Tag: Vatican City

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.”

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Trisha Thomas and Nicole Winfield contributed to this report.

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

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January 2, 2023
Thousands line up for viewing of Benedict’s body at Vatican

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VATICAN CITY — Thousands of people lined up across St. Peter’s Square hours before dawn on Monday to view Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ‘s body and pay their respects.

Public viewing lasts for 10 hours on Monday in St. Peter’s Basilica. Twelve hours of viewing are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday before Thursday morning’s funeral, which will be led by Pope Francis, in the square.

The frail, 95-year-old Benedict died Saturday morning in the Vatican monastery where he had lived since his retirement in 2013 when he became the first pontiff to resign in 600 years.

Security officials expected at least 25,000 people to pass by the body on the first day of viewing.

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

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January 1, 2023
Pope Francis marks New Year as Vatican prepares to mourn Benedict

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Vatican City — Pope Francis prayed for his predecessor’s passage to heaven and again expressed thanks for a lifetime of service to the church, during New Year’s Day appearances a day after Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died in retirement at the Vatican.

St. Peter’s Basilica, where Francis presided over a mid-morning New Year’s Mass, will host Benedict’s coffin starting on Monday. Thousands of faithful are expected to file by the coffin in three days of viewing.

Benedict, 95, died Saturday morning in the Vatican where he had lived since retirement. He was the first pope in centuries to resign, citing his increasing frailty.

Francis looked weary and sat with his head bowed as Mass began on the first day of the year, an occasion the Catholic church dedicates to the theme of peace.

He departed briefly from reading his homily, with its emphasis on hope and peace, to pray aloud for Benedict.

“Today we entrust to our Blessed Mother our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, so that she may accompany him in his passage from this world to God,” he said.

Pope Francis presides over the year end Vespers and the Te Deum service in St. Peter’s Basilica, on Dec. 31, 2022, in Vatican City.

Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis via Getty Images

Later, Francis delivered more remarks about the retired pontiff when he offered New Year’s greetings to thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Referring to Mary, Francis said that “in these hours, we invoke her intercession, in particular for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who, yesterday morning, left this world.”

“Let us unite all together, with one heart and one soul, in giving thanks to God for the gift of this faithful servant of the Gospel and of the church,” said Francis, speaking from a window of the Apostolic Palace to pilgrims and tourists below.

The square will be the setting for Benedict’s funeral led by Francis on Thursday morning. That rite will be a simple one, the Vatican has said, in keeping with the wishes of Benedict, who for decades as a German cardinal had served as the Church’s guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy before he was elected pope in 2005.

In the last years, Francis has hailed Benedict’s stunning decision to become the first pope to resign in 600 years and has made clear he’d consider such a step as an option for himself.

Hobbled by knee pain, Francis, 86, on Sunday arrived in the basilica in a wheelchair, before taking his place in a chair for the Mass, which was being celebrated by the Vatican’s secretary of state.

Francis, who has repeatedly decried the war in Ukraine and its devastation, recalled those who are victims of war, passing the year-end holidays in darkness, cold and fear.

“At the beginning of this year, we need hope, just as the Earth needs rain,” Francis said in his homily.

When addressing the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, Francis cited the “intolerable” war in Ukraine, which began in February of last year with Russia’s attacks and invasion, and in other places in the world.

Yet, Francis said, “let us not lose hope” that peace will prevail. “In the entire world, in all peoples, a cry is rising, ‘no to war, no to re-armament’ but (may) the resources go to development, health, food, education, work.”

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January 1, 2023
Pope marks New Year as Vatican prepares to mourn Benedict

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis prayed for his predecessor’s passage to heaven and again expressed thanks for a lifetime of service to the church, during New Year’s Day appearances a day after Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died in retirement at the Vatican.

St. Peter’s Basilica, where Francis presided over a mid-morning New Year’s Mass, will host Benedict’s coffin starting on Monday. Thousands of faithful are expected to file by the coffin in three days of viewing.

Benedict, 95, died Saturday morning in the Vatican where he had lived since retirement. He was the first pope in centuries to resign, citing his increasing frailty.

Francis looked weary and sat with his head bowed as Mass began on the first day of the year, an occasion the Catholic church dedicates to the theme of peace.

He departed briefly from reading his homily, with its emphasis on hope and peace, to pray aloud for Benedict.

“Today we entrust to our Blessed Mother our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, so that she may accompany him in his passage from this world to God,” he said.

Later, Francis delivered more remarks about the retired pontiff when he offered New Year’s greetings to thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square

Referring to Mary, Francis said that “in these hours, we invoke her intercession, in particular for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who, yesterday morning, left this world.”

“Let us unite all together, with one heart and one soul, in giving thanks to God for the gift of this faithful servant of the Gospel and of the church,” said Francis, speaking from a window of the Apostolic Palace to pilgrims and tourists below.

The square will be the setting for Benedict’s funeral led by Francis on Thursday morning. That rite will be a simple one, the Vatican has said, in keeping with the wishes of Benedict, who for decades as a German cardinal had served as the Church’s guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy before he was elected pope in 2005.

In the last years, Francis has hailed Benedict’s stunning decision to become the first pope to resign in 600 years and has made clear he’d consider such a step as an option for himself.

Hobbled by knee pain, Francis, 86, on Sunday arrived in the basilica in a wheelchair, before taking his place in a chair for the Mass, which was being celebrated by the Vatican’s secretary of state.

Francis, who has repeatedly decried the war in Ukraine and its devastation, recalled those who are victims of war, passing the year-end holidays in darkness, cold and fear.

“At the beginning of this year, we need hope, just as the Earth needs rain,” Francis said in his homily.

When addressing the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, Francis cited the “intolerable” war in Ukraine, which began in February of last year with Russia’s attacks and invasion, and in other places in the world.

Yet, Francis said, “let us not lose hope” that peace will prevail. “In the entire world, in all peoples, a cry is rising, ‘no to war, no to re-armament’ but (may) the resources go to development, health, food, education, work.”

———

Nicole Winfield contributed from the Vatican.

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More on the death of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI: https://apnews.com/hub/pope-benedict-xvi

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January 1, 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
In US, sharply contrasting views on Benedict XIV’s legacy

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NEW YORK — In the United States, admirers of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI remembered him warmly for his theological prowess and devotion to traditional doctrine. However, some U.S. Catholics, on learning of his death Saturday, recalled him as an obstacle to progress in combating clergy sex abuse and expanding the role of women in the church.

Professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, depicted Benedict as “a man of unwavering faith, deep conviction and towering intellect,” yet added that he left “a complicated legacy.”

She noted that last February, following a report that implicated him in the cover-up of sexual abuse during the years he served as Archbishop of Munich, Benedict “acknowledged his failure to act decisively at times in confronting sexual abusers.”

Steven Millies, a professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, noted that Benedict – before becoming pope – had a lead role in enforcing church discipline at a time when the sex-abuse crisis was making headlines in the U.S. two decades ago.

“When he was elected to succeed John Paul II as pope in 2005, Benedict XVI was the person who was most knowledgeable about clergy sexual abuse.” Millies said via email. “Yet, the crisis continued to fester throughout Benedict’s papacy past his resignation in 2013 and even today.”

Millies suggested that Benedict’s most important legacy was his resignation, arising from “his recognition that he could not fix the abuse crisis or accomplish much else in the face of the deeply entrenched power of the Vatican’s centralized bureaucracy.”

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who heads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, praised Benedict as “a superb theologian” and recalled how the announcement of his resignation “shocked the world.”

“He recognized the great demands made of him as the chief shepherd of the Universal Church of a billion Catholics worldwide, and his physical limitations for such a monumental task,” Broglio said in a statement. “Even in retirement, retreating to live out a life in quiet prayer and study, he continued to teach us how to be a true disciple of Christ.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was appointed archbishop of New York and nominated as a cardinal by Benedict, praised the pope emeritus as a “erudite, wise, and holy man, who spoke the truth with love.”

Dolan held a special Mass for Benedict at St. Patrick’s Cathedral; its bells tolled 95 times before the Mass — reflecting Benedict’s age when he died.

President Joe Biden — a church-going Catholic who differs with church teaching on abortion and some other social issues — issued a statement evoking a meeting with Benedict at the Vatican in 2011. Biden recalled Benedict’s “generosity and welcome as well as our meaningful conversation.”

“He will be remembered as a renowned theologian, with a lifetime of devotion to the Church, guided by his principles and faith,” Biden added. “May his focus on the ministry of charity continue to be an inspiration to us all.”

Monsignor Kevin Irwin, dean emeritus at Catholic University of America, called Benedict a “theology professor extraordinaire… a clear thinker who was a quiet contributor to the church’s continuity after Pope John Paul II.”

Irwin said Benedict’s resignation left him stunned.

“But, in the end it was about understanding he was overwhelmed and letting him go,” Irwin said.

Monsignor Stephen Doktorczyk, vicar general for the Diocese of Orange in Southern California, remembered Benedict as a gracious leader who had the ability to build bridges and foster reconciliation.

“There was this unfair perception that he was there to cut people off at the knees,” said Doktorczyk, who served for five years — from September 2011 to December 2016 – in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for processing clergy sex abuse complaints. “He tried to be a peacemaker. When there was a way to reconcile, he tried to look outside the box.”

Others were more critical, including Kate McElwee, executive director of the U.S.-based Women’s Ordination Conference, which seeks to enable women to be ordained as Catholic priests.

“For many Catholics, Pope Benedict’s papacy is a chapter of our church’s history that we are still healing from,” McElwee said. Her statement asserted that Benedict, as head of the Vatican’s doctrine office and as pope, “orchestrated a rigid campaign of theological suppression on the question of women’s ordination, creating a culture of fear and pain within the church.”

Also offering a harsh judgment was David Clohessy, a longtime leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“In more than 30 years as a mighty Vatican bureaucrat – nearly 10 of them as the world’s top Catholic figure – Benedict enabled countless child sex crimes and cover-ups to continue by virtually refusing to publicly expose even one child molesting cleric or a complicit church official,” Clohessy said via email.

“With his extensive power and bully pulpit, he could have prevented hundreds or perhaps thousands of kids from being sexually assaulted. But he didn’t. Instead, he chose, time and time again, to side with ordained clergy over vulnerable children.”

The Survivors Network’s leadership, in a statement, said honoring Benedict now “is not only wrong, it is shameful.:

“Benedict was more concerned about the church’s deteriorating image and financial flow to the hierarchy versus grasping the concept of true apologies followed by true amends to victims of abuse,” the statement said,

The leader of a Maryland-based group that advocates for LGBTQ Catholics, Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, noted that Benedict — prior to his papacy — helped shape a document that called homosexual orientation as ”an objective disorder” and a Catechism describing sexual activity between people of the same gender as “acts of grave depravity.”

“Those documents caused — and still cause — grave pastoral harm to many LGBTQ+ people,” DeBernardo said,.

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Associated Press reporter Deepa Bharath in Southern California contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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December 31, 2022
Wealth of tribute comes for Benedict, who desired simplicity

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VATICAN CITY — Within minutes of the announcement of the death of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI Saturday morning, a wealth of tributes poured in from around the world, while the Vatican revealed that the late pontiff would be given a “simple” funeral, celebrated by Pope Francis, in keeping with his wishes.

Words of praise and fond remembrance poured in from world leaders and religious figures, including the archbishop of Canterbury and Jewish advocates.

But some others, including LGBTQ+ advocates, were restrained in marking the passing of 95-year-old Benedict, Before being elected pontiff in 2005, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he had long served as the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, ensuring unwavering orthodoxy on issues including homosexual activity, which the Catholic church considers a sin.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that Francis will celebrate a solemn but sober funeral in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday with rites that, “following the desire of the pope emeritus, will be carried out in the sign of simplicity.”

Benedict, 95, died in the austere Vatican monastery where he had resided since shortly after shocking the world by retiring in 2013. Frail for years, Benedict’s health worsened earlier in the week, according to the Vatican.

Starting on Monday, the faithful will be able to file by his body in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The square was festive with a towering Christmas tree and life-sized creche scene. Hundreds of tourists were strolling through the square, many unaware that Benedict had died in his secluded residence in the Vatican Gardens.

Benedict “prayed in silence, as one should do,” said Fabrizio Giambrone, a tourist from Sicily who recalled the late pontiff as a ”very good person” who lacked the “charisma” of his predecessor, St. John Paul II, and of his successor, Pope Francis.

Laura Camila Rodriguez, 16, visiting from Bogota, Colombia, with her parents, said she was traveling on a train bound for Rome earlier on Saturday when she learned of Benedict’s death.

“It was a shock, but it’s probably good for him that he can now rest in peace, at his age,” she said. “I think Francis is a good pope, he was a good successor, able to head the Catholic Church.”

While a year-end holiday mood was palpable in the square of the small Bavarian town where Ratzinger was born in 1927, church bells tolled solemnly at St. Oswald Church in Marktl am Inn, near the Austrian border.

World leaders, Jewish advocates and the archbishop of Canterbury were among those mourning the death.

The American Jewish Committee in a statement from New York praised Benedict for having “continued the path of reconciliation and friendship with world Jewry blazed by his predecessor, John Paul II.” The organization noted that the German-born Catholic church leader had “paid homage in Auschwitz” to the victims of the Holocaust and had made an official visit to Israel.

“He condemned antisemitism as a sin against God and man, and he emphasized the unique relationship between Christianity and Judaism,” the statement said.

Praise for Benedict’s religious devotion came from the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. “In his life and ministry, Pope Benedict XVI directed people to Christ,” the Anglican leader tweeted.

“I join with Pope Francis and all the Catholic Church in mourning his death. May he rest in Christ’s peace and rise in glory with all the Saints.”

Dubbed “God’s Rottweiller” for his fierce defense of Catholic teaching in the decades that he led the Vatican doctrinal orthodoxy office, Benedict was viewed less enthusiastically by some for his stance on homosexuality and against women’s desire to break with the church’s ban on female priests.

In that role, Ratzinger “had an outsized influence on the Church’s approach to gay and lesbian people and issues,” said Francis De Bernardo, executive director of the U.S.-based New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics. He noted that Ratzinger in 1986 helped shape a document that called homosexual orientation as ”an objective disorder” and his involvement in a 1994 Catechism describing sexual activity between people of the same gender as “acts of grave depravity.”

“Those documents caused — and still cause — grave pastoral harm” to many LGBTQ+ people, De Bernardo said, while noting that his organization was praying for the repose of Benedict’s soul.

Francis has used his papacy to try to set a less judgmental tone against gay Catholics.

While hailing Benedict’s “profound example of humility and willingness to overturn tradition” by resigning, advocates for opening up the priesthood to women expressed dismay over his refusal to embrace their aims.

“For many Catholics, Pope Benedict’s papacy is a chapter of our church’s history that we are still healing from,” said Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference. “His relentless pursuit to stifle the movement for women’s ordination revealed a man unwilling or unable to engage with the urgent needs of the church today.”

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Paolo Santalucia in Vatican City and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this story.

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

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December 31, 2022
Vatican says Pope Francis will celebrate funeral for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Thursday in St. Peter’s Square

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Vatican says Pope Francis will celebrate funeral for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Thursday in St. Peter’s Square

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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
Live Updates | Reactions to Pope Benedict XVI’s death

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The latest on the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI:

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is paying tribute to the German-born Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as a “formative figure of the Catholic Church.”

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, became the first German pope in centuries when he was elected in 2005.

Scholz said on Twitter Saturday that “as the ‘German’ pope, Benedict XVI was a special church leader for many, not just in this country.”

He said that “the world is losing a formative figure of the Catholic Church, a combative personality and a wise theologian.”

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KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

Benedict XVI, first pope to resign in 600 years, dies at 95

Highlights from the life of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

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BERLIN — The governor of Benedict XVI’s native German region says that “we are mourning our Bavarian pope.”

Bavarian governor Markus Soeder said on Twitter Saturday that “with him, society is losing a persuasive representative of the Catholic Church and one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century.”

Soeder wrote that “many people in his homeland will remember him not just as pope, but also as a humble pastor.”

He noted that “at the same time, he also had to face responsibility for difficult phases in his work.”

The governor said that “he always carried his homeland in his heart.”

The head of the German Bishops’ Conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, said that “an impressive theologian and experienced shepherd is leaving us with the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.”

“We are mourning a personality who imparted hope and direction to the church even in difficult times,” Baetzing said in a statement. He voiced “great respect” for Benedict’s “courageous decision” to resign a decade ago.

———

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican says Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has died. He was 95.

Benedict was the first pope in 600 years to resign. Benedict had become increasingly frail during his almost 10 years of retirement.

Benedict’s dramatic decision in 2013 to resign paved the way for the conclave that elected Pope Francis. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens in an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger never wanted to be pope. But he was forced to follow in St. John Paul II’s footsteps, running the church during a period of scandal and indifference.

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December 31, 2022
Vatican: Benedict in stable condition, participated in Mass

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ROME — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was in stable condition Friday after suffering a decline in his health and participated in a private Mass in his room, the Vatican said, as the faithful in Rome honored “this last stretch of his pilgrimage.”

The Vatican provided a new medical bulletin Friday afternoon saying Benedict had been able to rest well for a second night.

“He also participated in the celebration of Holy Mass in his room yesterday afternoon,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement. “At present his condition is stationary.”

On Wednesday, Pope Francis revealed that his 95-year-old predecessor was “very ill” and he went to see him in his home in the Vatican Gardens. Francis called for prayers for Benedict, resulting in an outpouring of messages of solidarity from rank-and-file Catholics and cardinals alike.

In 2013, Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to resign, saying he no longer had the strength of body or mind to lead the then 1.2-billion-member Catholic Church. His resignation paved the way for Francis’ election.

Benedict, who for decades as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger served the Vatican as its doctrinal guardian, chose to live out his retirement in seclusion in a converted monastery on Vatican City grounds. The German-born churchman was being tended to by a team of doctors and his longtime papal family: his secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, and a few consecrated women who help run the household.

On Friday evening, the cardinal vicar of Rome, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, celebrated a special Mass for Benedict in St. John in Lateran Basilica. The monumental basilica was Benedict’s cathedral in his capacity as bishop of Rome when serving as pontiff.

The cardinal hailed Benedict’s qualities, saying he “always demonstrated a great trust in Providence.”

“As priest, theologian, bishop, pope, he expressed, at the same time, the strength and the sweetness of the faith, the essentialness and the simplicity of he who knows that, when you dream with God, dreams become reality,’” De Donatis said in his homily.

Referring to Benedict’s nearly 10 years in retirement from the papacy, De Donatis said that the pope emeritus “even in old age, and in illness, continues to sustain humanity totally offering oneself.”

The pope emeritus was “in profound communion with Pope Francis,” the cardinal said.

Some critics of Francis or of his predecessor have sought to depict the relationship between the retired and reigning pontiffs as a kind of rivalry, but De Donatis’ words seemed aimed at dispelling such a perception.

The homily’s final words resounded almost like a funeral ode.

“When He wants, God will approach this brother of ours in the slumber of death and will say to him, ‘Joseph, get up, Joseph, rise.’

“And it will be Christ and his mother to take him with them and lead him into paradise, where the dream of a life will because the reality of eternity,” the cardinal concluded.

During the Mass, one of the faithful read aloud a prayer asking God to “support and console him with his presence in this last stretch of his pilgrimage.”

Benedict has indicated that when he dies, he would like to be buried in the crypt in the grotto underneath St. Peter’s Basilica once occupied by the tomb of St. John Paul II, which was moved upstairs into the main basilica in recent years.

At the end of Mass, De Donatis said the faithful were entrusting “our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to the maternal care” of Jesus’ mother, “because she has promised to be near to her children in the moment of trial.”

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December 30, 2022
Pope on Christmas: Jesus was poor, so don’t be power-hungry

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VATICAN CITY — Recalling Jesus’ birth in a stable, Pope Francis rebuked those “ravenous” for wealth and power at the expense of the vulnerable, including children, in a Christmas Eve homily decrying war, poverty and greedy consumerism.

In the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis presided over the evening Mass attended by about 7,000 faithful, including tourists and pilgrims, who flocked to the church on a warm evening and took their place behind rows of white-robed pontiffs.

Francis drew lessons from the humility of Jesus’ first hours of life in a manger.

“While animals feed in their stalls, men and women in our world, in their hunger for wealth and power, consume even their neighbors, their brothers and sisters,” the pontiff lamented. “How many wars have we seen! And in how many places, even today, are human dignity and freedom treated with contempt!”

“As always, the principal victims of this human greed are the weak and the vulnerable,’’ said Francis, who didn’t cite any specific conflict or situation.

“This Christmas, too, as in the case of Jesus, a world ravenous for money, power and pleasure does not make room for the little ones, for the so many unborn, poor and forgotten children,’’ the pope said, reading his homily with a voice that sounded tired and almost hoarse. “I think above all of the children devoured by war, poverty and injustice.”

Still, the pontiff exhorted people to take heart.

“Do not allow yourself to be overcome by fear, resignation or discouragement.” Jesus’ lying in a manger shows where “the true riches in life are to be found: not in money and power, but in relationships and persons.”

Remarking on the “so much consumerism that has packaged the mystery” of Christmas, Francis said there was a danger the day’s meaning could be forgotten.

But, he said, Christmas focuses attention on “the problem of our humanity — the indifference produced by the greedy rush to possess and consume.”

“Jesus was born poor, lived poor and died poor,” Francis said. “He did not so much talk about poverty as live it, to the very end, for our sake.”

Francis urged people to “not let this Christmas pass without doing something good.”

When the Mass ended, the pope, pushed in a wheelchair by an aide, moved down the basilica with a life-sized statue of Baby Jesus on his lap and flanked by several children carrying bouquets. The statue then was placed in a manger in a creche scene in the basilica.

Francis, 86, has been using a wheelchair to navigate long distances due to a painful knee ligament and a cane for shorter distances.

Traditionally, Catholics mark Christmas Eve by attending Mass at midnight. But over the years, the starting time at the Vatican has crept earlier, reflecting the health or stamina of popes and then the pandemic.

Two years ago, the start of Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica was moved up to 7:30 p.m. to allow faithful to get home before for a nighttime curfew imposed by the Italian government as a measure to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Although virtually all pandemic-triggered restrictions have long been lifted in Italy, the Vatican kept to the early start time.

During Saturday evening’s service, a choir sang hymns. Clusters of potted red poinsettia plants near the altar contrasted with the cream-colored vestments of the pontiff.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of Romans, tourists and pilgrims were expected to crowd into St. Peter’s Square to hear Pope Francis deliver an address on world issues and give his blessing. The speech, known in Latin as “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and to the world), generally is an occasion to review crises including war, persecution and hunger, in many parts of the globe.

———

Associated Press journalist Luigi Navarra contributed.

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December 24, 2022
Inquest sought in bid to finally solve mystery of missing

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Opposition lawmakers in Italy are seeking a parliamentary commission of inquiry into three cold cases that have consumed the Italian public’s imagination for decades, including the 1983 disappearance of a 15-year-old that was highlighted in the Netflix documentary, “Vatican Girl.”

The aim of the inquest, said Sen. Carlo Calenda, would be to pressure the Vatican to finally turn over everything it knows about Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance to Italian law enforcement authorities, saying its longstanding official claim of ignorance was “hardly credible.”

“We are a great secular nation that treats the Vatican with respect, but this case certainly cannot be considered closed in this way,” Calenda said Tuesday at a news conference announcing the proposed commission.

Posters from the Netflix series Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi are seen in Rome.

Francesco Fotia/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Orlandi vanished June 22, 1983 after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

The Italian media and a quest by her brother, Pietro Orlandi, to find answers have kept her disappearance alive as an enduring Vatican mystery. Over the years, it has been linked to everything from the plot to kill St. John Paul II and a financial scandal involving the Vatican bank to Rome’s criminal underworld. The recent four-part Netflix documentary explored those scenarios.

Lawmakers and lawyers for Orlandi’s family and those of two other young women whose disappearance or deaths were never solved said Tuesday that the proposal for a commission of inquiry has been submitted to the lower Chamber of Deputies for an initial view and also would be filed in the Senate.

The idea must be voted on at the committee level. There was no indication how the center-right , which enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses, would vote.

Parliamentary inquests have been used in the past to dig deeply into unresolved Mafia crimes and terrorist attacks, and can be activated to conduct investigations “on matters of public interest,” according to the Italian Constitution.

Such inquiries are not meant to replace police investigations, but participating members of the Italian Parliament have the same powers and limitations as law enforcement. Their final reports can provide sufficient new evidence, as well as political and institutional backing, to justify reopening archived cases.

That’s the hope of Pietro Orlandi, who has for 40 years sought to compel the Vatican to tell all that it knows about his sister’s disappearance. He believes the Holy See is hiding information in the case because it might implicate high-ranking churchmen.

In 2018, the family received an anonymous tip.

“I received a letter with a picture in it,” Orlandi family lawyer Laura Sgro told CBS News. “The letter said: ‘If you want to find Emanuela, search where the angel is looking.’” The photo was of a marble statue of an angel that looks down on the German princesses’ tombs in the Teutonic Cemetery. The Vatican in 2019 bowed to the family’s request and opened the tomb in a Vatican City cemetery.

Two tombs were opened; the “Tomb of the Angel,” of Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe who died in 1836, and the tomb of Princess Carlotta Federica of Mecklemburg, who died in 1840. Members of their families, Orlandi’s, and forensics scientists and Vatican police were all present as the tombs were unsealed.

But the dig turned up nothing.

Calenda, of the opposition Action party, acknowledged a parliamentary inquest has no subpoena power to compel Vatican authorities to cooperate or turn over files, since the Vatican is a sovereign city-state. But he said parliament should nevertheless force the issue since Italy has been “submissive” to the Vatican through the various contours of the Orlandi investigation.

“We must restore a principle that the Italian state has great respect for the Vatican and its role as a sovereign state for its spiritual teaching but is in no way submissive to the Vatican state,” Calenda said. Italy, he said, “is a secular republic that is based on popular sovereignty and interacts on equal footing with the Vatican state.”

The ultimate aim, according to Sgro, would be for Italian prosecutors to formally request the Vatican’s files with the backing of an Italian parliamentary commission of inquiry behind them. Three such requests were sent in the early years of the investigation but came back with little pertinent information, she said.

Lawyer Laura Sgro, left, listens to his client Pietro Orlandi, brother of Manuela, a 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared in 1983, during a press conference on the establishing of a parliamentary investigative commission on Manuela Orlandi and other cold cases in Rome, Dec. 20, 2022.

Alessandra Tarantino / AP

Sgro acknowledged there have been four previous proposals for parliamentary commissions of inquiry to look into the Orlandi disappearance, but none of them got off the ground. She was hopeful, given the recent seating of a new legislature and the Catholic Church no longer holding the same political sway, the idea will get off the ground this time around.

“The disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi is a black hole in the history of this country,” Sgro said. Challenging lawmakers to approve the commission, she warned that anyone blocking it would have to “Tell us why in this country, after 40 years, a family cannot have justice.”

Anna Matranga contributed to this report.

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December 21, 2022
Vatican defrocks anti-abortion U.S. priest Frank Pavone for

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The Vatican has defrocked an anti-abortion U.S. priest, Frank Pavone, for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop who repeatedly told him to stop his partisan activism for Donald Trump.

A letter to U.S. bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, obtained Sunday, said that the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken Nov. 9, and that there was no chance for an appeal.

Pavone has been in conflict with the bishop of Amarillo, Texas, for over a decade over his pro-life and partisan political activities that came to a head in 2016 when he put an aborted fetus on an altar and posted a video of it on two social media sites.

In the Facebook Live post, Pavone said: “I am showing him to you because in this election we have to decide if we will allow this child killing to continue in America or not. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic platform says yes, let the child killing continue (and you pay for it); Donald Trump and the Republican platform says no, the child should be protected.”

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington, January 24, 2020.

GREGORY A SHEMITZ / REUTERS

Even before then, Pavone successfully appealed 2011 restrictions on his ministry that Amarillo Bishop Patrick Zurek had placed on him.

Pavone remained a firm supporter of Trump and in 2020 disputed the outcome of the election won by Joe Biden. Ahead of the election, the Amarillo diocese denounced Pavone’s use of social media for political ends, distanced the diocese from him and said his positions weren’t consistent with Catholic teaching.

Pavone relocated from Amarillo and was allowed to move to Colorado Springs, Colorado. His Twitter handle still features him wearing a “MAGA” hat with a background photo of former President Trump, who is praised by many conservatives for his Supreme Court nominees who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

In a tweet Sunday, Pavone sounded defiant, comparing his fate to that of the unborn.

Hi friends… So in every profession, including the priesthood, if you defend the #unborn, you will be treated like them!
The only difference is that when we are “aborted,” we continue to speak, loud and clear.

— Fr. Frank Pavone (@frfrankpavone) December 18, 2022

“So in every profession, including the priesthood, if you defend the #unborn, you will be treated like them! The only difference is that when we are ‘aborted,’ we continue to speak, loud and clear.”

He later appeared in a social media video wearing a black leather biker jacket over his priestly collar against a faux backdrop of St. Peter’s Basilica vowing that the anti-abortion “war” would continue and denouncing the “cancel culture” of the church that he said had persecuted him for decades.

In a statement on his Priest For Life website, he said that his laicization was “the result of an abusive process” and that he was considering unspecified legal action against unnamed U.S. bishops.

His supporters immediately denounced the defrocking, including the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, who referred to U.S. President Joe Biden’s support for abortion rights as “evil.”

“The blasphemy is that this holy priest is canceled while an evil president promotes the denial of truth & the murder of the unborn at every turn, Vatican officials promote immorality & denial of the deposit of faith & priests promote gender confusion devastating lives…evil,” Strickland tweeted.

In his letter, Pierre cited information from the Congregation for Clergy that Pavone had been laicized – he can no longer present himself as a priest – after being found guilty in a canonical proceeding “of blasphemous communications on social media and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop.” The letter was first reported by Catholic News Agency.

The statement said Pavone was given “ample opportunity to defend himself” as well as to submit to his bishop. “It was determined that Father Pavone had no reasonable justification for his actions.”

The statement concluded that since Priests for Life is not a Catholic organization, it would be up to the group to determine whether he could continue his role “as a lay person.”

Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church’s canon law for priests.

In 2014, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan cut ties with the Pavone, despite Dolan’s own outspoken advocacy against abortion, the Washington Post reported.

In a post on the New York Archdiocese website, Dolan’s former home diocese, Ed Mechmann writes that Pavone is free to post such videos as an American citizen, but that it was wrong to do so.

“It was absolutely appalling, and deserves to be repudiated by all of us who consider ourselves to be pro-life in the fullest meaning of that word,” Mechmann wrote.

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December 19, 2022
Anti-abortion priest Pavone defrocked for blasphemous posts

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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has defrocked an anti-abortion U.S. priest, Frank Pavone, for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop who repeatedly told him to stop his partisan activism for Donald Trump.

A letter to U.S. bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, obtained Sunday, said that the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken Nov. 9, and that there was no chance for an appeal.

Pavone has been in conflict with the bishop of Amarillo, Texas, for over a decade over his pro-life and partisan political activities that came to a head in 2016 when he put an aborted fetus on an altar and posted a video of it on two social media sites. The video was accompanied by a post saying that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic platform would allow abortion to continue and that Trump and the Republican platform wanted to protect unborn children.

Even before then, Pavone successfully appealed 2011 restrictions on his ministry that Amarillo Bishop Patrick Zurek had placed on him.

Pavone remained a firm supporter of Trump and in 2020 disputed the outcome of the election won by Joe Biden. Ahead of the election, the Amarillo diocese denounced Pavone’s use of social media for political ends, distanced the diocese from him and said his positions weren’t consistent with Catholic teaching.

Pavone relocated from Amarillo and was allowed to move to Colorado Springs, Colorado. His Twitter handle still features him wearing a “MAGA” hat with a background photo of former President Trump, who is praised by many conservatives for his Supreme Court nominees who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

In a tweet Sunday, Pavone sounded defiant, comparing his fate to that of the unborn.

“So in every profession, including the priesthood, if you defend the #unborn, you will be treated like them! The only difference is that when we are ‘aborted,’ we continue to speak, loud and clear.”

He later appeared in a social media video wearing a black leather biker jacket over his priestly collar against a faux backdrop of St. Peter’s Basilica vowing that the anti-abortion “war” would continue and denouncing the “cancel culture” of the church that he said had persecuted him for decades.

In a statement on his Priest For Life website, he said that his laicization was “the result of an abusive process” and that he was considering unspecified legal action against unnamed U.S. bishops.

His supporters immediately denounced the defrocking, including the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, who referred to U.S. President Joe Biden’s support for abortion rights as “evil.”

“The blasphemy is that this holy priest is canceled while an evil president promotes the denial of truth & the murder of the unborn at every turn, Vatican officials promote immorality & denial of the deposit of faith & priests promote gender confusion devastating lives…evil,” Strickland tweeted.

In his letter, Pierre cited information from the Congregation for Clergy that Pavone had been laicized — he can no longer present himself as a priest — after being found guilty in a canonical proceeding “of blasphemous communications on social media and of persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop.” The letter was first reported by Catholic News Agency.

The statement said Pavone was given “ample opportunity to defend himself” as well as to submit to his bishop. “It was determined that Father Pavone had no reasonable justification for his actions.”

The statement concluded that since Priests for Life is not a Catholic organization, it would be up to the group to determine whether he could continue his role “as a lay person.”

Laicization, or being reduced to the lay state, is one of the harshest sanctions in the church’s canon law for priests.

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December 18, 2022
Jesuits ask victims to come forward in artist abuse case

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ Jesuit order on Sunday asked any more victims to come forward with complaints against a famous Jesuit artist who was essentially let off the hook by the Vatican twice despite devastating testimony by women who said he sexually and spiritually abused them.

The Jesuits asked for new evidence against the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, and offered a timeline about his case in an effort to tamp down the scandal.

The Slovenian priest is relatively unknown among rank-and-file Catholics but is well known in the hierarchy because he is one of the church’s most sought-after artists. His mosaics decorate chapels, churches and basilicas around the globe.

The scandal exploded this past week after the Jesuits admitted he had been excommunicated for having committed one of the gravest crimes in the Catholic Church — using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

He was declared excommunicated in May 2020, but the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith lifted the excommunication later that month after he repented, an unusually quick turnaround for such a serious violation.

A year later, the same Congregation decided not to prosecute him for another allegation of spiritual and sexual abuse of a former nun, declaring the statute of limitations had expired. The Congregation, which routinely waives the statute of limitations, is headed by a Jesuit prefect, has a Jesuit sex crimes prosecutor and a former No. 2 who lived in Rupnik’s Jesuit community.

The Congregation has not responded to requests for information about the case, which has exposed the Vatican’s general refusal to consider spiritual and sexual abuse of adult women as a crime that must be punished. Rather, the Vatican has long considered such abuse a mere lapse of priestly chastity that can be forgiven, without considering the trauma it causes victims.

The Jesuit appeal came on the same day the Italian newspaper Domani published the most explosive testimony yet by the former nun who made the complaint in 2021. She detailed years of sexual abuse and spiritual manipulation by Rupnik and said she made repeated efforts to turn him in only to face Jesuit and other superiors who routinely protected Rupnik at her expense.

“It was truly an abuse of conscience,” said the nun, who was not identified but whose account was confirmed to The Associated Press by someone familiar with the case.

“His sexual obsession was not impromptu but was profoundly connected to his concept of art and his theological thinking. Father Marko started slowly and sweetly infiltrating my psychological and spiritual world, leveraging my uncertainties and fragility and using my relationship with God to push me into sexual experiences with him.”

She said that her first complaint about his behavior dated from 1994 in Slovenia but that it was ignored as Rupnik’s community — first in Slovenia, then in Rome — grew and gained an international following.

In the meantime, other sisters were similarly harmed, she said, describing the use of pornography, humiliation and multiple partners “in the image of the Trinity” in Rupnik’s spiritual and sexual abuse.

The scandal has been accentuated by conflicting accounts given by the Jesuits.

After the first allegations of the 2021 complaint were aired in Italian blogs and websites this month, the Jesuits issued a statement only referring to the 2021 case. But under questioning by AP at a Christmas reception, the Jesuit superior, the Rev. Arturo Sosa, admited Rupnik had previously been excommunicated for the confession-related crime.

Sosa said that Rupnik’s ministry had been restricted and that he was forbidden from hearing confessions, giving spiritual direction or leading spiritual exercises. However, Rupnik is listed as scheduled to deliver spiritual exercises Feb. 13-17 at the Loreto Marian shrine on Italy’s Adriatic coast, according to the Loreto website.

On Sunday, Rupnik’s immediate superior, the Rev. Johan Verschueren, said he wanted to try to clarify some of the questions that have erupted about the case. In a statement, he appealed for anyone with old or new allegations to come forward. He provided an email address: teamreferente.dir@gmail.com.

“My main concern in all of this is for those who have suffered, and I invite anyone who wishes to make a new complaint or who wants to discuss complaints already made to contact me,” he said.

He said complaints would be accepted in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and German.

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December 18, 2022
Pope returns Greece’s Parthenon Sculptures in ecumenical nod

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has decided to send back to Greece the three fragments of Parthenon Sculptures that the Vatican Museums have held for centuries, the Vatican announced Friday.

The Vatican termed the gesture a “donation” from the pope to His Beatitude Ieronymos II, the Orthodox Christian archbishop of Athens and all Greece, “as a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth.”

The Vatican thus becomes the latest Western state to return its fragments of the Parthenon marbles, leaving the British Museum among the holdouts.

But the Vatican statement suggested the Holy See wanted to make clear that it was not a bilateral decision to return the marbles from the Vatican state to Greece, but rather a religiously inspired donation. The statement may have been worded in order not to create a precedent that could affect other priceless holdings in the Vatican Museums.

The sculptures are remnants of a 160-meter-long (520-foot) frieze that ran around the outer walls of the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis, dedicated to Athena, goddess of wisdom. Much was lost in a 17th-century bombardment, and about half the remaining works were removed in the early 19th century by a British diplomat, Lord Elgin.

The British Museum recently pledged not to dismantle its collection, following a report that the institution’s chairman had held secret talks with Greece’s prime minister over the return of the sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles.

The Parthenon was built between 447-432 B.C. and is considered the crowning work of classical architecture. The frieze depicted a procession in honor of Athena. Some small bits of it — and other Parthenon sculptures — are in other European museums.

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December 16, 2022
Vatican vendettas: Alleged witness manipulation jolts trial

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VATICAN CITY — The text message to the Vatican monsignor offered forgiveness along with a threat: “I know everything about you … and I keep it all in my archives,” it read. “I pardon you, Perlasca, but remember, you owe me a favor.”

The message was one of more than 100 newly revealed WhatsApp texts and other correspondence entered into evidence at the Vatican courthouse last week that have jolted a financial crimes trial involving the Holy See’s money-losing investment in a London property.

The texts have cast doubt on the credibility of a key suspect-turned-prosecution witness and raised questions about the integrity of the investigation into the London deal and other transactions.

Together with evidence that a cardinal secretly recorded Pope Francis, they confirmed that a trial originally aimed at highlighting Francis’ financial reforms has become a Pandora’s Box of unintended revelations about Vatican vendettas and scheming.

The trial in the city-state’s criminal tribunal originated in the Holy See’s 350 million-euro investment to develop a former warehouse for department store Harrods into luxury apartments.

Prosecutors have accused 10 people in the case, alleging Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions, and then extorted the Holy See of 15 million euros to get full control of the property.

Monsignor Alberto Perlasca initially was among the prime suspects. As the Vatican official who managed the secretariat of state’s 600 million-euro asset portfolio, he was intimately involved in the property deal.

But Perlasca changed his story in August 2020 and started cooperating with prosecutors, blaming his deputy and his superior, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, then the No. 2 in the secretariat of state, for the London investment and other questionable expenditures.

Both the deputy and Becciu are on trial. Perlasca is not, and his statements to prosecutors became a source of leads that formed the basis of several charges in the indictment.

When Perlasca testified for the prosecution last week, some of his claims collapsed under defense questioning. Judge Giuseppe Pignatone gave Perlasca until midweek to remember who helped him write his first tell-all memo on Aug. 31, 2020.

And then came a bombshell, courtesy of the text messages that the prosecutor was compelled to introduce into evidence after he received them. They suggested Perlasca wrote the memo implicating his boss after he had received threats and advice from a woman who had an ax to grind against Becciu.

Public relations specialist Francesca Chaouqui previously served on a papal commission tasked with investigating the Vatican’s vast and murky financials. She is known in Vatican circles for her role in the “Vatileaks” scandal of 2015-2016, when she was convicted of conspiring to leak confidential Vatican documents to journalists and received a 10-month suspended sentence.

According to the texts, Chaouqui nurtured a grudge against Becciu, whom she blamed for allegedly supporting her prosecution. She apparently saw the investigation into the London real estate venture as a chance to settle scores and implicate Becciu in alleged wrongdoing she had uncovered during her commission days.

“I knew that sooner or later the moment would come and I would send you this message,” Chaouqui wrote Perlasca on May 12, 2020. “Because the Lord doesn’t allow the good to be humiliated without repair. I pardon you Perlasca, but remember, you owe me a favor.”

Chaouqui didn’t say what she wanted. But other messages unveiled in court indicate she persuaded a Perlasca family friend and confidante, Genoveffa Ciferri, that she could help Perlasca avoid prosecution if he followed Chaouqui’s advice.

According to Ciferri’s texts, the elaborate scheme allegedly unfolded as follows: Ciferri believed Chaouqui when she bragged that she was working hand-in-hand with Vatican prosecutors, gendarmes and the pope in the criminal investigation. Ciferri wanted to help Perlasca, and so fed him Chaouqui’s advice anonymously.

Chaouqui subsequently organized a dinner at a Rome restaurant during which Perlasca tried to extract incriminating information from Becciu. Perlasca was led to believe the Vatican prosecutors had bugged the table and were recording their conversation, though no recording has materialized. He provided them with a detailed memo after the Sept. 6, 2020 meal.

The dinner took place 18 days before Francis fired Becciu and stripped him of his rights as a cardinal based on information he said he had received about Becciu’s alleged financial misconduct.

Ciferri confessed the whole saga to prosecutor Alessandro Diddi in a Nov. 26 text in which she said she had schemed with Chaouqui in hopes of sparing Perlasca from becoming a criminal defendant. Ciferri forwarded Diddi 126 text messages she exchanged with Chaouqui and said Chaouqui had helped craft the August 2020 memo in which Perlasca turned on the cardinal.

The implications of Chaouqui’s alleged interference were clear to those in the courtroom: Perlasca, a key prosecution witness, may have been persuaded to provide possibly false testimony about Becciu and others by someone with a not-so-hidden agenda. In addition, Chaouqui bragged about working closely with investigators on the case.

Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, denounced the “surreal” machinations that helped lead to his client’s indictment, saying Perlasca had been manipulated “to the detriment of the truth, the authenticity of the investigation and the honorability of His Eminence.”

Cataldo Intrieri, the lawyer representing Perlasca’s deputy Fabrizio Tirabassi, said the revelations warrant the trial’s suspension and the opening of a new criminal investigation for suspected fraud, threats and obstruction. “Regardless, there are implications for the facts that are the subject of this trial,” Intrieri said.

Judge Pignatone rejected defense calls to suspend the trial, saying the proceedings were based more on documentation about the London deal than Perlasca’s testimony. But he scheduled in-court interrogations for Ciferri and Chaouqui.

Chaouqui, when reached by The Associated Press, declined to comment before her court testimony.

Diddi defended the investigation, strongly denied having any dealings with Chaouqui before she was questioned in July and announced he had opened a new investigation into possible false testimony and other potential crimes based on the texts he received from Ciferri. He offered to turn over his cell phone to show he had no dealings with Chaouqui.

“If someone brags about having knowledge (of the investigation) I have to investigate,” he said.

Some defense lawyers also privately complained that Diddi had evidence in February 2021 of Chaouqui’s alleged involvement with Perlasca but didn’t inform the defense, part of broader defense complaints about the peculiarities of the Vatican’s legal system. Diddi acknowledged last week that Ciferri phone him on Feb. 4, 2021 and mentioned Chaouqui’s name.

Diddi also heard from Perlasca on March 1, 2022, when the monsignor filed a formal complaint alleging Chaouqui had threatened him and claimed to be working with prosecutors. The written complaint was only entered into evidence last week. Defense lawyers said it was their first inkling that Perlasca might be a compromised prosecution witness.

“She sent me threatening messages via telephone, saying I was in her hands and that only she could save me from certain prison, making clear she could influence the investigators,” Perlasca wrote in his complaint.

Chaouqui was in touch with Perlasca as recently as Nov. 26. She texted him after his first court appearances and suggested they meet before he went back on the stand.

“My interest, and I think yours, is that my support not emerge at trial because it would be difficult to explain above all the consequences that it had,” she wrote.

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December 4, 2022
Pope slams treatment of migrants as 2 Italians become saints

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday denounced Europe’s indifference toward migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea as he elevated to sainthood an Italian bishop and Italian-born missionary whose work and life paths illustrated the difficulties faced by 19th Century Italian emigrants.

Francis departed from prepared remarks to slam Europe’s treatment of migrants as “disgusting, sinful and criminal.” He noted that people from outside the continent are often left to die during perilous sea crossings or pushed back to Libya, where they wind up in camps he referred to as “lager,” the German word referring to Nazi concentration camps.

He also recalled the plight of Ukrainians fleeing war, which he said “causes us great suffering.”

“ The exclusion of migrants is scandalous,’’ Francis said, generating applause from the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the canonizations of Don Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who founded an order to help Italian emigrants in 1887, and Artedime Zatti, an Italian who emigrated in 1897 to Argentina and dedicated his life as a lay-worker there to helping the sick.

“Indeed, the situation of migrants is criminal. They are left to die in front of us, making the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world. The situation of migrants is disgusting, sinful, criminal. Not to open the doors to those who are in need. No, we exclude them, we send them away to lager, where they are exploited and sold as slaves.”

He urged the faithful to consider the treatment of migrants, asking: ‘’Do we welcome them as brothers, or do we exploit them?”

The pontiff said the two new saints “remind us of the importance or walking together.”

Francis said Scalabrani showed “great vision,’’ by looking forward “to a world and a Church without barriers, where no one was a foreigner.” And the pontiff called Zatti “a living example of gratitude” who devoted his life to serving others after being cured of tuberculosis.

Scalabrini founded the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo, known as the Scalabrian Fathers, and the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo Scalabrians, to minister to the many Italians who left their homeland due to what he wrote were the combined effects of an agricultural crisis, social change, a poorly managed economy, exorbitant taxation and “the natural desire to improve one’s condition.”

Disturbed by statistics on Italian emigration that swelled to 84,000 in 1884 alone, Scalabrini wrote that the mass emigration and separation of families would “help strew white the lands of America with their bones.”

He died in 1905 in Piacenza, where he was bishop, and was beatified in 1997 by St. John Paul II. Pope Francis dispensed with the canonization requirement of Scalabrini having a miracle attributed to him after his beatification.

The order he founded currently operates 176 missions around the world, including 27 migrant shelters and 20 schools and centers for children.

Francis, himself the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, has recalled being inspired by Zatti’s life while he was Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina, saying the number of men entering the Catholic order increased after he prayed for the late bishop’s intercession.

Zatti was one of eight children born to a farming couple in northern Italy that emigrated to Argentina in 1897 when he was a teenager.

After entering the Salesian order at age 20, Zatti fell ill with tuberculosis and was sent to a Salesian-run hospital in northern Patagonia to be treated. He made a vow to serve the sick and poor for the rest of his life, if he recovered. Zatti went on to work in the same hospital for 40 years, working as a nurse, in the pharmacy, and later as an administrator.

His fame for treating the ill attracted the sick from all over Patagonia. Zatti was known to travel the city of Viedma with his bicycle with a medical case to help the sick. The pontiff on Sunday also recalled an occasion when Zatti was seen removing a dead patient on his own shoulders from the hospital, to prevent the sick from seeing the body.

Zatti died in 1951, and was beatified in 2002. Paving the way for canonization, Francis signed the decree recognizing Zatti’s intercession in the healing of a man in the Philippines who had suffered a brain bleed.

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Barry reported from Milan. Francesco Sportelli in Rome and Gianfranco Stara in Vatican City contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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October 9, 2022