Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. is dead What will the year 2023 bring? Attempted prospect (no guarantee)

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. The native German died on Saturday at the age of 95 in the Vatican, the Holy See announced.

Joseph Ratzinger helped shape the Catholic Church for decades: from January 1982 he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 23 years and from April 19, 2005 he was Pope Benedict XVI for eight years after the long pontificate of John Paul II, which lasted a quarter of a century.

But the 265th pope in the history of the Church made his greatest statement at the very end of his term: with his resignation on February 11, 2013, Benedict XVI. the first Pontifex Maximus of modern times not to die in office, but to abdicate. Thereafter, for the first time in the two-thousand-year history of the Church, two popes lived in the Vatican: the incumbent emeritus Francis and Benedict.

Joseph Ratzinger’s pontificate was marked by light and shadow – and by far the longest shadow was cast by the abuse scandal, especially in the period following his resignation. In January of this year, a long-awaited abuse report for the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising weighed heavily on the pope emeritus (and other current and former officials).

Wrong behavior and a false statement

According to the investigation prepared by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), Joseph Ratzinger misbehaved in four cases during his tenure as Archbishop of Munich (1977-1982). He was then charged with making false statements: in his response to the report, Ratzinger denied attending a meeting to transfer a battered priest, although he did attend. The pope emeritus called the passage a misunderstanding.

A few months before his death, the former pope was even sued by a victim of assault: a 38-year-old man who claims to have been sexually assaulted by the pastor of his parish in the 1990s has filed a so-called declaratory judgment. In addition to the ex-pope, it is also directed against the alleged perpetrator, the former Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, and the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Joseph Ratzinger recently announced that he would defend himself before the competent court in Traunstein. The lawsuit is criminally irrelevant; the main question is whether there is an obligation to pay damages. The court date was scheduled for March.

A disaster for the reputation of the church

The scandal surrounding pedophile priests not only affected Benedict’s retirement, but also his pontificate. The massive abuses had caused hundreds of thousands of people to leave the church, especially in Europe and the US. For the moral authority of the Catholic Church, in whose canon of values ​​impurity is considered a mortal sin, the abuses by priests represented the greatest possible catastrophe.

It is true that Joseph Ratzinger, as pope and afterwards, never doubted that he considered these acts abominable and that they should be severely punished. But it took far too long for the pope to apologize and tighten the rules for prosecuting the guilty.

In addition to the abuse scandal, Benedict’s pontificate was also overshadowed by several other mishaps. In the fall of 2006, the first scandal broke out with the “Regensburg speech”: the pope angered millions of Muslims with an unfortunate quote; in the Arab world there were riots with several deaths.

Later Benedict XVI. with the lifting of the excommunication of the fundamentalist Lefebvre bishops and the holocaust denier Richard Williamson for severe anger against Jews and head shaking around the world. Towards the end of his tenure, there was also the “Dad Leaks” scandal involving his unfaithful butler Gabriele, who stole the pope’s personal and confidential documents and leaked them to the Italian media.

Legendary headline of the German tabloids

Because of his conservative attitude, Joseph Ratzinger was ultimately always controversial, even as pope. When he was elected chairman of Peter on April 19, 2005 on the fourth ballot, the newspaper “Bild” welcomed him with the equally creative and euphoric headline “We are Pope!” – but even in his home country and especially outside Germany, skepticism about the “Grand Inquisitor of Markl am Inn” has never completely disappeared.

In Italy, Benedict was ambiguously called “pastore tedesco” – meaning both “German Shepherd” and “German Shepherd”. In fact, after his election as pope, Ratzinger was both: the kind “Papa Ratzi” with his delicate smile for the faithful in St. Peter’s Square; but also the hard ideologue in the Apostolic Palace when it came to sexual morality, the ordination of women, celibacy or Roman centralism.

On the other hand, the unusual cohabitation with his successor in the Vatican was harmonious: the arch-conservative Ratzinger probably won’t have appreciated everything his reform-minded successor from Argentina has said and done since his election in March 2013 – but the two opposing popes loved each other and Ratzinger remained loyal to his successor to the end.

There have been repeated attempts by Francis opponents to put the pope emeritus on the bandwagon. For example, Joseph Ratzinger, under his papal name and with a photo, was credited as co-author in a book by the conservative curia cardinal Robert Sarah, which opposes the abolition of celibacy – without the former’s knowledge and consent. Pope. According to the Vatican, Benedict felt betrayed and used by Sarah, a spokesman for the ultra-conservatives at the Vatican.

Joseph Ratzinger will be remembered as a speaker and theologian who was able to convey to the faithful the fundamental truths of Catholicism in simple and understandable sentences, which should never be sacrificed to current fashion trends and thus arbitrariness.

In a globalized world characterized by a decline in values, Benedict XVI. in speeches and writings for purity, clarity, truth – in short: for the “essence” of faith. And he defended himself against the “dictatorship of relativism, which recognizes nothing as definitive and which admits in the last resort only the ego and its needs.” On this point, Joseph Ratzinger agreed not only with his predecessor Karol Wojtyla, but also with his successor Francis. (aargauerzeitung.ch)