In the end, the most significant move Benedict made was to resign from the function: In 2013, citing his “superior age,” he introduced that he would step down — the primary pontiff in 600 years to take action. The choice ushered within the period of Pope Francis, a reformer who has taken the papacy in a distinct course, whilst Benedict continued to reside within the Vatican and sometimes opine from retirement.
He died Saturday on the age of 95.
His statements on topics from papal celibacy and Protestantism to sexual abuse and the HIV/AIDS disaster superior Catholic orthodoxy and a perception within the religion as a bedrock in a altering world.
Listed here are a few of his most important — and controversial — feedback.
“The impression grew steadily that nothing was now steady within the Church, that all the pieces was open to revision”
Benedict was identified for suggesting the church of the long run may resemble a “mustard seed” — consisting of a smaller core of orthodox believers to function a Christian witness on the planet, slightly than an expansive physique that attempted to be all issues to everybody. The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), the collection of conferences of Catholic leaders within the early Nineteen Sixties to contemplate the place of the church within the fashionable world, ushered in main modifications supposed to make sure the establishment’s persevering with relevance, together with a transfer away from Latin and towards native languages within the Mass and a larger effort at outreach to folks of different denominations and faiths.
Benedict, who as a younger priest had served as a theological adviser to Cardinal Josef Richard Frings at Vatican II, later got here to imagine that the modifications had weakened the church.
“The impression grew steadily that nothing was now steady within the Church, that all the pieces was open to revision,” he wrote in his 1988 memoir, “Milestones,” written whereas he was nonetheless Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
He rejected liberation theology in Latin America, and as pontiff, mentioned Protestant communities could not properly be called churches within the Catholic sense of the phrase — a stance Protestant leaders mentioned set again relations between Christian communities. Benedict additionally permitted Catholics to rejoice Mass with the Latin Ceremony that Vatican II had nixed. The choice angered Jews, since one prayer casts Jews as blind to Christian reality.
Francis, Benedict’s successor, reimposed restrictions on the Latin Mass, frightening a backlash amongst traditionalists.
Benedict, in the meantime, often voiced opinions from retirement in an effort to sway Francis’s decision-making. When Francis was weighing whether or not to permit married males to turn into monks within the Amazon area, Benedict defended clerical celibacy in a e-book printed in 2020: “The flexibility to surrender marriage to position oneself absolutely on the disposal of the Lord has turn into a criterion for priestly ministry.”
Francis finally backed away from the issue. This 12 months, he called clerical celibacy a “reward.”
“I can solely share within the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so lots of you’ve gotten skilled on studying of those sinful and legal acts”
When Benedict grew to become pope in 2005, the Catholic Church was grappling with a intercourse abuse scandal that had rippled the world over and shaken the religion of many adherents. In 2008, Benedict spent six days in america, the place he met with victims of abuse by Catholic monks and apologized for the abuse. Addressing American bishops, Benedict admitted that church leaders had mishandled abuse allegations and referred to as for non secular renewal.
“It’s your God-given duty as pastors to bind up the injuries brought on by each breach of belief, to foster therapeutic, to advertise reconciliation and to achieve out with loving concern to these so significantly wronged,” he mentioned.
Benedict supplied an identical message two years later in Eire, after summoning Irish bishops to Rome to press them about their dealing with of intercourse abuse allegations and maintain “frank and constructive” discussions about studying from previous errors.
Benedict apologized for the abuse in a pastoral letter to the Catholics of Eire in 2010.
“I can solely share within the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so lots of you’ve gotten skilled on studying of those sinful and legal acts and the way in which Church authorities in Eire handled them,” he wrote. He directed Irish church leaders to acknowledge the abuse and work to guard minors sooner or later.
Benedict additionally drew criticism for claiming that pedophilia amongst monks was an outgrowth of the Nineteen Sixties sexual revolution and a symptom of a breakdown of church instructing. “Why did pedophilia attain such proportions?” he requested in a 2019 letter, six years after his resignation. “In the end, the reason being the absence of God.”
The pope expressed “profound disgrace” after a German investigation accused him of “wrongdoing” in his dealing with of abuse instances whereas he headed the archdiocese of Munich between 1977 and 1982.
“You’ll be able to’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. Quite the opposite, it will increase the issue.”
Benedict sparked an uproar in 2009 when he mentioned condoms weren’t an efficient technique of preventing HIV and AIDS in Africa and as a substitute exacerbate the epidemic. Talking to journalists on his flight to Cameroon for a six-day journey, the pope said HIV/AIDS was “a tragedy that can’t be overcome by cash alone, that can’t be overcome by means of the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the issues.” As a substitute, he urged abstinence.
Well being staff attempting to struggle the unfold of the situation weren’t blissful. An estimated 22 million folks in sub-Saharan Africa have been contaminated with HIV/AIDS on the time, in keeping with the Guardian.
The pope had claimed on an earlier journey to Africa that condoms have been among the many forces threatening life on the continent.
“It’s of nice concern that the material of African life, its very supply of hope and stability, is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraception mentality,” he mentioned.
Although Francis is seen as a reformer, he has hewed to the official Vatican line prohibiting contraception. Throughout his papacy, the Vatican has partnered with the United Nations to work to remove HIV infections amongst youngsters.
Relations with Muslims and Jews
Benedict had rocky relationships, at instances, with members of different faiths.
He angered Jewish leaders when he signed a decree in 2009 that allowed Pope Pius XII, who served from 1939 to 1958, to turn into a candidate for sainthood. Pius is accused of failing to do sufficient to cease the Holocaust, and rabbis referred to as on the Vatican to chorus from beatifying him. Benedict additionally drew ire from Jewish leaders that 12 months for lifting the excommunication of a British bishop, Richard Williamson, who denied that Nazis had killed Jews in gasoline chambers throughout the Holocaust. The pope mentioned the Catholic Church rejected antisemitism and referred to as on Williamson to recant his feedback.
The strikes drew specific scrutiny as a result of the German-born pope had been required to enroll within the Hitler Youth, which indoctrinated younger folks in Nazi ideology. (He skipped the conferences.)
Throughout a lecture at a German college in 2006, Benedict quoted a Byzantine Christian emperor who claimed that the Muslim prophet Muhammad introduced “issues solely evil and inhuman, reminiscent of his command to unfold by the sword the religion he preached.”
That quote sparked protests in Muslim international locations and the killing of an Italian nun in Somalia. Benedict repeatedly voiced his remorse over the speech and emphasised that he revered Islam. However he had already alienated many Muslims. John Paul II, in distinction, is remembered in Muslim communities for his dedication to interfaith dialogue.
Francis has espoused a extra expansive imaginative and prescient than Benedict of the church’s function on the planet and relations with different faiths. “We who’re descended from Abraham, the daddy of peoples in religion, can’t be involved merely with those that are ‘our personal’ however, as we develop an increasing number of united, we should converse to all the human group, to all who dwell on this earth,” he told Muslim leaders gathered in Bahrain in November.
On the choice to resign
“My strengths, on account of a complicated age, are now not suited …”
Benedict shocked the church when he unexpectedly introduced at a ceremony with cardinals in February 2013 that he would step down as non secular chief of the worldwide church. Then 85, he mentioned he had “repeatedly examined my conscience earlier than God” and determined he was now not as much as the duty of guiding the church within the fashionable world, “topic to so many fast modifications and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of religion.”
No pope had resigned his workplace since Gregory XII in 1415. Benedict’s choice is seen as having established a precedent that would make it simpler for subsequent pontiffs to surrender their roles.
In his last homily as pope, Benedict bemoaned the typically “disfigured” face of the Church. “I’m considering particularly of the sins towards the unity of the church, of the divisions within the physique of the church,” he mentioned.
Anthony Faiola, Michelle Boorstein, Jacqueline L. Salmon, Matthew Hay Brown, Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.
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