benedict became the last living person appointed cardinal by Pope Paul VI.
• The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience.
• Caritas in veritate makes a case for the charitable distribution of wealth in considerable detail and discusses the environment, migration, terrorism, sexual tourism, bioethics, energy and population.
• Further, he declared that one of the goals of his papacy would be to revitalize the Catholic church in Europe.

In 2008, Benedict made his first visit as pope to the United States, where he spoke out against clerical sexual abuse and delivered an address at the United Nations. In 2022 a report commissioned by the archdiocese in Munich accused the retired pope of mishandling at least four cases of sexual abuse by priests when he was the archbishop there. In 2008 Benedict made his first visit as pope to the United States, where he spoke out against clerical sexual abuse and delivered an address at the United Nations. His papacy faced several challenges, including a decline in vocations and church attendance, divisive debates concerning the direction of the church, and the effects of the scandal beginning in the late 1990s surrounding the church’s handling of numerous cases of sexual abuse by priests. Benedict XVI faced challenges in his papacy such as a decline in vocations and church attendance, divisive debates concerning the Roman Catholic Church’s direction, and scandals related to the church’s handling of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The Pope then promised to introduce measures that would “safeguard young people in the future” and “bring to justice” priests who were responsible for abuse and the next month the Vatican issued guidelines on how existing church law should be implemented.

“Filled with sentiments of awe and thanksgiving, I wish to speak of why I chose the name Benedict. On the occasion of his 70th birthday the volume “At the School of Truth” was published, containing articles by several authors on different aspects of his personality and production. In 1985 he published his interview-book on the situation of the faith (The Ratzinger Report) and in 1996 “Salt of the Earth”. After lecturing on dogmatic and fundamental theology at the Higher School of Philosophy and Theology in Freising, he went on to teach at Bonn, from 1959 to1963; at Münster from 1963 to 1966 and at Tübingen from 1966 to 1969. In 1953 he obtained his doctorate in theology with a thesis entitled “People and House of God in St Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church”.

He received two honorary doctorates given to him by Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, Pope John Paul II’s longtime aide, from the Pontifical University of John Paul II and the Kraków Academy of Music. Benedict attended the consistory for new cardinals in February 2015, greeting Francis at the beginning of the celebration. Benedict entered the basilica through a discreet entrance and was seated in a row with several other cardinals.

Doctors of the Church

He resumed the use of the traditional red papal shoes, which had been used since Roman times by popes but which had fallen into disuse during the pontificate of John Paul II. Upon Benedict’s death, his efforts to combat sexual abuse in the Church were remembered with mixed reactions, in particular by victims’ groups. The New York Times later reported that “given his frail health at the time, however, many church watchers questioned whether Benedict had indeed written the letter or had been manipulated to issue it as a way to undercut Francis.” In 2019, Benedict released a 6,000-word letter that attributed the Church’s sexual abuse crisis to an erosion of morality driven by secularization and the sexual revolution of the 1960s. In November 2020, the Vatican published a report blaming Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI for allowing defrocked former cardinal Theodore McCarrick to rise in power despite the fact that they both knew of sex abuse allegations against him. One of the cases Ratzinger pursued involved Marcial Maciel, a Mexican priest and founder of the Legionaries of Christ who had been accused repeatedly of sexual abuse.

Resignation from the papacy

In February 2022, Benedict admitted that errors were made in the treating of sexual abuse cases when he was Archbishop of Munich. According to Reuters, lawyer Martin Pusch said that “in a total of four cases, we have come to the conclusion that the then Archbishop Cardinal Ratzinger can be accused of misconduct in cases of sexual abuse.” Despite being more proactive than his predecessor in addressing sexual abuse, Benedict was nonetheless cited as failing to do so on more than one occasion. In March 2010, Benedict sent a pastoral letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland addressing cases of sexual abuse by priests of minors, expressing sorrow and promising changes in the way in which accusations of abuse were addressed. In 2001, Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in charge of all sexual abuse investigations.

“Friendship with Jesus Christ”

The same day, Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, stated that “in the last few hours there has been an aggravation of Benedict’s health due to advancing age” and that he was under medical care. Following the consistory of 27 August 2022, Francis and the newly created cardinals paid a brief visit to Benedict at Mater Ecclesiae Monastery. On 29 June 2021, the pope emeritus celebrated his platinum jubilee (70th anniversary) as a priest. On 2 December of the same year, Maltese cardinal Mario Grech announced to Vatican News that Benedict had difficulty speaking and that he had told the new cardinals after the consistory that “the Lord has taken away my speech in order to let me appreciate silence”. In June 2020, Benedict visited his dying brother Georg in Germany for the last time. In November 2017, images emerged on the Facebook page of the Bishop of Passau, Stefan Oster, of Benedict with a black eye; the bishop and author Peter Seewald visited the former pope on 26 October since the pair were presenting Benedict with the new book Benedict XVI – The German Pope which the Passau diocese created.

Resignation

In his homily, Benedict forgave Susanna Maiolo and urged the world to “wake up” from selfishness and petty affairs, and find time for God and spiritual matters. On Thursday, 24 December 2009, while Benedict was proceeding to the altar to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, a woman later identified as 25-year-old Susanna Maiolo, who holds Italian and Swiss citizenship, jumped the barrier and grabbed the Pope by his vestments and pulled him to the ground. On Wednesday, 6 June 2007, during his General Audience, a man leapt across a barrier, evaded guards, and nearly mounted the Pope’s vehicle, although he was stopped and Benedict seemed to be unaware of the event. Despite the more secure setting, Benedict was victim to security risks several times inside Vatican City. The Vatican is also the only regular place where Benedict travelled via motor without the protective bulletproof case common to most popemobiles.

Prior to the papacy, Benedict served as a cardinal for nearly 30 years and founded the influential theological journal Communio. Pope Benedict XVI served as pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 until his 2013 resignation, which made him the first pope in six centuries to step down from the post. He was the first pope in centuries to step down from the role.

Biographer Andrea Tornielli suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger had wanted to take action against Maciel but that John Paul II and other high-ranking officials, including several cardinals and the Pope’s influential secretary Stanisław Dziwisz, prevented him from doing so. The case of the investigation “was not acts of abuse committed by the Church personnel managers themselves, but possible acts of aiding and abetting by active action or omission”. However, the error was “not done out of bad faith”, but “the result of an error in the editorial processing” of his statement. In January 2022, a report written by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl and commissioned by the Catholic Church concluded that Cardinal Ratzinger failed to adequately take action against clerics in four cases of alleged abuse while he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982. Victims’ groups claimed the letter failed to clarify if secular law enforcement had priority over canon law confidentiality regarding internal investigation of abuse allegations. The Pope also met with the Maltese youth at the Valletta Waterfront, where an estimated 10,000 young people turned up to greet him.

The homily he delivered as part of the funeral proceedings for the pope also increased his stature. Although Ratzinger insisted on the superiority of the Catholic faith to other religions, which he deemed insufficient as means to salvation, he was also closely involved in Pope John Paul’s historic efforts to reach out to other faiths, especially Judaism and Islam. He condemned liberation theology and suppressed more-liberal theologians such as the Brazilian Leonardo Boff and the American Charles Curran. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for preserving Catholic doctrine and evaluating according to canon law the warrant for disciplinary action against clergy, Ratzinger earned a reputation as a hard-liner. In March 1977 Ratzinger was appointed archbishop of Munich and Freising by Paul VI, who bestowed the cardinal’s hat on him three months later. Ratzinger’s university years, however, brought about a transformation of his views.

Homeless mother given ‘key’ to new apartment by Pope Leo XIV

In 2010 allegations of sexual and physical abuse by parish priests and in parochial schools—particularly in Germany, Ireland, and the United States—brought Benedict, and his role in the cases in Germany in particular, under close media scrutiny. He also overturned John Paul’s reform of the papal election process and restored the traditional practice when he declared that the election of a new pope requires a two-thirds majority of the cardinals attending the conclave. The pope and his prefect shared a similar history, both having lived under totalitarian regimes, and their views concerning the church were substantially the same. He earned a reputation as a hard-liner on Roman Catholic doctrine, condemning liberation theology and suppressing liberal theologians. Welby referred to the former pope as “one of the greatest theologians of his age”, while Kirill praised conciliatory efforts undertaken between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches during Benedict’s pontificate.

Later that year he addressed the first Catholic-Muslim Forum, a three-day conference of Catholic theologians and Islamic scholars hosted by the Vatican to promote improved understanding between the two religions. He issued new guidelines allowing greater use of the Latin mass—the order of the mass used before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council—and he published the encyclicals Deus caritas est (2005; “God Is Love”) and Spe salvi (2007; “Saved by Hope”). During the early years of his papacy, Benedict visited several countries, including Turkey, where he met the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople in the hope of improving relations between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Benedict also indicated that he would maintain his predecessor’s conservative orthodoxy on matters of sexuality, priestly celibacy, and ecclesiastical organization. Further, he declared that one of the goals of his papacy would be to revitalize the Catholic church in Europe. Although he said he had prayed not to be chosen, Ratzinger humbly accepted his election on April 19, 2005, becoming at age 78 the oldest newly elected pope since Clement XII (1730–40).

Struck by the cardinal’s distinctive garb, he announced later that day that he wanted to be a cardinal. Benedict’s handling of sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church and opposition to usage of condoms in areas of high HIV transmission was criticized by public health officials, anti-AIDS activists, and victims’ rights organizations. Before becoming pope, he had been “a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century”; he had had an influence “second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions” as one of John Paul II’s closest confidants. After a long career as a professor of theology at several German universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone with little pastoral experience. In his footsteps I place my ministry in the service of reconciliation and harmony between peoples. Firstly, I remember Pope Benedict XV, that courageous prophet of peace, who guided the Church through turbulent times of war.

• Biographer Andrea Tornielli suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger had wanted to take action against Maciel but that John Paul II and other high-ranking officials, including several cardinals and the Pope’s influential secretary Stanisław Dziwisz, prevented him from doing so.
• According to a Vatican spokesman, Benedict spent his first day as Pope emeritus with Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Prefect of the Papal Household.
• In November 2017, images emerged on the Facebook page of the Bishop of Passau, Stefan Oster, of Benedict with a black eye; the bishop and author Peter Seewald visited the former pope on 26 October since the pair were presenting Benedict with the new book Benedict XVI – The German Pope which the Passau diocese created.
• Benedict entered the basilica through a discreet entrance and was seated in a row with several other cardinals.
• He was invited by Rev. Theodore Hesburgh to join the theology faculty at the University of Notre Dame, but declined on grounds that his English was not good enough.
• From 1946 to 1951, he pursued studies in philosophy and theology at the University of Munich and at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule in Freising.

At his death, prior criticism of Benedict XVI received renewed attention, particularly that from public health officials, anti-AIDS activists, and victim’s rights organizations over his handling of sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church and position on the use of condoms in areas of high HIV transmission. The various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man … Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi claimed the Pope had not wished specifically to attack people with homosexual inclinations, and had not mentioned gays or lesbians in his text. Aurelio Mancuso, head of Arcigay, said “A divine programme for men and women is out of line with nature, where the roles are not so clear.” Canadian author Daniel Gawthrop, in a critical biography, The Trial of Pope Benedict, said that the Pope blamed homosexuality “for a problem the church had willingly enabled for hundreds of years”. During his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the issue of homosexuality. This ended the Catholic Church’s 10-year involvement with the then-current pope and pope-emeritus, and was the first time since 1802 that a pope had attended a funeral for his predecessor.

“Sexual orientation”, the document said, was not equivalent to race or ethnicity, and it declared that it was “not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account.” In 1992, Ratzinger again approved CDF documents declaring that homosexual “inclination itself must be seen pin up online casino as an objective disorder” and extended this principle to civil law. The letter condemned a liberal interpretation of the earlier CDF document Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, which had led to a “benign” attitude “to the homosexual condition itself”. The pope emeritus had personally preferred to be simply known as “Father Benedict”.

What was Benedict XVI’s role before becoming pope?

French cardinal Philippe Barbarin said that since the first stroke Ratzinger had been suffering from an age-related heart condition, for which he was on medication. This was never officially made public – the official news was that he had fallen and struck his head against a radiator – but was an open secret known to the conclave that elected him pope. The letter was in sharp contrast to the viewpoint of his successor, Francis, who saw the issue as a byproduct of abuses of power within the Church’s hierarchical structure. After Ratzinger became pope, he began proceedings against Maciel and the Legion of Christ that forced Maciel out of active service in the Church.

Pies and a baseball bat: The gifts Pope Leo XIV received on the papal flight to Turkey

He visited Turkey to improve relations with Eastern Orthodox churches and hosted the first Roman Catholic–Muslim Forum to promote understanding. Benedict XVI continued his predecessor Pope John Paul II’s dialogue with Judaism and Islam and with other Christian churches. Before becoming pope, Benedict XVI (born Joseph Ratzinger in Germany in 1927) was a theologian and prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Some Catholics have called for Benedict’s recognition as a Doctor of the Church, with Cardinal Gerhard Müller describing him as a “true doctor of the Church for today.” His first tweet was made on 12 December and was “Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.” On 28 February 2013, the day he retired, the tweets were archived, and @Pontifex read “Sede Vacante”. Caritas in veritate makes a case for the charitable distribution of wealth in considerable detail and discusses the environment, migration, terrorism, sexual tourism, bioethics, energy and population.

Prior to 2001, the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of sexual abuse and disciplining perpetrators rested with the individual dioceses. Following meetings with various dignitaries on his first day on the island, 50,000 people gathered in a drizzle for Papal Mass on the granaries in Floriana. On 13 September 2008, at an outdoor Paris Mass attended by 250,000 people, Benedict condemned the modern materialism – the world’s love of power, possessions, and money as a modern-day plague, comparing it to paganism. While in Washington, the pope addressed representatives of US Catholic universities, met with leaders of other world religions, and celebrated Mass at the Washington Nationals’ baseball stadium with 47,000 people. At the time of his resignation, Benedict had completed a draft of a fourth encyclical entitled Lumen fidei (“The Light of Faith”), intended to accompany his first two encyclicals to complete a trilogy on the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.