Pope Benedict XVI Dies At 95
By Vincent Kubi
The first pontiff to resign in some 600 years, Pope Benedict XVI has died aged 95.
His health was said to have deteriorated after he had resigned and became worse “in the last hours” as a result of his age.
According to the Vatican, per a report carried by Sky News which was monitored by DGN Online doctors had constantly been monitoring his condition until he unfortunately passed on.
“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” a Vatican spokesperson said.
Pope Francis, who replaced him as head of the Catholic Church, had asked the faithful to pray for him at the end of his general audience on Wednesday morning.
The Vatican said Benedict’s body will lie in state from Monday in St Peter’s Basilica.
“As of Monday morning, January 2, 2023, the body of the Pope Emeritus will be in Saint Peter’s Basilica so the faithful can bid farewell.”
The health of the Pope Emeritus, as Benedict was called after he stepped down, had undergone a “worsening in the last hours” due to his age, the Vatican said prior to his death.
Pope Francis had gone to visit Benedict at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City after the audience.
Benedict had lived in the Vatican, a separate nation-state that is within the boundary of the Italian capital Rome, after he ceased being Pope in 2013.
He had become increasingly frail in recent years after dedicating his post-papacy life to prayer and meditation.
For hundreds of years before Benedict became the Holy Father, popes had headed the Catholic Church until their deaths.
On 11 February 2013, Benedict’s surprise announcement to stand aside shocked the Catholic world, and forced the church to grapple with an event it had not seen in centuries.
He said he wanted to resign as he no longer had the physical and mental strength to run the church.
God’s Rottweiler
Before being elected pope in 2005, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger served as the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
He held the powerful role for 24 years, earning the nickname “God’s Rottweiler” for his strictly conservative theological views.
Some ultra-traditionalists even refused to acknowledge Pope Francis as a legitimate pontiff after Benedict stood down, criticising Francis for his more welcoming approach to members of the LGBTQ+ community and to Catholics who divorced and remarried outside the Church, arguing both were undermining traditional values.
Speaking before his death was announced, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster said Benedict would be remembered as “one of the great theologians of the 20th century”.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols told Times Radio he had met Benedict several times and he “was always so courteous”.
“When he came to this country in 2011 he was described as ‘God’s Rottweiler’, but by the time he left I think he was considered to be everybody’s great uncle.
“There was a real gentleness about him, and when I saw him just over a year ago, September last year, that hadn’t changed. He was very, very weak, but very bright and very alert and very with it.”
By Vincent Kubi