Tag: Pope Benedict XVI

Pope visits Istanbul’s Blue Mosque for meeting with Turkish religious leaders

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Pope Leo XIV visited Istanbul’s iconic Blue Mosque on Saturday but didn’t stop to pray, as he opened an intense day of meetings and liturgies with Turkey’s Christian leaders, where he again emphasized the need for Christians to be united.

Leo took his shoes off and, in his white socks, toured the 17th-century mosque, looking up at its soaring tiled domes and the Arabic inscriptions on its columns as an imam pointed them out to him.

The Vatican had said Leo would observe a “brief moment of silent prayer” in the mosque, but he didn’t. An imam of the mosque, Asgin Tunca, said he had invited Leo to pray, since the mosque was “Allah’s house,” but the pope declined.

Later, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said: “The pope experienced his visit to the mosque in silence, in a spirit of contemplation and listening, with deep respect for the place and the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”

The Vatican then sent out a corrected version of its bulletin about the trip, removing reference to the planned “brief moment of silent prayer,” without further explanation.

Leo, history’s first American pope, was following in the footsteps of his recent predecessors, who all made high-profile visits to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, as it is officially known, in a gesture of respect to Turkey’s Muslim majority.

Pope Leo XIV, center, walking with Muezzin Musa Asgın Tunca, left, Dr. Emrullah Tuncel, second from left, and Imam of Mosque Sultanahmet Fatih Kaya, visits the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.

Domenico Stinellis / AP

Papal visits to Blue Mosque often raise questions

Other visits have always raised questions about whether the pope would pray in the Muslim house of worship, or at the very least pause to gather thoughts in a meditative silence.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Turkey in 2006, tensions were high because Benedict had offended many in the Muslim world a few months earlier with a speech in Regensburg, Germany that was widely interpreted as linking Islam and violence.

The Vatican added a visit to the Blue Mosque at the last minute in a bid to reach out to Muslims, and Benedict was warmly welcomed. He observed a moment of silent prayer, head bowed, as the imam prayed next to him, facing east.

Pope Benedict XVI, second from left, is guided by Istanbul’s Mufti Mustafa Cagrici, fourth from left, inside the Blue Mosque in Istanbul Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006.

AP Photo/Salih Zeki Fazlioglu

Benedict later thanked him “for this moment of prayer” for what was only the second time a pope had visited a mosque, after St. John Paul II visited one briefly in Syria in 2001.

There were no doubts in 2014 when Pope Francis visited the Blue Mosque: He stood for two minutes of silent prayer facing east, his head bowed, eyes closed and hands clasped in front of him. The Grand Mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran, told the pope afterwards, “May God accept it.”

Pope Francis visits the Blue Mosque on November 29, 2014 in Istanbul.

FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

Speaking to reporters after the visit, the imam Tunca said he had told the Leo: “It’s not my house, not your house, (it’s the) house of Allah,” he said. He said he told the pope: “‘If you want, you can worship here,’ I said. But he said, ‘That’s OK.’”

“He wanted to see the mosque, wanted to feel (the) atmosphere of the mosque, I think. And was very pleased,” he said.

There was also another change to the official program, after the Vatican said the head of Turkey’s Diyanet religious affairs directorate would accompany Leo at the mosque. He didn’t come and a spokesman from the Diyanet said he wasn’t supposed to, since he had welcomed Leo in Ankara.

Hagia Sophia left off itinerary

Past popes have also visited the nearby Hagia Sophia landmark, once one of the most important historic cathedrals in Christianity and a United Nations-designated world heritage site.

But Leo left that visit off his itinerary on his first trip as pope. In July 2020, Turkey converted Hagia Sophia from a museum back into a mosque, a move that drew widespread international criticism, including from the Vatican.

After the mosque visit, Leo held a private meeting with Turkey’s Christian leaders at the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mor Ephrem. In the afternoon, he was expected to pray with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew, at the patriarchal church of Saint George.

There, they were to sign a joint statement. The Vatican said in his remarks to the patriarchs gathered, Leo reminded them “that division among Christians is an obstacle to their witness.”

Pope Leo XIV visits the Ottoman-era Sultan Ahmed or Blue Mosque, in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.

Emrah Gurel / AP

He pointed to the next Holy Year to be celebrated by Christians, in 2033 on the anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion, and invited them to go to Jerusalem on “a journey that leads to full unity.”

Leo was ending the day with a Catholic Mass in Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena for the country’s Catholic community, who number 33,000 in a country of more than 85 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslim.

The Airbus software update doesn’t spare pope

While Leo was focusing on bolstering relations with Orthodox Christians and Muslims, trip organizers were dealing with more mundane issues.

Leo’s ITA Airways Airbus A320neo charter was among those caught up in the worldwide Airbus software update, ordered by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. The order came after an analysis found the computer code may have contributed to a sudden drop in the altitude of a JetBlue plane last month.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said Saturday that ITA was working on the issue. He said the necessary component to update the aircraft was on its way to Istanbul along with the technician who would install it.

Leo is scheduled to fly from Istanbul to Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday afternoon for the second leg of his inaugural trip as pope.

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November 29, 2025
Thousands mourn Benedict XVI as pope emeritus lies in state at the Vatican

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Thousands filed past the body of Benedict XVI on Monday as the pope emeritus, who died Saturday at age 95, lay in state at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

He will be buried by his successor, Pope Francis, on Thursday.

Benedict’s body, draped in red and gold vestments, is flanked by two Swiss guards, and surrounded by the faithful paying their respects, amid solemn organ music and singing. It’s the kind of setting you’d expect for a papacy marked by his orthodoxy, albeit not without his contradictions.

Thousands of faithful began paying their respects to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, January 2, 2023.

ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images

He was known as a traditionalist — “God’s rottweiler” — for fiercely adhering to church doctrine. But Benedict’s papacy was a papacy of firsts.

Despite his failures, during a 2008 trip to the U.S., he was the first pope to meet with victims of sex abuse and to publicly apologize, condemning what he called “filth” in the church.

And in his most defining act, Benedict was the first pope to resign in six centuries, recognizing, he said, his “incapacity to fulfill” his ministry due to the strain of old age.

While he made a majestic farewell over the Eternal City in his exit from the papacy in 2013, he never exited the Vatican. While Francis championed Benedict’s bravery to abdicate his power, having two men wearing white created the impression of two competing ideological camps: Francis the more liberal, Benedict the arch-conservative.

Tina White, visiting the Vatican from Detroit, said it was a mistake for Benedict to step down: “It’s an amazing honor to be elected pope. And you shouldn’t throw that away.”

But now, for the first time since he became pope nearly 10 years ago, Francis is finally the only one, now mourning his only confidant who could possibly understand what it meant to be pope, said Gerard O’Connell, Vatican expert for the Jesuit magazine America.

CBS News asked O’Connell, “What does Francis lose with the death of Benedict?”

“Francis has always been attracted to grandparents,” O’Connell replied. “He’s always referred to grandparents as very important in the life of the family. He has lost a grandfather.”

On Thursday it will be Francis making history, becoming the first pope in modern times to preside over the funeral of his predecessor.

The Vatican says the ceremony will be sober and simple — exactly as Benedict wanted.

The life of Benedict XVI, the Pope Emeritus

04:59

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Chris Livesay

Chris Livesay is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Rome.

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January 2, 2023
Benedict’s 2013 resignation shook a routine Vatican ceremony

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Veteran reporter Giovanna Chirri was starting to doze off in the Vatican press room on a slow holiday when all of a sudden the Latin she learned in high school made her perk up — and gave her the scoop of a lifetime.

It was Feb. 11, 2013, and Chirri was watching closed-circuit television coverage of Pope Benedict XVI presiding over a pro-forma meeting of cardinals to set dates for three upcoming canonizations.

But at the end of the ceremony, rather than stand up and leave the Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace, Benedict remained seated, took out a single sheet of paper and began to read.

“I have convoked you to this consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church,” Benedict said quietly in his German-clipped Latin.

Chirri followed along but only began to realize the import of what was unfolding when she heard Benedict then utter the words “ingravescente aetate.” The term is Latin for “advanced age,” and is the title of a 1970 Vatican regulation requiring bishops to retire when they turn 75.

Knowing both Latin and Vatican regulations well, Chirri slowly began to realize that Benedict had just announced he too would be retiring, at the end of the month, because he believed he was getting too old for the job.

It was the first papal resignation in 600 years, and Chirri, the Vatican correspondent for the authoritative ANSA news agency, was about to report the news to the world.

“Hearing this ‘ingravescente aetate’ I started to feel sick physically, a really, really violent reaction,” Chirri recalled years later.

Her head felt like it was a balloon inflating. Her left leg began to shake so uncontrollably that she had to hold it down with one hand as she started making phone calls to her Vatican sources to check that she had heard Benedict correctly.

After finally receiving confirmation from the Vatican spokesman, Chirri sent the flash headline on ANSA at 11:46 a.m.

“The pope is leaving the pontificate beginning 2/28,” it read.

Benedict died Saturday, almost a decade after that momentous day.

Years later, Chirri still searches for the right words to express the emotional, physical, professional and intellectual combustion that that headline, and all it implied, caused her.

“I was terrified by news that was unthinkable to me,” she said.

Aside from the fact that she truly liked Benedict as a pope, Chirri couldn’t comprehend that the conservative German theologian who spent his life upholding church rules and doctrine would take the revolutionary step of resigning.

“Now eight years have passed and we’re used to it,” she said in an interview in 2021. “But eight years ago, the idea that the pope might resign was beyond (reality). It was a theoretical hypothesis” that was technically possible but had been rejected repeatedly by popes over the centuries.

Chirri won accolades for having had both the intellectual capacity to understand what had transpired, and the steely nerves to report it first and accurately among mainstream news organizations — no small feat considering the near-official authority that an ANSA headline carries in reporting Vatican news.

It was a holiday in the Vatican that day — the anniversary of the Lateran Accords between Italy and the Vatican — and only a handful of other reporters were even in the press room to hear the in-house broadcast of the ceremony.

But Chirri was there, the right person in the right place at the right time.

“Certainly, if I hadn’t been an Italian who studied Latin in the 1970s in Italy, I never would have understood a thing,” Chirri said of Italy’s classics-heavy public high school curriculum.

“Also, because the pope was reading so calmly, it was like he was telling us what he had had for breakfast that morning,” she added.

Only later, would it emerge that Benedict had been planning to retire for months. A nighttime fall during a 2012 trip to Mexico confirmed to him that he no longer had the strength for the globe-trotting rigors of the 21st century papacy.

Benedict knew well what was required to make the announcement legitimate: Though only a handful of popes had done it before, canon law allows for a papal resignation as long as it is “freely made and properly manifested.”

Some traditionalists and conspiracy theorists would later quibble with the grammatical formula Benedict used, claiming it rendered the announcement null and that Benedict was still pope.

But Benedict fulfilled both requirements under the law: He stated that he had come to the decision freely, made it public in a Vatican ceremony using the official language of the Holy See, and repeated it for years to come to remove any doubt.

“As far as canon law is concerned, it’s impeccable,” Chirri said.

And for anyone paying attention, Benedict had hinted about his intentions for years.

In 2009, during a visit to the earthquake-ravaged city of L’Aquila, Benedict prayed at the tomb of Pope Celestine V, the hermit pope who stepped down in 1294 after just five months in office. Benedict left on Celestine’s tomb a pallium — the simple white woolen stole that is a symbol of the papacy.

No one thought much of it at the time. But in retrospect, a pope leaving behind a potent symbol of the papacy on the tomb of a pope who had resigned carried a message.

One year later, in a 2010 book-length interview, Benedict said point-blank that popes not only could but should resign under certain circumstances, though he stressed that retirement was not an option to escape a particular burden.

“If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign,” Benedict said in “Light of the World.”

He essentially laid out that same rationale to his cardinals on that chilly February morning.

“After having repeatedly examined my 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 the Petrine (St. Peter) ministry,” he said.

He said that in modern world, “strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

Closing out his remarks, Benedict thanked the cardinals for their love and service and begged their forgiveness for his defects.

And in a promise he kept to the very end, he vowed to continue serving the church “through a life dedicated to prayer.”

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at https://apnews.com/hub/pope-benedict-xvi

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January 2, 2023
65,000 view Benedict XVI’s body lying in state at Vatican

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ’s body, his head resting on a pair of crimson pillows, lay in state in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday as tens of thousands queued to pay tribute to the pontiff who shocked the world by retiring a decade ago.

On the eve of the first of three days of viewing, Italian security officials had said at least 25,000-30,000 people would come on Monday. But by the end of the first day’s viewing, some 65,000 persons had passed by the bier, the Vatican said.

As daylight broke, 10 white-gloved Papal Gentlemen — lay assistants to pontiffs and papal households — carried the body on a cloth-covered wooden stretcher after its arrival at the basilica to its resting place in front of the main altar under Bernini’s towering bronze canopy.

A Swiss Guard saluted as Benedict’s body was brought in through a side door after it was transferred in a van from the chapel of the monastery grounds where the increasingly frail, 95-year-old former pontiff died on Saturday morning.

His longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, and a handful of consecrated laywomen who served in Benedict’s household, followed the van by foot for a few hundred yards in a silent procession toward the basilica. Some of the women stretched out a hand to touch the body with respect.

Before the rank-and-file faithful were allowed into the basilica, prayers were recited and the basilica’s archpriest, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, sprinkled holy water over the body, and a small cloud of incense was released near the bier. Benedict’s hands were clasped, a rosary around his fingers.

Just after 9 a.m. (0800 GMT), the doors of the basilica were swung open so the public, some of whom had waited for hours in the pre-dawn damp, could pay their respects to the late pontiff, who retired from the papacy in 2013 — the first pope to do so in 600 years.

Faithful and curious, the public strode briskly up the center aisle to pass by the bier with its cloth draping after waiting in a line that by midmorning snaked around St. Peter’s Square.

Benedict’s body was dressed with a miter, the peaked headgear of a bishop, and a red cloak.

Filippo Tuccio, 35, said he came from Venice on an overnight train to view Benedict’s body.

“I wanted to pay homage to Benedict because he had a key role in my life and my education,” Tuccio said.

“When I was young I participated in World Youth Days,″ he said, referring to the jamborees of young faithful held periodically and attended by pontiffs. Tuccio added that he had studied theology, and “his pontificate accompanied me during my university years.”

“He was very important for me: for what I am, my way of thinking, my values,” Tuccio continued.

Among those coming to the basilica viewing was Cardinal Walter Kasper, like Benedict, a German theologian. Kasper served as head of the Vatican’s Christian unity office during Benedict’s papacy.

Benedict left an “important mark” on theology and spirituality, but also on the history of the papacy with his courage to step aside, Kasper told The Associated Press.

“This resignation wasn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength, a greatness because he saw that he was no longer up to the challenges of being pope,” Kasper said.

Kasper, who was among the cardinals who elected Benedict to the papacy in 2005, added that the resignation gave “a more human vision to the papacy: that the pope is a man and is dependent on his physical and mental strengths.”

Public viewing was set for 10 hours on Monday, and 12 hours each on Tuesday and Wednesday before Thursday morning’s funeral, which will be led by Pope Francis, at St. Peter’s Square.

As Benedict desired, the funeral will marked by simplicity, the Vatican said when announcing the death on Saturday.

Workers on Monday were setting up an altar in the square for the funeral Mass. Also being arranged were rows of chairs for the faithful who want to attend the funeral. Authorities said they expected about 60,000 to come for the Mass.

On Monday, the Vatican confirmed widely reported burial plans. In keeping with his wishes, Benedict’s tomb will be in the crypt of the grotto under the basilica that was last used by St. John Paul II, before the saint’s body was moved upstairs into the main basilica ahead of his 2011 beatification, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

At two sides of the piazza’s colonnade, viewers went through the usual security measures required for tourists entering the basilica — passing through metal detectors and screening bags through an X-ray machine.

Marina Ferrante, 62, was among them.

“I think his main legacy was teaching us how to be free,” she said. “He had a special intelligence in saying what was essential in his faith and that was contagious” for other faithful. “The thing I thought when he died was that I would like to be as free as he was.”

While venturing that the shy, bookworm German churchman and theologian and the current Argentine-born pontiff had different temperaments, Ferrante said: “I believe there’s a continuity between him and Pope Francis and whoever understands the real relationship between them and Christ can see that.”

An American man who lives in Rome called the opportunity to view the body “an amazing experience.” Mountain Butorac, 47, who is originally from Atlanta, said he arrived 90 minutes before dawn.

“I loved Benedict, I loved him as a cardinal (Joseph Ratzinger), when he was elected pope and also after he retired,” Butorac said. “I think he was a sort of people’s grandfather living in the Vatican.”

With an organ and choir’s soft rendition of “Kyrie Eleison” (“Lord, have mercy” in ancient Greek) in the background, ushers moved well-wishers along at a steady clip down the basilica’s center aisle.. Someone left a red rose.

A few VIPs had a moment before the general public to pay their respects, including Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, the far-right leader who in the past has professed admiration for the conservative leanings of Benedict.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella also came to view the body. The Vatican has said only two nations’ official delegations — from Italy and from Benedict’s native Germany — were invited formally to the funeral, since the pope emeritus was no longer head of state.

Sister Regina Brand was among the mourners who came to the square before dawn.

“He’s a German pope and I am from Germany,” she said. “And I am here to express my gratitude and love, and I want to pray for him and to see him.”

___

Trisha Thomas and Nicole Winfield contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Pope Benedict XVI: https://apnews.com/hub/pope-benedict-xvi

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January 2, 2023
Vatican confirms Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at age 95 after ill health

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Vatican confirms Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at age 95 after ill health – CBS News

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died just days after the Vatican announced the 95-year-old was in ill health. CBS News foreign correspondent Chris Livesay looks back at his life and CBS News senior foreign correspondent Seth Doane discusses the late pontiff’s legacy.

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December 31, 2022
Biden remembers Pope Benedict XVI as ‘renowned theologian, with a lifetime of devotion to the Church’ | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

President Joe Biden mourned the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, saying in a statement Saturday that the late pontiff “will be remembered as a renowned theologian, with a lifetime of devotion to the Church, guided by his principles and faith.”

Benedict died Saturday at the age of 95 in a Vatican monastery, according to a statement from the Vatican. He was the first pope in almost 600 years to resign his position, rather than hold office for life, doing so in 2013.

Biden, the second Catholic to serve as president of the United States, reflected on his meeting with Benedict at the Vatican in 2011, recalling the late pontiff’s “generosity and welcome as well as our meaningful conversation.”

“As he remarked during his 2008 visit to the White House, ‘the need for global solidarity is as urgent as ever, if all people are to live in a way worthy of their dignity.’ May his focus on the ministry of charity continue to be an inspiration to us all,” Biden said Saturday.

Benedict’s funeral will be held on Thursday in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City at 9:30 a.m. local time, the Vatican statement said. The funeral will be led by Pope Francis.

Benedict was a polarizing figure, hailed by conservatives who admired his erudite writings and careful theology. But he faced criticism, particularly in the postmodern West, for his staunch insistence on fidelity to church doctrine and his willingness to silence dissent. He also came under fire for his handling of the sexual abuse crisis that engulfed the Catholic Church during his years as a senior cleric.

Benedict met with three sitting US presidents – in addition to future President Biden – during his time as leader of the Catholic Church.

“It was like going back to theology class,” Biden told America, a Jesuit publication, in 2015 of his meeting with Benedict. “And by the way, he wasn’t judgmental. He was open. I came away enlivened from the discussion.”

In pictures: The life of Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict met with his first sitting president in 2007 when George W. Bush traveled to the Vatican. Benedict made his only papal visit to the United States the following year. Bush took the rare step of meeting the pope when his plane arrived at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, DC, and he later welcomed Benedict to the White House with an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn where thousands gathered and sang “Happy Birthday” to the pope, who turned 81 that day.

Later that year, Bush visited Benedict at the Vatican, where the two men strolled through the Vatican Gardens and met privately for roughly 30 minutes.

In 2009, President Barack Obama met with Benedict for 30 minutes at the Vatican. Officials at the time said their meeting included discussions on addressing poverty and the Middle East, as well as issues such as abortion and stem cell research.

Abortion also appeared to be a topic of discussion during Biden’s meeting with Benedict. In his 2015 interview with America, Biden said the two men spoke about Catholic doctrine and the then-vice president’s view that he should not impose his own beliefs on other people, including on issues such as abortion.

Benedict talked about Biden’s abortion stance after he became president in 2021.

“It’s true, he’s Catholic and observant. And personally, he is against abortion,” Benedict said in an interview with The Tablet, a Catholic publication. “But as president, he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the Democratic Party … and on gender policy, we still don’t really understand what his position is.”

Biden also spoke of Benedict at a White House event this summer, calling him a “great theologian, a very conservative theologian.” The president shared that Benedict had asked him for advice when they met.

“‘Well, one piece of advice,’ I said, ‘I’d go easy on the nuns. They’re more popular than you are,’” Biden recounted to laughter.

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December 31, 2022
12/31: CBS Saturday Morning

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12/31: CBS Saturday Morning – CBS News

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at 95; Savile Row bespoke tailor cuts new path forward.

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December 31, 2022
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at 95

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at 95 – CBS News

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Former Pope Benedict XVI died on Saturday at age 95. Born Joseph Alois Ratzinger, the German Cardinal who succeeded Pope John Paul II served as pope for eight years before stepping down, becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign his office. Correspondent Chris Livesay is at the Vatican with the latest.

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December 31, 2022
Former Pope Benedict XVI, first pope in centuries to resign, dies at age 95

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Rome — Benedict XVI, the pope who shocked the world by stepping down from the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, has died at the age of 95. The Vatican announced his death on Saturday.

Benedict had been in failing health and his successor, Pope Francis, said Wednesday that Benedict was “very sick” and asked the faithful to pray for him.

Vatican says retired Pope Benedict is “very sick”

04:13

Nothing defined Benedict XVI’s pontificate so clearly as its ending, and his majestic farewell flight over the Eternal City. He had become the first pope in more than 700 years to voluntarily resign.

Benedict said that his mental and physical strength had deteriorated “to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

A naturally shy man, Pope Benedict XVI always said he had no ambitions to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. But he was chosen in 2005 to succeed Pope John Paul II. At 78, he took on the role as the oldest pope in nearly 30 years.

“I prayed to God, don’t do this to me,” he later said. “But evidently, this time, he didn’t listen.”

Pope Benedict XVI appears on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican after being elected by the conclave of cardinals, April 19, 2005.

ARTURO MARI/AFP/Getty

Born Joseph Ratzinger in a small town in Germany in 1927. He was required to join the Hitler Youth at age 14, and was conscripted into an anti-aircraft unit in the German army in 1943. He deserted, and was taken prisoner by the Americans.

He entered the priesthood after the war and rose to become a cardinal. In the powerful position as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he earned the nickname “God’s Rottweiler” as a rigid enforcer of church policy. It was a characterisation his biographer John Allen said Ratzinger worked hard to change.

“He was seen as harsh, as authoritarian, as controlling… and it was important to him, right out of the gate, to revise that… public image, and I think by and large he did so quite successfully,” said Allen.

He did it by being what he really was: a teacher, and one who spoke clearly and without undue theological jargon.

As pope, Benedict’s weekly audiences at the Vatican drew huge crowds, but his efforts at inter-religious dialogue sometimes fell short.

He offended many Jews by reinstating a bishop who denied the size of the Holocaust, and then stopped short of an apology on a visit to the Holocaust memorial of Yad Vashem.

“They lost their lives. But they will never lose their names,” he said.

On a trip to Africa he dismissed condoms as a way to prevent AIDS. He called gay marriage a threat to humanity, and held firm to doctrines such as no female priests.

But he also embraced modern technology. Benedict was the first pope to do a TV question-and-answer session — albeit with pre-screened questions — and he oversaw the launch of an official Vatican website and a papal Twitter account.

New York City Fire Department Chief Salvatore Cassano kisses the hand of Pope Benedict XVI as he visits the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, in New York, April 20, 2008.

AP Photo/Todd Heisler

During a trip to the U.S. in 2008, he made a powerful symbolic visit to Ground Zero in New York.

As age began to take its toll, Benedict went to Cuba and Mexico in defiance of his doctor’s wishes, but the challenges only grew.

Critics hit out at his slow response to the decades of cover-up of the scandal of sexual abuse by priests. And then came the scandal of leaked documents that disclosed corruption and mismanagement in the Vatican.

New report faults retired Pope Benedict for handling of sexual abuse cases in German diocese

01:41

After eight years at the top of the Church hierarchy, Benedict made the stunning announcement in a speech to the cardinals of his decision to step down.

He was succeeded by Pope Francis, while Benedict assumed the title of pope emeritus and retired to a monastery in Vatican City.

Pope Francis, right, greets Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on September 28, 2014.

Franco Origlia/Getty

During his papacy, he initiated some of the changes that Francis would later get credit for. He began the reform of Vatican finances. And he was the first pope to meet with victims of sex abuse and offer a public apology, condemning what he called “filth” in the church.

In 2016, Francis held a ceremony at the Vatican to honor Benedict on the 65th anniversary of his ordination, celebrating his decades of service to the church. As he got older, appearances became more rare, though he was seen — mug of beer in hand — celebrating his 90th birthday with a group from his native Bavaria.

During his retirement, a frail Benedict would leave Italy only once, to visit his elder brother, also a priest, on his deathbed.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in a wheelchair at the airport in Munich, Germany, on June 22, 2020, as he prepared to return to the Vatican following a visit to his sick brother.

SVEN HOPPE/POOL/AFP/Getty

A scholar who had wanted nothing more than to hide in academia, Benedict made an indelible mark on the church — and history — when he became the pope who decided it was time to go.

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Chris Livesay

Chris Livesay is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Rome.

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December 31, 2022
Pope Benedict XVI, Stern Defender Of Conservative Catholic Identity, Dead At 95

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Pope Benedict XVI, the German Catholic traditionalist who became the first pope in almost 600 years to resign, has died at age 95.

He became pope in 2005 ― earning the power to discipline ministers and the nickname “God’s Rottweiler,” for upholding Church doctrine.

Benedict’s attempts to bring the church back to its core values endeared him to conservative Catholics, but a series of sex abuse scandals that came to a head during his papacy cast a shadow over his legacy.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, in a statement on Saturday morning, wrote: “With pain I inform that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesia Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be released as soon as possible.”

Benedict’s remains are set to be on display beginning Monday at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger in the small town of Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, on April 16, 1927, he became interested in becoming a priest when he met the archbishop of Munich at age 5. He began studying for the priesthood when he was 12 years old.

A photo taken during the summer of 1952 near Ruhpolding shows Joseph Ratzinger (center) praying during an open-air mass.

Ratzinger grew up as the Nazis came to power in the 1930s. He joined the Hitler Youth group after his 14th birthday because it was mandatory, but he refused to attend meetings, his older brother, Georg, told The Associated Press in 2005.

In 1943, he was drafted into the anti-aircraft corps as a Luftwaffenhelfer, or child soldier, but deserted the army and returned home in April 1945 without firing a shot. The U.S. Army set up local headquarters in his parents’ farmhouse near Traunstein soon after.

In November 1945, he entered the seminary in Freising, where he and Georg were ordained as priests in 1951.

Benedict XVI’s childhood home in Marktl was turned into a museum featuring images from his early years in the Hitler Youth (left) and the seminary. It attracts thousands of visitors annually.

JOHN MACDOUGALL via AFP/ Getty Images

He gained his first doctorate at the University of Munich in 1953 and earned his teaching license in 1957. One year later, Freising College appointed him as a professor to teach dogma and fundamental theology. By 1963, he was teaching at the University of Muenster.

He was regarded as a reformer when he took part in the Second Vatican Council — which addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the rest of the world — from 1962 to 1965.

In 1966, he was appointed to a chair in dogmatic theology at Germany’s leading theological faculty, the University of Tübingen.

Benedict, then known as Joseph Ratzinger, in 1959, when he was a professor of dogmatic theology at Freising College.

The year 1968 marked a turning point for the future pope, who transformed into a conservative dogmatist after radicalized students organized sit-ins against teachers ― like himself ― who did not endorse Marxism. The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that some booed him during lectures, while members of the Protestant Students’ Union distributed fliers calling Jesus’ cross “a sadomasochistic glorification of pain” and the New Testament a “document of inhumanity, a large-scale deception of the masses.” Ratzinger later described the protests as a “traumatic memory.”

Ratzinger returned to Bavaria in 1969 to serve as a professor at the more conservative University of Regensburg, where he remained until 1977, when he was he was made archbishop of Munich and Freising. Later that year, Pope Paul VI made him a cardinal.

In 1981, he was appointed as cardinal-prefect of the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1982, he resigned as archbishop to concentrate on reinforcing Catholic beliefs and teaching about topics including interreligious dialogue and reinforcing the church’s opposition to issues such as contraception, abortion and homosexuality.

Then-Archbishop Ratzinger greets believers in Munich in June 1977.

(AP Photo/Dieter Endlicher)

Pope John Paul II promoted Ratzinger again within the College of Cardinals to the position of Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni in 1993. He was made the college’s vice-dean in 1998 before being elevated to dean four years later.

Ratzinger’s legacy was tainted in 2002 when The Boston Globe revealed how the church had covered up scores of child sexual assaults and moved abusive priests to other parishes, rather than defrocking them and reporting them to authorities.

In April 2005, Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, the 256th pope; the oldest elected pontiff in nearly 300 years; and the first German pope in nearly 1,000 years. And further allegations of his obstruction of justice emerged.

The Observer newspaper reported that he had issued a 2001 order ensuring the church’s investigations into sexually abusive priests remained secret for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood.

Sex abuse claims plagued Benedict’s papacy, with victims around the world accusing him of failing to do enough to act against those trying to cover up thousands of cases that emerged during his reign.

Benedict at the window of St Peter’s Basilica main balcony after being elected the 265th pope of the Roman Catholic Church on April 19, 2005.

THOMAS COEX via Getty Images

In 2008, Pope Benedict traveled to the United States following reports that the U.S. church had paid out $2 billion in settlements related to abuse cases dating back to 1950. “I am deeply ashamed, and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future,” he said at the time.

In 2011, the U.S.-based nonprofit group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests alleged in a lawsuit that Ratzinger “either knew and/or some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes.”

Aside from the sex abuse controversy, the conservative leader caused outrage in 2005 when the Instruction, his first major ruling as pope, banned gay priests and repeated the church’s view that “deep-seated homosexual tendencies … are objectively disordered.” In 2012, he sparked outrage in the gay community again, when he labeled same-sex marriage a threat to “human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”

Benedict earned the nickname of “the green pope” for speaking often about the need to protect and conserve the environment. During a World Day of Peace message in 2010, he insisted that those who seek peace can’t disregard realities such as climate change, pollution and the growing phenomenon of “environmental refugees.”

“The Church has a responsibility towards creation,” Benedict wrote, “and she considers it her duty to exercise that responsibility in public life, in order to protect earth, water and air as gifts of God the Creator meant for everyone, and above all to save mankind from the danger of self-destruction.”

Pope Benedict became frail toward the end of his papacy, and cited his failing health as his reason for stepping down as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in February 2013 at the age of 85. He kept his papal title instead of reverting to his birth name ― though he preferred to be known as Father Benedict.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (right) — pictured here with Pope Francis at the Vatican in December 2015 — was the first pontiff to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.

ALBERTO PIZZOLI via Getty Images

In November 2013, the pope emeritus broke his silence on attacks questioning his leadership during the sex abuse scandals when he responded to a critique from the Italian atheist author Piergiorgio Odifreddi.

“I never tried to cover these things up,” he wrote in the letter, which appeared in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. “That the power of evil penetrated so far into the interior world of the faith is a suffering that we must bear, but at the same time, we must do everything to prevent it from repeating.”

The following year, the AP reported that Benedict had defrocked nearly 400 priests between 2011 and 2012, after in-house trials had determined they had sexually molested children.

In February 2014, the pope emeritus made his first public appearance after his resignation, to attend his successor Pope Francis’ first formal meeting of cardinals at St. Peter’s Basilica. The pair met on several occasions after that. His other rare public appearances included the canonization mass of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, with whom Benedict had worked closely.

Benedict pledged to live “hidden from the world” after retirement, but he chimed in to voice his own opinions during his successor’s papacy. His presence has also served as a rallying point for clerics in the church’s conservative wing who are wary of Francis’ openness to change.

Benedict poses for a picture at an airport in Munich in June 2020, after a trip to visit his sick brother.

SVEN HOPPE via Getty Images

In 2019, Benedict published an essay partly blaming the church’s sex abuse crisis on the sexual revolution of the 1960s, undercutting Francis’ own efforts to lead the church through the scandal. And in January 2020, while Francis was deliberating whether to allow married men to be ordained in far-flung regions of the Amazon, Benedict contributed to a book defending the tradition of priestly celibacy. The book stirred considerable controversy, as it gave the impression that a retired pope was weighing in on matters before the current pope.

Benedict spent the last years of his life living at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens, near St. Peter’s in the Vatican, where he would read, write letters, receive guests and occasionally play the piano.

Benedict made a four-day visit in June 2020 to Germany to see his ailing brother, Georg. During the trip, he spoke with old neighbors, prayed at the graves of his parents and sister, and celebrated Mass at his brother’s residence.

Decades after the brothers were ordained together, Georg died on July 1, 2020, at the age of 96.

Benedict visits the grave of his parents and sister at the Ziegetsdorf cemetery near Regensburg, in June 2020.

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December 31, 2022
Pope Benedict XVI has died at the age of 95

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ROME — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has died at his home in the Vatican at 95, Vatican officials announced.

“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” said the Director of the Holy See press office Matteo Bruni’s statement.

The Vatican press office has said that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s body will lie in state in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican for the faithful to pay their respects.

No further details have been announced.

After his surprise resignation in February 2013 at the age of 85, he was only known to have left the tiny sovereign state briefly and was rarely seen in public.

Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, appears on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican after being elected by the conclave of cardinals, April 19, 2005, Vatican City, Vatican.

Arturo Mari/Getty Images

Election and papacy

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was named the 265th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church on April 19, 2005, at the age of 78, and chose the name of Benedict XVI. He was the first German pope in several centuries, the second consecutive non-Italian pope and the oldest pope elected since Clement XII in 1730, according to church records.

He was elected in four ballots, which is considered relatively quick for the Church.

During his nearly eight years as pope, the Catholic Church was the subject of several major scandals. A growing number of sexual abuse cases involving the clergy was perhaps the most damaging and revealed a repeat-pattern of how the church had dealt with these cases in the past; leaving the abusers and their superiors, who covered up for them, to go unpunished by law enforcement.

Some Vatican watchers considered the revelations to be the greatest crisis the church has faced since the Reformation. First as cardinal in his doctrinal post in the Vatican and later as Pope, Benedict acted to develop a unified church response to stop this increasingly public clerical sex abuse crisis.

Benedict reiterated the Church’s traditional conservative positions on important doctrinal issues like abortion, contraception, homosexuality, euthanasia and the priesthood.

He angered some Muslims with his 2006 speech in Regensberg, Germany, which was interpreted by some as anti-Islam. Afterwards, he worked to build more bridges between the two faiths.

Pope Benedict XVI listens to a speech during his welcome ceremony at the airport in Silao, Mexico, March 23, 2012.

Gregorio Borgia/AP, FILE

Many Catholics loved and respected him until his death. His successor, Pope Francis, frequently spoke fondly of him and during his trip to Malta in April 2022 described him as a “prophet” for predicting that the Catholic church of the future would become “smaller” but more “spiritual, poorer and less political.”

Benedict’s snow-white hair, soft-spoken manner and love for cats and classical music — especially piano — helped endear him to many.

Although his papacy was relatively brief, Pope Benedict XVI made 24 foreign trips visiting every habitable continent. His first visit was in August 2005 to Cologne, in his native Germany, for the Church’s 20th World Youth Day. He made a trip to the U.S. in 2008, during which he delivered a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

A prolific writer throughout his life, he penned speeches, encyclicals, exhortations and a three-book biography, “Jesus of Nazareth,” while pope.

He beatified 322 people and canonized 45, including two Americans: Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint, and Marianne Cope, who spent the last 30 years of her life ministering to the sick on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.

Bavarian boyhood and WWII

Joseph Ratzinger was born in Marktl am Inn, part of Germany’s southern region, on April 16, 1927. His father was a policeman and his mother was a former cook. He had a brother and sister.

He followed his older brother, Georg, into the seminary in 1939 at the age of 12, per his autobiography. When he was 14, Ratzinger was enrolled in Hitler’s Nazi youth movement; at the time, membership was compulsory. In 1943 he was drafted into a Nazi anti-aircraft unit, but his unit never saw combat.

At the end of WWII, in April 1945, he deserted and returned home. He was sent to a U.S. prisoner of war camp in May 1945, as a former soldier, but was released after a few months.

Following the war, which ended when he was 18, the two brothers returned to the seminary. Joseph and Georg were ordained priests and celebrated their first mass on June 29, 1951.

Pope Benedict XVI greets the crowd from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, April 19, 2005, soon after his election.

Domenico Stinellis/AP, FILE

Before becoming pope

After being ordained, Ratzinger pursued a successful university career teaching a dogmatic and fundamental theology at a number of German universities. In 1977, Ratzinger was appointed archbishop of Munich and Freising. Three months later, he was elevated to cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

Three years after his election, Pope John Paul II called Cardinal Ratzinger to Rome to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, in charge of all the Church’s doctrinal matters.

As John Paul II’s health declined, Ratzinger took on a more important role at the Vatican and in 2002, he became dean of the College of Cardinals. As dean, he had an important role in the period between the death of John Paul II and the election of the new pope, which included summoning the conclave to elect the new pope.

His long service to Pope John Paul II in the Vatican meant he was known and respected by most of the cardinals who elected him. His stature grew after he presided over John Paul’s funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

Electing Benedict, the cardinals hoped he would clean up the church — which was still in the throes of the clerical sex abuse scandals — because of his deep knowledge of its workings after twenty-four years at his job at the Vatican, alongside his predecessor.

Retirement

Pope Benedict’s surprise retirement announcement was delivered in Latin to a roomful of cardinals in the Vatican on Feb. 11, 2013. With his retirement, many Vatican watchers suddenly saw him in a modern and revolutionary light, no longer a “conservative,” which is how he had been mostly labelled throughout his pontificate.

He was succeeded by Pope Francis, from Argentina, who was elected on March 13, 2013.

Only six other popes are believed to have resigned in 2,000 years of church history; the more recent was Gregory XII in 1415. Some speculated that scandals had led Benedict to resign, but he said in a 2016 interview it was his “duty” because his health was declining and he couldn’t keep up with the travel demanded in the job.

Although frail in his later years, Benedict continued to write, read, pray and take walks in the Vatican gardens, according to Vatican officials. He also had occasional visits from Pope Francis, cardinals, his brother and friends.

In 2020, at the age of 93, when already frail, Benedict returned to Bavaria, Germany for four days to visit Georg, who was seriously ill, and with whom he had been very close throughout his life. It was the first time since his resignation, more than seven years earlier, that Benedict was known to have left his residence at the Vatican — and Italy.

In 2022, the infirm, retired pope asked forgiveness in a written statement for any “grievous faults” in his past handling of sex abuse cases in the church but denied any personal or specific wrongdoing. He was responding to a German independent report on clerical sex abuse, issued in January of the same year, which had criticized how Benedict had dealt with four cases while he was archbishop of Munich, Germany from 1977 to 1982.

Victim groups and some experts said the report’s findings had tarnished the former pope’s legacy as one of the most renown Catholic theologians, while other conservative supporters, critical of the present pope’s style, defended his actions.

Giovanna Chirri, the Vatican reporter, who scored a worldwide scoop as she immediately understood the Latin of Benedict’s surprise announcement, told ABC News “he was not very understood as pope and was a victim of rather radicalized prejudices which made him disliked by many.”

However, she added, “people’s perception of him changed with his resignation and his symbolic and dramatic temporary departure by helicopter from the Vatican on Feb. 28, 2013, the day of his resignation.”

The scene was broadcast live to millions around the world.

ABC News’ Bianca Seidman and Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.

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December 31, 2022