Skip to main content
We may receive compensation from affiliate partners for some links on this site. Read our full Disclosure here.

Pope Benedict Dead At Age 95


4,071 views

It’s been quite a year.

Barbara Walters yesterday.

The Queen.

And now the Pope.

Not the current Pope, but the prior Pope who you may remember resigned suddenly and abruptly and still without a solid reason to the best of my knowledge.

Pope Benedict is dead at age 95.

Pope Benedict XVI was the head of the Catholic Church and the leader of the worldwide Catholic community from 2005 to 2013. His real name is Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, and he was born in Germany in 1927.

SIGN THE PETITION: We Need National Voter ID!

Before becoming pope, Benedict XVI was a priest, bishop, and cardinal. He was also a professor and an expert on theology, the study of God and religion.

As pope, Benedict XVI traveled around the world to meet with Catholics and other leaders. He also wrote many letters and gave talks about the teachings of the Catholic Church.

One of Benedict XVI’s main goals as pope was to bring Catholics closer to God. He believed that this could be done through prayer, reading the Bible, and participating in the sacraments, which are special ceremonies that Catholics believe bring them closer to God.

Benedict XVI also worked to improve relations between the Catholic Church and other religions, particularly Judaism and Islam. He met with leaders of these religions and made it a priority to speak out against violence and conflict between different religious groups.

In 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in over 600 years to resign from his position. He said that he was stepping down because he felt that he was no longer able to fulfill his duties as pope due to his age and health.

After his resignation, Benedict XVI retired to a monastery in the Vatican City, where he lived quietly until his death in April 2021. He was remembered by many Catholics as a kind and intelligent man who worked to bring people closer to God and to each other.

sdf

Strange photo, does not look happy:

RIP:

Deeply saddened:

From Fox News:

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on Saturday, left behind an extensive body of work examining and diagnosing ills in the Catholic Church.

A theological and spiritual giant to many, Benedict’s reflections on the Catholic Church are a roadmap for many seeking to keep the nearly 2,000-year-old institution on the correct path.

Benedict’s work is best understood as a long career seeking to guide the Church through uncharted territory. He began his priesthood in the aftermath of two world wars and amid technological, political and sexual revolutions that threatened to overwhelm religion.

Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger, was a framer of the Second Vatican Council (also known as Vatican II), which began in 1962 and ended in 1965. The council established no new dogmas but attempted to update spiritual disciplines, aesthetics and styles of worship for the modern, globalized Church.

“To me, the key to Benedict is Vatican II,” Bishop Robert Barron of Word on Fire Ministries told Fox News Digital. “He’s a man of the council. He was at the council. He helped to write a lot of these major documents. He helped to explain it to the wider world.”

Changes at Vatican II included dropping the requirement for Masses to be said in Latin, a greater emphasis on church community, and modification of the liturgy to allow greater participation from the pews.

Barron continued, “At the council, he was a liberal because he was opposed to the conservatives who didn’t want a renewal of the council. But then almost immediately after the council, he became wary of Catholic progressivism, which he saw as going beyond the council and compromising Catholic integrity.”

Through decades of defense for Vatican II – coupled with a strict enforcement of religious orthodoxy — Benedict became a sort of spiritual umpire for the Church’s most contested debates.

“[Benedict] had long been worried about the tides of modernity that were threatening the faithful proclamation of Church teaching, but that were also consequently blurring a proper understanding of the human person, the encounter with Jesus Christ, and damaging Catholicism’s ability and mandate to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” EWTN Executive Director Matthew Bunson, a biographer of Benedict, told Fox News Digital.

Still, not everyone remembers the Pope fondly:

https://twitter.com/elektrasvrse/status/1609167067172962304

 



 

Join the conversation!

Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!

Hey, Noah here!

Wondering where we went?

Read this and bookmark our new site!

See you over there!

Thanks for sharing!