HONG KONG (SE): Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away at 9.34am, on the morning of Saturday, 31 December 2022, on the eve of the turning of the year and nearly 10 years after he resigned from the papacy, Vatican News announced. He was 95-years-old and had been in frail health in recent years.
“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 AM in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible. As of Monday morning, 2 January 2023, the body of the Pope Emeritus will be in Saint Peter’s Basilica so the faithful can pay their respects,” said Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office.
As the retired pope neared death, he was given the anointing of the sick in his residence, Bruni said.
His body lay in state in St. Peter’s Basilica, in front of the Altar of the Confession, beginning January 2 with thousands coming to pay their last respects, Vatican News reported.
During the New Year’s Eve Te Deum service at St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis spoke of his predecessor saying, “We are moved as we recall him as such a noble person, so kind. And we feel such gratitude in our hearts: gratitude to God for having given him to the Church and to the world; gratitude to him for all the good he accomplished, and above all, for his witness of faith and prayer, especially in these last years of his recollected life. Only God knows the value and the power of his intercession, of the sacrifices he offered for the good of the Church.”
Born Joseph Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany, in 1927. He served the people of God as a priest, an advisor at the Second Vatican Council, as Bishop of Munich and Freising, as a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as the 265th pope of the Catholic Church from 19 April 2005, until he abdicated the See of Peter on 28 February 2013.
He was one of only a few popes to resign, and the first in 600 years [the last being Pope Gregory XII in 1415].
At the time of his resignation, the Sunday Examiner [24 February 2013] reported him as saying, “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.”
Pope Emeritus Benedict said, “I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering,” adding that in today’s world, both strength of mind and body are necessary for the job of pope. “A strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me,” he said.
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
Pope Emeritus Benedict
Vatican News reported that not long after, the newly-elected Pope Francis returning from World Youth Day in Brazil on 28 July 2013, said of Pope Benedict: “He is a man of God, a humble man, a man of prayer… when he resigned, for me it was an example of greatness. A great man. Only a great man does this!”
He likened having him close by at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery as “like having your grandfather in the house, a wise grandfather…”
In the early days of his retirement, to the delight and surprise of pilgrims and cardinals, Pope Benedict appeared at major events with Pope Francis, including the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica 8 December 2015.
A close collaborator of St. John Paul II and the theological expert behind many of his major teachings and gestures, Pope Benedict came to the papacy after 24 years heading the doctrinal congregation’s work of safeguarding Catholic teaching on faith and morals, correcting the work of some Catholic theologians and ensuring the theological solidity of the documents issued by other Vatican offices, OSV News reported.
As pope, he continued writing as a theologian, but also made historically important gestures to Catholics who had difficulty accepting all of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, particularly about the liturgy. In 2007, he widened permission to use the “extraordinary” or pre-Vatican II form of the Mass and, a short time later, extended a hand to the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X. Besides lifting the excommunications of four of the society’s bishops who were ordained illicitly in 1988, he launched a long and intense dialogue with the group. In the end, though, the talks broke down.
His papacy, which began when he was 78-years-old, was extremely busy for a man who already had a pacemaker and who had wanted to retire to study, write and pray when he turned 75. He used virtually every medium at his disposal—books and Twitter, sermons and encyclicals—to catechise the faithful on the foundational beliefs and practices of Christianity, ranging from the sermons of St. Augustine to the sign of the cross.
Pope Benedict was also the first pope to meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse, OSV News reported. He clarified Church laws to expedite cases and mandated that bishops’ conferences put in place stringent norms against abuse.
Although he did not expect to travel much, he ended up making 24 trips to six continents and presided over World Youth Day mega-gatherings in Germany in 2005, Australia in 2008, and Spain in 2011.
On his watch, the Vatican continued to highlight the Church’s moral boundaries on issues such as end-of-life medical care, marriage and homosexuality. But the late pope’s message to society at large focused less on single issues and more on the risk of losing the basic relationship between the human being and the Creator.
Pope Benedict surprised those who had expected a by-the-book pontificate, as he emphasised that Christianity was a religion of love and not a religion of rules.
We are moved as we recall him as such a noble person, so kind. And we feel such gratitude in our hearts: gratitude to God for having given him to the Church and to the world; gratitude to him for all the good he accomplished
Pope Francis
Some of Pope Benedict’s most memorable statements came when he applied simple gospel values to social issues such as the protection of human life, the environment and economics. When the global financial crisis worsened in 2008, for example, the pope insisted that financial institutions must put people before profits.
He also reminded people that money and worldly success are passing realities, saying: “Whoever builds his life on these things —on material things, on success, on appearances—is building on sand.”
He consistently warned the West that unless its secularised society rediscovered religious values, it could not hope to engage in real dialogue with Muslims and members of other religious traditions.
Pope Benedict’s 2007 Letter to Chinese Catholics was an appeal to China’s government to respect the religious freedom of its people. It also asked the faithful on the mainland to work toward reconciliation between official and unofficial communities.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated under the pontificate of Pope St, John Paul II, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is possibly one of Pope Benedict’s great legacies.
Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, who worked with the former Cardinal Ratzinger in drafting the Catechism wrote in Vatican News: “His guidance, his spirit and his inspiration were decisive. The first thing and also the most important one, is that he truly believed in this project.”
He wrote: “Under his guidance, his constant encouragement and his spiritual fatherhood, the work grew to be what it finally became after the promulgation by Pope John Paul II: a sure measure and orientation for faith in our time. The Catechism remains a great witness of the determining force of the theologian Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.”
Bishop Stephen Chow Sau Yan, SJ, of Hong Kong, expressed his “deepest condolences” on behalf of the diocese and the faithful in a December 31 statement.
A Book of Condolences was opened for well-wishers to sign from 10.00am on January 2 to 5.00pm on January 4, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Caine Road, and a requiem Mass was celebrated at 6.00pm on January 4, also at the cathedral.
