Former Pope Benedict XVI, the first pontiff to resign in 600 years, dies at 95

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Sat Dec 31, 2022, 07:58 AM - Edit history (2)

Source: NBC News

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Bavarian-born theologian whose conservative Roman Catholicism earned him the nickname "God's Rottweiler" and who shocked his flock by suddenly resigning the papacy after just eight years, died Saturday, the Vatican said.

He was 95. Benedict was the longest-living pope, having surpassed Pope Leo XIII in September 2020.

"With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican," the Vatican said in a statement early Saturday. No cause of death was provided. "Further information will be provided as soon as possible," the statement said.

The Vatican said Benedict's remains would be on public display in St. Peter's Basilica starting Monday, with his funeral to be held on Thursday, Jan. 5 in St. Peter's Square.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-emeritus-benedict-xvi-dies-95-rcna63442

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Article updated.

Headline updated. Original headline -

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI dies at 95

Original article -

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Bavarian-born theologian whose conservative Roman Catholicism earned him the nickname "God's Rottweiler" and who shocked his flock by suddenly resigning the papacy after just eight years, died Saturday, the Vatican said.

He was 95.

Benedict was the longest-living pope, having surpassed Pope Leo XIII in September 2020.

Benedict, the first pope to voluntarily give up the pontifical reins in nearly 600 years, spent his twilight years living at the Vatican in a refurbished monastery, rarely appearing in public with the man who replaced him, Pope Francis.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. many deaths ( of well known) at end of 2022...just today Barbara Walters and Pope

[Marthe48]

29. And Pele, just this week

I feel like my world is whooshing away. While they will always be part of my universe, my reference points are moving off the planet.

[Solly Mack]

2. All my thoughts are with the victims of the Catholic Church.

Can't claim it was/is simply individuals within the church since the church as a governing body chose to hide, cover up, and allow the abuse to continue.

Death of a Pope (or Cardinal, or Archbishop, or Bishop, or Priest, or Deacon, or even members of the Laity who protected the church from justice/the truth, etc.) will never change that. Death does not in any way mitigate the abuse. Death does not eliminate culpability for the abuse.

You don't get to do that (rape, abuse, cover it up, pretend it didn't happen, etc.) to children and their families and then behave as if you have lived or died in grace. You didn't. You won't.

You have destroyed lives. Your passing will never ever come soon enough.

[AngryOldDem]

7. The Church's apologies will never, ever be enough.

I refuse to believe that the hierarchy — Benedict included while he was still in Germany — had no idea about the abusive priests in their churches. Likewise, I refuse to believe they had no idea about the disgusting, hardball tactics used by the Corporate Catholic Church against survivors (I don’t call them victims) and their families.

I have known survivors of this, and their pain and sense of betrayal can never be healed.

This has made me be of the opinion that there should be no statute of limitations on the prosecution of sex abuse.

[Solly Mack]

11. I agree.

And you're right, survivors.

[gopiscrap]

25. I agree I am one of those abused

[Earth Bound Misfit]

38. Wish I could rec this post. n/t

[NJCher]

3. I hope

I never get this old. He could barely hold his head up.

[cstanleytech]

4. If it wasnt for the effects of aging I personally would not mind immortality though as I would love

to be able to see things like new species evolving not to mention the potential to travel to other star systems.

[NNadir]

6. I used to say that about my current age; yet here I am.

I met Freeman Dyson when he was close to 90. He was more alive than I could ever hope to be.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. My grandmother was a week away from 98 and her significant other was 101 1/2

My Nana had seen so many changes and traveled well into her 80s. As for Paul, he was still driving at 99 and wrote his last book at 100. I attended his birthday gathering with family from all over the country and he was tough to pin down because he was busy arranging publication of his book. He was also an ordained minister and had taken over the duties of his church when the minister became ill. I'd be happy if only I could take after either of them.

[nightwing1240]

5. The Pope I did not care for

as a result of his hand in the church scandal of molestation of young boys among other things. I am ambivalent towards he and the church in general.

[AngryOldDem]

8. Girls were also victims.

[nightwing1240]

9. Yes, thank you

From Wikipedia-

The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14.

[Lunabell]

10. RIH

Pedophile protectorate is dead.

[303squadron]

13. Tamp the dirt down

|

[LittleGirl]

14. I left the church before he took over

And to find out he had a hand in the cover up of those abused children confirmed to me I made the right decision. I had my suspicions and when I read about Ireland, I knew it was a global sickness that had infected so-called christians. Those evil people can rot in hell. I’m an atheist now and nobody will convince me otherwise. Pope Benedict Arnold will get no sympathy from me. None of them deserve their pampered life. Fuck them all.

[twodogsbarking]

15. And this.....

[link:https://nationalpost.com/news/wealth-of-roman-catholic-church-impossible-to-calculate|

[spike jones]

16. Of course the church is morally bankrupt. n/t

I have never understood why the church members have not put a stop the the child abuse. I think all they would have to do is stop giving money to them. Is it the fear of going to hell?

[twodogsbarking]

18. Eternal salvation vs. eternal damnation is a selling point.

Hard to top that.

[Maeve]

17. His election to the papacy was about the last straw for me

I left the church emotionally and soon thereafter left it physically. While many of my beliefs remain the same, I can no longer participate in, or financially support, any congregation--the awareness of the amount of abuse that occurs without consequences in "religious" groups of all stripes leaves me to practice my faith alone.
Even Benedict's smile creeped me out. I'll leave him to God's mercy, tho.

[lonely bird]

19. Not possible for me to care less

No one gets out of life alive.

The Roman Church’s actions were unsupportable. Benedict did nothing about it.

When the Roman Church turns over every priest, bishop, archbishop/cardinal who was accused of abuse or involved in the cover-up of abuse to the state for investigation then it will have started to repent for its actions. Of course, the same applies to any religious organization that has the same issue. SBC? Are you listening?

[niyad]

21. And don't forget all the dioceses declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying

survivors.

[niyad]

20. Good riddance to a pedophile enabler and misogynist.

[gatomedianoche]

22. Our beloved German Pope is now with Father Geoghen

Our beloved German Pope is now with Father John Geoghen and the other dear departed pedophile priests in their Eternal fate.

[Sky Jewels]

23. Wish I believed in Hell and all that other nonsense

so I could imagine him spinning on a skewer like a grocery store roasted chicken.

[Polybius]

24. Hope his pain was short and his journey was quick

RIP.

[OnlinePoker]

26. I guess all those prayers the current pope asked for did a lot of good. /s n/t

[FakeNoose]

27. Someday the truth will come out, Benedict-16 probably should never have been elected Pope

I mean... he wasn't a bad Pope as far as I know. But before he ever got elected Pope he'd been involved in the pedophile coverup in ways that haven't been explained. In fact there's a lot of stuff about that scandal that has never been explained or admitted. Benedict was probably not a pedo himself, but he was definitely an enabler and someone who helped cover the tracks of the guilty parties.

When Benedict decided to step down, I thought it was a good move. But the Church still hasn't admitted most of it. It will be a century before the truth comes out, so we shouldn't hold our breaths.

[LudwigPastorius]

28. Are they going to bury him in his little red shoes?

[electric_blue68]

30. Besides This Pope being a Conservative one, my other problem with him was the expulsion of Father...

Mathew Fox.

(to be clear since I'm concentrating on something else -covering up sexual abuse anywhere is a heinous action so I condemn all of that, and what The Church has done/not done about it)

One of Ratzinger's problems with Father Fox was his diminishment of Original Sin to concentrate more on (Fox's term) "Original Blessings".
Fox has published dozens of books on his ideas of
"Creation Spirituality".

Re: Timothy James (Father Mathew) Fox
From Wikipedia:

[block quote]
In 1976, Fox moved to Chicago’s Mundelein College (now part of Loyola University) to start the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality (ICCS), a master's program in Creation Spirituality with a unique pedagogy that integrated both left and right brain centers and would eventually lead to conflict with Church authorities. His holistic pedagogy included among its faculty Jungian psychologist John Giannini, physicist/cosmologist Brian Swimme, feminist theologian Rosemary Reuther, along with many artists teaching “art as meditation.” In 1983, Fox moved ICCS to Oakland, California, and began teaching at Holy Names University, where he was a professor for 12 years.[3]

In 1984 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — the future Pope Benedict XVI, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — asked the Dominican Order to investigate Fox’s writings. When three Dominican theologians examined his works and did not find his books heretical, Ratzinger ordered a second review, which was never undertaken.[4][5]

Due to his questioning of the doctrine of original sin, in 1988 Ratzinger forbade Fox from teaching or lecturing for a year. Fox wrote a “Pastoral Letter to Cardinal Ratzinger and the Whole Church,” calling the Catholic Church a dysfunctional family. After a year "sabbatical," Fox resumed writing, teaching, and lecturing. In 1991 his Dominican superior ordered Fox to leave the ICCS in California and return to Chicago or face dismissal. Fox refused.[6]

In 1993, Fox’s conflicts with Catholic authorities climaxed with his expulsion from the Dominican Order for "disobedience," effectively ending his professional relationship with the Church and his teaching at its universities.

Among the issues Ratzinger objected to were his feminist theology; calling God "Mother;" preferring the concept of Original Blessing over Original Sin; not condemning homosexual behavior; and teaching the four paths of creation spirituality — the Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa and Via Transformativa — instead of the Church’s classical three paths of purgation, illumination and union.[7]

Writing in The New York Times, Molly O'Neill says that the Vatican was presented with a request on the part of the Dominicans that the theologian be dismissed.[7] According to John L. Allen, Jr., it was largely in reaction to the unconventional programming at ICCS, with a faculty that included a masseuse, a Zen Buddhist, a yoga teacher, and a self-described witch named Starhawk.[8]"

.....

"In 1996, Fox founded the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, an outgrowth of his institutes at Mundelein and Holy Names. The university offered similar master's degree programs in creation spirituality and related studies. It was initially accredited through an affiliation with New College of California, before shifting in 1999 to affiliate with the Naropa Institute of Boulder, Colorado, creating and running Naropa’s master's degree program. The university also added a separate doctorate of ministry degree, with a curriculum based on his 1993 book The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time, which talked about a "priesthood of all workers".[11]

Fox led the University of Creation Spirituality for nine years, then was succeeded as president by James Garrison in 2005. The institution was subsequently renamed Wisdom University.[12]

Since leaving the university, Fox has continued to lecture, write and publish books. In 2005, he founded an educational organization geared to reach out to inner city youth called Youth and Elder Learning Laboratory for Ancestral Wisdom Education (YELLAWE). The YELLAWE program is based on a holistic approach to education and creativity derived from Fox’s master’s level programs. It also includes physical training in bodily meditation practices such as tai chi. YELLAWE has operated in inner-city school systems in Oakland and Chicago."[13]

Fox's proponents hold that his teachings are more gender neutral, ecology sensitive, and accepting of non-traditional sexuality, than church orthodoxy.[14]

I knew about the Wisdom University but YELLAWE is new to me - good for him.


While I had left The Catholic Church, decided not to become a Christian at some point still being a Spiritual person I happen to find out about still then Father Fox. I might have even gone to hear him speak at a UU church in NYC back in ?the '80s.

I didn't know he became a Episcopalian!
Will read that part of Wiki too.

[BumRushDaShow]

31. A number of former Catholic priests

became Episcopal - particularly because they can marry. The whole "celibacy" thing was truly manufactured by some zealot faction of the Catholic church at some point (and not even during the early period).

[electric_blue68]

32. Oh, I didn't know that, and that it wasn't at, or near the beginnings.

[BumRushDaShow]

33. Like you see still happening today

the liturgy and practices evolved over the centuries. I think older Catholics remember in the '60s when Pope Paul basically allowed parishes to ditch the Latin mass and permit it in the native language. Hell even Pope Francis deemed Italian as the "official" language at the Vatican after many centuries.

[electric_blue68]

35. True. And yes, I Remember that Change, and the Uproar it Caused among Conservative Catholics (of...

which I wasn't).

But ? 1/2+ the time me, my sis were going to the Ukrainian Catholic Church instead of the Catholic Church about 10 blocks from our house vs the one we drove to.

[wolfie001]

39. The reason for celibacy is.....

.....if a priest sleeps around in his town, the wife is left to make a potential stink. If he's not married, the obligation of marital fidelity is GONE. I believe it's as simple as that. An ecclesiastical way to save face. Oh, and of course the priest is still having sex as apparently it happens all the time.

[NullTuples]

34. Seen on Mastodon: "Finally, an accurate headline about Pope Benedict"

"Pope Benedict XVI, former member of the Hitler Youth, an extreme homophobe who called gay marriage a, "threat to world peace", opposed the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, and shielded pedophile priests despite knowing they abused kids, as well as a male prostitute ring run out of the Vatican and money laundering at the Vatican Bank...has died at 95 years old."

[SouthernDem4ever]

40. That reflects the reality of it

That was his affect on his followers. I attended catholic church for a period of time during his reign and remember the real weird zealots taking over the leadership positions and trying to return everyone to a dogmatic view of human existence. Didn't take me long to leave all that again.

[orangecrush]

36. Francis is a breath of fresh air

Benedict is gone.

I wish the right wing element of the church would follow him.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

37. Does this mean...

we're no longer One Pope over the Line, Sweet Jeebus?