<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><base href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies"><style id="print"></style><title>Pope Benedict XVI Dies - The New York Times</title><div class="original-url"><br><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies">https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies</a><br><br></div><div id="article" role="article" style="-webkit-locale: "en"; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" class="system exported">
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<div class="page" style="text-align: start; overflow-wrap: break-word; max-width: 100%;"><h1 class="title" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 1.95552em; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: start; display: block; max-width: 100%;">Pope Benedict XVI Dies
Updates: Pope Francis Will Preside Over Benedict’s Funeral on Thursday</h1><div class="metadata singleline" style="text-align: start; display: block; margin-bottom: 1.45em; margin-top: -0.75em; max-width: 100%;"><time aria-hidden="true" datetime="2022-12-31T11:52:07.577Z" class="date" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"><span style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">Updated </span><p style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"><span data-time="abs" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">Dec. 31, 2022, 6:52 a.m. ET</span><span data-time="rel" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">18 minutes ago</span></p></time></div><figure style="max-width: 100%; font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: -apple-system-font; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); margin: 0px;"><div style="max-width: 100%;"><picture style="max-width: 100%;"><source srcset="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/12/28/multimedia/28PopeBenedict-Caro--03/28PopeBenedict-Caro--03-threeByTwoMediumAt2X.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp" media="(min-width: 600px)" src="" style="max-width: 100%;"><img tabindex="0" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/12/28/multimedia/28PopeBenedict-Caro--03/28PopeBenedict-Caro--03-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp" load="" draggable="true" alt="" class="" style="max-width: 100%; margin: 0.5em auto; display: block; height: auto;" data-unique-identifier=""></picture></div></figure><div role="article" aria-posinset="11" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlLzEzY2U5ODIxLWE2OTctNTg2Ny05MTJkLWI3ZDcyNzJjYjI2Nw==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#the-first-pope-to-step-down-in-six-centuries-dies-in-retirement" data-source-id="100000008706423" style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;">Pope Benedict XVI, the eminent German theologian and conservative enforcer of Roman Catholic Church doctrine who broke with almost 600 years of tradition by resigning and then living for nearly a decade behind Vatican walls as a retired pope still clad in white robes, died on Saturday at age 95, the Vatican said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Just as Benedict’s resignation in 2013 shook the Roman Catholic church to its core, his death again put the institution in little-charted territory.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">A pope’s death customarily sets in motion a conclave to choose a new leader of the church, but Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, was named when Benedict stepped down. It was Francis who on Wednesday <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/28/world/europe/pope-benedict-francis.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">announced the news</a> of Benedict’s final decline to the world.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Now, after a life dedicated to maintaining order and tradition in the church, Benedict in death has put it into a moment of uncertainty, with questions about how and in what capacity he will be mourned, and whether a living pope will preside over the funeral of a deceased one.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Whatever ceremonies the Vatican ultimately decides on, the loss of Benedict will be particularly hard felt by church conservatives.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Even before his election as pope on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/world/worldspecial2/german-cardinal-is-chosen-as-pope.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">April 19, 2005</a>, his supporters saw him as their intellectual and spiritual north star, a leader who, as a powerful Vatican official, upheld church doctrine in the face of growing secularism and pressure to change to get more people into the pews.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict’s critics are more likely to remember him as a crusher of dissent who did far too little to address sexual abuse in the church, stumbled in some of his public declarations and lacked the charisma of his predecessor, John Paul II.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Francis fired or demoted many of Benedict’s appointees, redirected the church’s priorities and adjusted its emphasis from setting and keeping boundaries to pastoral inclusivity.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Still, in some regards, Francis built on Benedict’s legacy, especially in addressing the child sexual abuse crisis. Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims, and he apologized for the abuse that was allowed to fester under John Paul II. He excoriated the “filth” in the church and excommunicated some offending priests.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">But abuse survivors and their advocates accused Benedict of having <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/world/europe/02pope.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">failed to go far enough</a> in punishing several priests as a bishop in Germany, and in his handling of accusations against some priests as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office. He was also criticized as doing little to hold the hierarchy accountable for shielding — and so facilitating — child sexual abuse.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict, born Joseph Alois Ratzinger, was ordained a priest in 1951, and named archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977, the same year that he became a cardinal. Four years later, Pope John Paul II summoned Cardinal Ratzinger to Rome, where he became the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office responsible for defending church orthodoxy, one of the Vatican’s most important positions.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">He led the office for nearly 25 years.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">After <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/world/europe/obituary-karol-wojtyla-19202005.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">John Paul II died in 2005</a>, Cardinal Ratzinger was chosen as his successor. He took the name of a sixth-century monk, Benedict of Nurcia, who had founded monasteries and the Benedictine order, helping spread Christianity in Europe. The new pope, as Benedict XVI, would seek to re-evangelize a Europe that was struggling to maintain its faith.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Ultimately, Pope Benedict bowed out during a period of scandals and immense pressures. He cited his declining health, both “of mind and body.” He had said that he resigned freely, and “for the good of the church.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">That resignation — the first by a pontiff since 1415 — is likely to be remembered as his most defining act.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">He lived in retirement in a monastery <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/world/europe/pope-emeritus-benedict-to-take-up-residence-at-vatican.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">on the Vatican grounds</a>, mostly stepping back from public life and dedicating himself to prayer and meditation. Francis visited him and called him “a wise grandfather in the home,” even as his supporters sought — and failed — to make him an alternative power center.</p><div style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="font-style: italic; max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">— </span><span itemprop="name" style="max-width: 100%;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/jason-horowitz" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">Jason Horowitz</a></span> and <span itemprop="name" style="max-width: 100%;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/elisabetta-povoledo" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">Elisabetta Povoledo</a></span> </p></div></div></div><div role="article" aria-posinset="10" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlLzRkNDAzYzI5LTNiY2QtNTcxNC05ZmI4LTUxMzgwMjcyNDU4MA==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#benedicts-body-will-be-in-st-peters-basilica-on-monday-to-be-greeted-by-the-faithful" data-source-id="100000008705748" style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;">ROME — When Queen Elizabeth II of Britain died in September, a meticulously choreographed process known as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/world/europe/london-bridge-what-happens-next-queen.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">Operation London Bridge</a> was set in motion for the hours and days to follow. Papal deaths also follow a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/world/europe/papal-transition-traditional-path-sharply-defined.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">strict protocol</a>: The pope’s study and bedroom are closed off, the pope’s Fisherman’s Ring — the seal used for papal documents — is destroyed, and various funeral rites are enacted.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">But with the death of Benedict, who resigned from the papacy in 2013 and since then held the title of pope emeritus, it was unclear until his death was announced on Saturday what protocol the Vatican would use.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">The Vatican said that his funeral would be held on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square, presided over by Pope Francis. The Vatican also said that Benedict’s body would be in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday “to be greeted by the faithful.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesman, said that the rite on Thursday would be a “solemn but sober funeral.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Because there are no precedents in modern time, said Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a historian of the papacy, “the question is complicated.” Benedict was not the first pope to retire, he noted, but he chose to retain some trappings tied to the papacy, including dressing in white.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">By contrast, Celestine V, who resigned in 1294, sought to live like a monk. He was instead imprisoned by Pope Boniface VIII and was not given the funeral of a pope when he died in 1296.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Gregory XII, the last pope to resign before Benedict, reverted to being a cardinal when he stepped down in 1415. When he died two years later, his funeral followed the rite used for cardinals, Mr. Paravicini Bagliani said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Normally, cardinals gather for papal funerals to mourn, but also to participate in the election of a successor. Their presence in Rome is a “sign that even though a pope has died, the church continues,” Mr. Paravicini Bagliani explained.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“Clearly that’s not an issue in this case,” he said, but added that cardinals would likely be present “as mourners.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">It is likely that Benedict will be buried alongside his 148 predecessors who lie in the crypt beneath St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, but the Vatican had not specified the burial site.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">A pope’s funeral Mass is usually celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals. As such, Benedict celebrated the funeral of John Paul II in 2005.</p></div></div><div role="article" aria-posinset="7" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlL2E4ZTVkMDQ1LTZiN2ItNTBhMy1iMTU5LTY3OGJlYTkwZjEzMA==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#his-resignation-as-pope-in-2013-shocked-the-world" data-source-id="100000008705659" style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;">ROME — When Benedict XVI <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/europe/pope-benedict-xvi-says-he-will-retire.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">resigned in 2013</a>, he was the first pope to do so in six centuries, and the move sent shock waves around the world.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict announced the decision in Latin during a routine gathering of cardinals, telling them that after much thought, “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.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">He told the cardinals that, at age 85, he did not have the strength, either of mind or body, to “adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict had been showing signs of age, often appeared tired and used a wheeled platform to move around.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">His papacy had also been roiled by fresh revelations of clerical abuse of minors in various dioceses around the world, and Benedict had struggled to respond to growing criticism. </p><p style="max-width: 100%;">After Benedict’s resignation, he moved into the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery on the grounds of Vatican City, where he said he would devote his life to meditation and prayer. He was cared for by four laywomen who had taken vows in the Catholic movement known as Communion and Liberation, as well as by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the German monsignor who was his private secretary throughout his pontificate.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">With two living popes for the first time in the modern era, the Vatican was forced to navigate <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/world/europe/pope-francis-and-benedict-share-a-lunch.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">a series of unknowns</a>, including where to house two popes at the Vatican and what to call Benedict. The decision was made for Benedict to adopt the title of “pope emeritus” and continue to wear white.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">The previous pope to resign, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/europe/last-pope-to-resign-did-so-in-midst-of-vatican-leadership-crisis.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">Pope Gregory XII</a>, stepped down in 1415, in an attempt to quell a leadership crisis in the church known as the Great Western Schism, during which three men vied to be pope.</p></div></div><div role="article" aria-posinset="6" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlLzQ4MTU0MzZjLWJlYzktNTJkNi1hMjNjLWE3MzQ4NGQ5MzU1YQ==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#an-unusual-coexistence-of-two-popes-worked-out-mostly" data-source-id="100000008706169" style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;">When he resigned in 2013, Benedict pledged that he would live <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/world/europe/benedict-says-he-will-be-hidden-to-the-world-in-retirement.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">“hidden to the world,”</a> retiring, he said, “to a life of prayer” and meditation.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">He moved into a monastery with a view of St. Peter’s dome, and for the most part adhered to that promise, spending his days secluded not far from Pope Francis’s own residence on the Vatican’s grounds.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict’s public appearances were rare. In 2015, with Pope Francis, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/pope-mercy-jubilee-vatican-st-peters-basilica.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">he marked the opening</a> of a Jubilee, or Holy Year, and at least in the early years of his retirement he attended the occasional special Mass or ceremony for elevating a cardinal.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">In an <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-04/pope-emeritus-benedict-xvi-95-birthday-interview-ganswein.html" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">interview in April, on the occasion</a> of Benedict’s 95th birthday, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, his longtime personal secretary, told Vatican News, a Vatican-controlled outlet, that the retired pope was in “good spirits.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Although he was “physically relatively weak and frail,” Benedict remained “lucid,” the archbishop said, describing a life of reading, dealing with correspondence and meeting with visitors. The retired pope also went out into the Vatican gardens, reciting the rosary, “but seated,” the archbishop said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">But even though he remained out of the public eye, more than once Benedict found himself at the center of media maelstroms and was often regarded as a foil against Francis by the sitting pope’s detractors.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">In 2019, Benedict broke his post-papacy silence, issuing <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-benedict-xvi-the-church-and-the-scandal-of-sexual-abuse-59639" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">a 6,000-word letter</a> that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/pope-benedict-letter-sex-abuse.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">seemed at odds with his successor’s view</a> of the church’s sexual abuse scandals. Benedict attributed the crisis to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, secularization and an erosion of morality that he pinned on liberal theology. Francis, by contrast, saw its origins in the exaltation of authority and abuse of power in the church hierarchy.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Given Benedict’s frail health at the time, however, many church watchers questioned whether he had indeed written the letter or had been manipulated to issue it as a way to undercut Francis.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">And as Francis appeared to be mulling whether to lift the restriction on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/world/europe/pope-married-priests.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">married priests</a> in remote areas, as had been proposed by his bishops, Benedict firmly defended the church’s teachings on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/world/europe/pope-francis-celibacy-book.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">priestly celibacy</a> in a 2020 book. Francis ended up rejecting the proposal, a decision welcomed by conservatives.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">At times, Benedict also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/world/europe/pope-francis-benedict.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">scolded the cardinals</a> who invoked his name as they criticized Francis. In private letters <a href="https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/controversial-letters-pope-benedict-xvi-concerned-about-his-church-57358166.bild.html" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">published in 2018 by the German newspaper Bild</a>, Benedict wrote that the “anger” expressed by some of his staunchest defenders risked tarnishing his own pontificate.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“I can well understand the deep-seated pain that the end of my pontificate caused you and many others,” he wrote in a November 2017 letter to Cardinal Walter Brandmüller of Germany. “But for some — and it seems to me for you as well — the pain has turned to anger, which no longer just affects the abdication but my person and the entirety of my pontificate.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict added, “In this way the pontificate itself is being devalued and conflated with the sadness about the situation of the church today.”</p></div></div><div role="article" aria-posinset="4" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlL2Q0ZGNjMzgwLTQzYmYtNTU4Zi1hZjJiLWM1Zjc4NmMxNGY3Yg==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#benedicts-life-in-pictures" data-source-id="100000008709564" style="max-width: 100%;"><div style="max-width: 100%;"><figcaption style="max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0.8em; width: 100%; font-size: 0.75rem; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);"><span style="max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Clockwise from top left: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times, Alberto Pizzoli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, L’Osservatore Romano, and Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times </span></span></figcaption></div><p style="max-width: 100%;">A soft-spoken intellectual and scholar, Benedict XVI was the head of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics for eight years, sandwiched between the charismatic Pope (now Saint) John Paul II (1978-2005), one of the longest papacies in history, and the reformist agenda of Pope Francis, who began serving in 2013.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">As a younger cleric, Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger, experienced the opening of the Catholic Church to the modern world that was set in motion by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which he attended as a theological adviser.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s theological watchdog, he embraced orthodoxy, moving against dissenting theologians and speaking out against homosexuality, birth control and abortion, and the liberation theology movement in Latin America.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">As pope, he witnessed the growing secularization of society, alongside growing disenchantment among the faithful with an institution seen as being unwilling, or unable, to give a forceful response to the clerical abuse scandal that has roiled the church in the past few decades.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Here is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/world/europe/pope-benedict-photos.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">selection of images from Benedict’s life</a>.</p></div></div><div role="article" aria-posinset="3" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlLzllNzkxMGZkLTU0MTQtNTBlMC04YTMzLTMzYjkzODQ0NzZjNQ==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#at-86-francis-has-his-own-health-problems-raising-questions-about-whether-he-too-might-retire" data-source-id="100000008706467" style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;">The death of Benedict XVI has once again focused attention on the health of Francis, himself 86 and considerably slowed. Francis now often uses a wheelchair. He’s heavier and breathes more heavily.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Francis has made aging, and concern about the abandonment of the aged, a hallmark of his late papacy, using his own deteriorating body, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/world/europe/pope-sees-frailties-as-affirming-life.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">as John Paul II did</a>, as a testament to the suffering of an increasing population of older people.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Francis, who had part of a lung removed when he was 21, underwent surgery in the summer of 2021 to remove part of his colon, which kept him hospitalized for 10 days. He suffers from sciatica, a chronic nerve condition that causes, back, hip and leg pain, giving him a limp. Francis has called it his “troublesome guest.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">He has also attributed his limp to a flat foot. “When you see me walking like a broody chicken, it’s because of that affliction,” he told Nelson Castro, the author of the book “The Health of Popes.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Knee pain forced him to postpone a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in July, though, in a possible sign of improvement, he is now scheduled to make that trip in February. On a trip to Canada in July, during which he used a wheelchair, he acknowledged that he would have to restrict his usually frantic schedule on international trips.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Francis has spoken freely about his physiotherapy to address the narrowing of a disc between his fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae. Various treatments have apparently improved his mobility, as instead of relying on a wheelchair, he used a cane and leaned on two aides after delivering the annual “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and to the World”) speech on Christmas.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Francis is the oldest reigning pope in more than a century, and his age and ailments have prompted questions about whether he himself will retire. He has consistently said that stepping down is an idea he would entertain if he felt he could no longer do the job, and he recently revealed that he had signed a resignation document in the event that he became incapacitated or unable to do the job.</p></div></div><div role="article" aria-posinset="1" aria-setsize="-1" aria-live="off" aria-labelledby="post-title-QXJ0aWNsZTpueXQ6Ly9hcnRpY2xlLzQ4ZTk1NTdmLWFlNDMtNWIxMy05ZWZkLTAyNWE3MDg4M2U2Nw==" style="max-width: 100%;"><div data-testid="live-blog-post" data-url="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/31/world/pope-benedict-dies#long-before-he-was-pope-the-man-who-became-benedict-was-a-central-figure-in-the-church" data-source-id="100000008705987" style="max-width: 100%;"><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict XVI helped run the Roman Catholic Church long before his election as pope.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">For much of the decades-long papacy of his predecessor and mentor, John Paul II, Benedict — who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany — served as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal official. “God’s Rottweiler,” his critics called him, or “the German shepherd.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">From his powerful perch as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — once the Holy Office responsible for the Inquisition — the conservative cleric acted as an enforcer and as a traditionalist compass.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">He veered the church away from what he ultimately came to consider the liberal overreach of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which he held responsible for a drift away from the truth maintained by tradition. He crushed dissent. He helped promote clerics in his and John Paul II’s mold in the Roman curia, the bureaucracy that runs the church, as well as in dioceses and orders around the world.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">After John Paul II’s death in 2005, Benedict gave a powerful and defining speech against the temptation of relativism, delivered before the conclave to choose the next pope. It was considered so persuasive that the College of Cardinals chose him to continue John Paul’s legacy and essentially encourage the traditional church to make a last-ditch effort against the growing forces of secularism.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">As pope, however, Benedict — a soft-spoken theologian who loved cats and playing Mozart on the piano — lacked the charisma and media savvy of John Paul.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Almost immediately, he gave <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/world/europe/muslims-condemn-popes-remarks-on-islam.html" title="" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">a speech that offended many Muslims</a>. And the sexual abuse scandals that festered under John Paul — at times despite the warnings of Benedict as a cardinal — exploded on his watch. His efforts to rid the church of what he called “filth” went much further than John Paul II, but his reluctance to hold bishops accountable for moving abusive priests around fell far short of the hopes of victims and critics.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Whatever grand ambitions Benedict may have harbored often seemed overmatched by missteps and moments he failed to meet.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Benedict’s greatest impact on the papacy may have been how he left it.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">His unexpected resignation, the first by a pope in more than 500 years, stunned the church. It also opened the door to Pope Francis, a progressive reformer with whom he shared an awkward, if decorous, cohabitation in a Vatican with two popes.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">It also set a precedent and broke a taboo. Francis himself has repeatedly said that his own retirement is on the table.</p></div></div></div></div></div><br><br><div dir="ltr">Reverend Dr. Carolyn Peters,National Federation of the Blind, Vice President Ohio, President Ohio Com. of Faith, 937–6 57–5134,<div>Dr.Carolyn.peters@gmail. com</div></div></body></html>