Report: Pope (E) Benedict XVI in poor health

Details here.

Benedict, 93, has been widely reported to be frail and in generally declining health. His brother recently reposed and the former pope is now said to be suffering from shingles.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse

Read the whole thing here.

Benedict XVI: ‘I am on a pilgrimage Home’

The Pope Emeritus has written to an Italian newspaper to say he is “on a pilgrimage Home” in this “final period of my life”.

In a nine-line letter to Corriere della Serra, Benedict XVI thanks the paper’s readers for their concern, and assures them he is surrounded “by a love and a goodness that I could not have imagined”.

“I was moved that so many readers of your newspaper want to know how I am spending this last period of my life,” he said.

“I can only say in this regard that, in the slow decline of physical strengths, inwardly I am on a pilgrimage Home,” he added, capitalising the Italian word ‘Casa’.

Read the rest here.

May his remaining days be filled with peace and love.

Former Pope Benedict XVI said to be "slowly fading"

Rome (AFP) - Pope emeritus Benedict XVI is "slowly, serenely fading" but remains "very lucid", his personal secretary said in an interview published Thursday.

Joseph Ratzinger is "an old man, of course, but very lucid. Unfortunately, it's become difficult for him to walk and he needs to use a walking frame," Georg Gaenswein said in an interview with the Italian magazine BenEssere.

In 2013, Benedict became the first head of the Catholic Church to resign in seven centuries, amid speculation he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, unable to cope at the top of an institution beset by scandals.

He said he no longer had the strength of mind or body to carry on, but his health appeared to improve after he stepped down and moved into a former convent in the grounds of the Vatican.

"In April, Benedict XVI will be 89 years old. He's like a candle which is slowly, serenely fading. He is serene, at peace with God, himself and the world," said Gaenswein.

Read the rest here.

I guess we now know which one has the real juice

Francis and Benedict XVI enjoy warming friendship

VATICAN CITY — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is not “jealous” of his successor’s worldwide celebrity, holds him in “high esteem” and is developing an ever closer relationship with Pope Francis through “regular” communications, according to the former pontiff’s private secretary and prefect of the papal household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

In a rare interview with a U.S. media outlet, Gänswein, a Benedict confidant who resides with the retired pope in a remodeled Vatican City convent, suggested that despite their obvious differences, the former pope was not seeking to influence the new pontiff on major church decisions. In addition, Gänswein said, Benedict’s surprise appearance at a swearing-in ceremony for 19 new cardinals this past weekend should not be taken as a sign of his reemergence into public life. 

Read the rest here.

Setting aside the inevitable shot at Benedict's "ponderous conservatism," it's nice that the two men are on good terms and talk regularly. Ex-Pope's are not all that common and historically haven't always fared well.

Report: Pope Benedict XVI deposed near 400 priests in two years

A document obtained by The Associated Press on Friday shows Pope Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests over just two years for sexually molesting children. 

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase over the 171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first provided details on the number of priests who have been defrocked. Prior to that, it had only publicly revealed the number of alleged cases of sexual abuse it had received and the number of trials it had authorized.

Read the rest here.

Don't hold your breath waiting for an apology from those who accused him of coddling child molesters.

On Eve of Retirement Pope Benedict XVI Ordered Changes to Baptismal Rite

From now on, at the end of the rite of reception, before signing with the cross the forehead of the child or of the children, the priest will longer say: "Magno gaudio communitas christiana te (vos) excipit," but instead: "Magno gaudio Ecclesia Dei te (vos) excipit".

In practice pope Joseph Ratzinger, as a sophisticated theologian, wanted that in the baptismal rite it should be clearly said that it is the Church of God - which subsists fully in the Catholic Church - that receives those who are being baptized, and not generically the “Christian community,” a term that also signifies the individual local communities or non-Catholic confessions, like the Protestants.

The decree published in “Notitiae" specifies that Benedict XVI “benevolently established” the aforementioned variation in the course of an audience granted to the prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, on January 28, 2013, just two weeks before the announcement of his resignation as pope.

The decree bears the date of February 22, 2013, the feast of the chair of St. Peter, and is signed by the cardinal prefect and by the secretary, Archbishop Arthur Roche. And it is said there that it went into effect on March 31, 2013, already under the reign of Pope was Francis, who evidently had nothing to object with regard to the decision of his predecessor.

Read the rest here.
HT: The Deacon's Bench

Pope (E) Benedict expected to quietly return to the Vatican

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is expected to return from Castel Gandolfo to Vatican City in the next few days.

The Emeritus Pope — creating a situation unique in the history of the Church where a former Pope and a reigning Bishop of Rome will be both living inside the Vatican at the same time — will return to the Vatican “between the end of April and the first days of May, as planned,” Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Vatican Press Office, said yesterday at the offices of the Foreign Press Club in Rome, as reported by Isabella Piro of Vatican Radio.

Some had speculated in recent days that Benedict might change his mind and not come back to the Vatican for many months, or perhaps even not at all, remaining instead at Castel Gandolfo. This news ends that speculation.

Father Lombardi also told the journalists that the only foreign trip Pope Francis will make this year will be to Brazil from July 23 to 28 for World Youth Day. It had been rumored that Francis might travel to Argentina in December in connection with his December 17 birthday. “I invite you not to expect other foreign trips during this year,” Father Lombardi said. (“Vi invito a non aspettarvi altri viaggi all’estero per quest’anno.”)

So Pope Francis will be traveling abroad only once during his first year as Pope. This seems to emphasize that his focus is on Rome and on the Vatican. He is acting and functioning less as a “supreme pontiff” of the global Church and more as the bishop of his diocese, Rome, and, in a sense, as seen in his daily homilies in the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, as the parish priest of Vatican City.

Read the rest here.

William McKeachie Reflets on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

...Although I am no fan of the Curial system, of Tridentine ecclesiology, or of Rome’s soteriological compromises in dogma, it seems to this Anglican that Joseph Ratzinger was the providentially right man in the right job(s) for the last several decades.

He has helped steer the Roman Catholic Church closer to mutuality with Bible believing Protestants to a greater degree than any other pope since the Reformation; he has been a true mentor for orthodox Christians of many denominational stripes and an incomparably better biblical theologian than many who call themselves Protestant; and there has been no more stalwart spiritual warrior against the ideological assault on Christian civilization from without, and its betrayal from within, among his generation.

In the face of the twin twenty - first century threats to the Gospel from Mohammedanism and Secularism, all adherents of Nicene Christianity are better quipped spiritually and intellectually to “fight the good fight” than they were before Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

As we await the emergence of his successor, thanksgiving for the servant leadership of Joseph Ratzinger during the last half century should be both oecumenical and fervent.

Read the rest here.

Letter from Patriarch Kirill to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

March 1, 2013
Your Holiness!

In these exceptional days for you, I would like to express the feelings of brotherly love in Christ and respect.

The decision to leave the position of Bishop of Rome, which you, with humility and simplicity, announced on February 11 this year, has found a ready response in the hearts of millions of Catholics.

We have always been close to your consistent ministry, marked by uncompromisingness in matters of faith and unswerving adherence to the living Tradition of the Church. At a time when the ideology of permissiveness and moral relativism tries to dislodge the moral values of life, you boldly raised your voice in defence of the ideals of the Gospel, the high dignity of man and his vocation to freedom from sin.

I have warm memories of our meeting when you were elected to the Roman See. During your ministry we received a positive impetus in the relations between our Churches, responding to the modern world as a witness to Christ crucified and risen. I sincerely hope what developed during your active participation, a good trusting relationship between the Orthodox and the Catholics, will continue to grow with your successor.

Please accept my sincere wishes for good health, long life and help from above in prayer and in your theological writings.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace" (Romans 15:13).

With love in the Lord,

+ Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
From here.
HT: Blog reader Dave B.

Sede Vacante

Following an emotional farewell in Rome and his withdrawal to Castel Gandolfo, the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI took effect at 8PM in Italy (2PM Eastern US Time). May God grant him many years in his retirement.

Pope Benedict Allows Early Conclave

Pope Benedict has changed Catholic Church rules to allow the conclave that will choose his successor to be held earlier if cardinals are ready, the Vatican said Monday.

In a motu proprio – in effect, a personal decree – he introduced modifications to the laws governing the timing of the secret election, which had been due to begin on March 15 or later.

Pope Benedict XVI officially stands down from his role on Feb 28, having resigned earlier this month citing his own failing health.

A conclave – the behind-closed-doors ballot of cardinals – cannot begin within 15 days of the papacy becoming vacant; in this case, March 15.

Read the rest here.

Documents Show a Dysfunctional Vatican

VATICAN CITY — Guests at the going-away party for Carlo Maria Viganò couldn’t understand why the archbishop looked so forlorn. Pope Benedict XVI had appointed Viganò ambassador to the United States, a plum post where he would settle into a stately mansion on Massachusetts Avenue, across the street from the vice president’s residence.

“He went through the ordeal making it very clear he was unhappy with it,” said one former ambassador to the Vatican, who attended the Vatican Gardens ceremony in the late summer of 2011. “And we just couldn’t figure out, us outsiders and non-Italians, what was going on.”

There was no such confusion within Vatican walls. Benedict had installed Viganò to enact a series of reforms within the Vatican. But some of Rome’s highest-ranking cardinals undercut the efforts and hastened Viganò’s exile to the United States.

Read the rest here.

OK, I'm not Catholic. But I like Fr. Z's take on recent events. I note the late Patriarch Pavle of blessed memory who lived into his 90's. He was old and infirm. In the last years he was confined to a wheelchair and could not travel. Others took over those duties for him. But he was a living saint and the Serbs would not let him go. When he tendered his resignation to the Holy Synod they refused to accept it even though he could no longer perform the public duties of his office or celebrate the liturgy.

How Knowing Latin Lead To Journalistic Scoop

Defenders of classical education and lovers of Latin the world over have a new hero in Giovanna Chirri. The reporter for the Italian news service ANSA was one of the few journalists listening to the pope speak in Latin at an “extremely banal” Vatican ceremony Monday when her knowledge of ablatives and accusatives came in handy.

“He kept speaking in Latin,” Chirri said in a video on ANSA’s Web site. “Then he said that he had important news for the future of the church, that he was becoming old.” She said her ears perked up, and “immediately you could understand that he was announcing his resignation.

Read the rest here.

From here.

Pope Benedict XVI To Abdicate

VATICAN CITY — Citing advanced years and infirmity, but showing characteristic tough-mindedness and unpredictability, Pope Benedict XVI shocked Roman Catholics on Monday by saying that he would resign on Feb. 28, becoming the first pope to do so in six centuries.

Speaking in Latin to a small gathering of cardinals at the Vatican on Monday morning, Benedict said that after examining his 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 leading the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.

Read the rest here.

On a personal note I am deeply saddened by this news. Both from the perspective of a former Catholic and currently Orthodox Christian I think H.H. Benedict XVI was the best thing to hit Rome in a very long time. I fear for the future of the Roman Church where the election of a new Pope can have far greater consequences than a change in primates in one of the Orthodox churches. Even so I wish him well in whatever retirement awaits him.

Many years!

Vatican Scandal Deepens

VATICAN CITY -- The worst crisis in Pope Benedict's pontificate deepened on Monday when Italian media said at least one cardinal was among those suspected of leaking sensitive documents as part of a power struggle at the top of the Catholic Church. The pope's butler, who has been arrested, has pledged to cooperate in the probe.

Leading Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Messaggero reported Monday that the pope's butler — arrested three days ago for allegedly feeding documents to Italian journalists — clearly did not act alone, and that an unidentified cardinal is suspected of playing a major role.

Read the rest here.

In the Vatican "The Butler Did It"

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Vatican magistrates formally charged Pope Benedict's butler with illegal possession of secret documents on Saturday and said a wider investigation would take place to see if he had any accomplices who helped him leak them.

Paolo Gabriele is suspected of leaking highly sensitive documents, some alleging cronyism and corruption in Vatican contracts, in a scandal which has come to be known as "Vatileaks".

A statement referred to Gabriele, 46, who was until his arrest on Wednesday night serving the pope meals and helping him dress, as "the defendant".

It said a preliminary investigation had been upgraded to a "formal investigation," meaning he had been formally charged, and had chosen two lawyers to defend him.

Because the Vatican has no jail, Gabriele was being held in one of the three so-called "secure rooms" in the offices of the Vatican's tiny police force inside the walled city-state.

The Vatican promised that he would have "all the juridical guarantees foreseen by the criminal code of the State of Vatican City."

Read the rest here.