Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

(† 95) in portrait: This is how he spent his last years

Created: 12/31/2022Updated: 12/31/2022 11:19 am

Pope Benedict has always polarized.

His resignation made history.

He could not close the deep chasm between many believers and the Church.

Rome - When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to succeed the "Pope of the Century" John Paul II in April 2005, the surprise was great.

The then 78-year-old Bavarian from Marktl am Inn was considered “papabile”, i.e. fit for the pope.

As a long-time conservative prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and thus the supreme guardian of Catholic teaching, Ratzinger was also a polarizing figure.

Some called him "Panzercardinal".

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

died at the age of 95

Many in Germany, however, were initially in a frenzy.

The headline of the "Bild" newspaper summed it up: "We are Pope".

The euphoria about the first German pope in almost 500 years was soon followed by disillusionment.

The Pope Emeritus died on Saturday at the Vatican at the age of 95.

Benedict - who said he did not want to become pope - did not have it easy as the successor to the charismatic Pole Karol Wojtyla.

Basically he was a scholar, a man of science.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) once described him as one of the "most important religious thinkers of our time".

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI waves upon his arrival at the Vatican in 2014.

© Andrew Medichini/AP/dpa

But the shy intellectual had no connection to many believers.

"In this respect, I'm actually more of a professor, someone who reflects and thinks about intellectual things," he once said in a conversation with his biographer Peter Seewald.

"Practical governance is not really my thing."

Serious abuse scandal came to light during his tenure

When he was in office for five years, the Catholic Church fell into one of its most serious crises: Decades of child abuse and cover-ups gradually came to light from 2010 onwards.

Benedict lamented "sin in the Church", asked for forgiveness and demanded "zero tolerance".

However, he did not change the church structures, which many experts believe encouraged abuse: Catholic sexual morality, men's monopoly on power, the prominent position of priests, celibacy - all of this remained as it was.

This is not because Benedict did not dare to tackle a renewal of the church: he simply saw no need for it.

Benedict XVI

resigned in 2013

The mood of crisis in the church probably contributed to the fact that on February 11, 2013 he made the most radical decision of his life and, contrary to all traditions, resigned.

He himself justified this with age and poor health.

The announcement struck like a bolt of lightning: nothing like this had happened in hundreds of years.

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

lived a secluded life - in 2020 he was in Germany again

Since his resignation, Benedict has lived in seclusion in a monastery in the Vatican Gardens.

Outwardly, he tried to treat his successor Francis with respect, but the relationship was never intimate: the incumbent and the emeritus pope were too far apart in terms of church politics.

The abuse scandal caught up with Benedict again when, in early 2022, an expert report on how the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising dealt with suspected perpetrators was published.

The experts accused Benedict of misconduct during his time as archbishop from 1977 to 1981.

In a letter, he then once again apologized to all those affected by sexualised violence.

After that it was finally quiet around the old man in white.

He had set foot in Germany for the last time in 2020: that was when he said goodbye to his older brother Georg, who was also a priest, on his deathbed.

Maria, the eldest of the three siblings, had already died in 1991.

The brother and sister were probably the people who were closest to him throughout his life.