Colegio de los Ángeles #6

Laura Carolina Hernández Betancurt Grammar 11° 01-01-2023

Benedict XVI, First Modern Pope to Resign, Dies at 95

He defined a conservative course for the Roman Catholic Church, but his papacy was noted for his
struggle with the clergy sexual abuse scandal and for his unexpected resignation.

Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, a quiet scholar of diamond-hard intellect who spent much of his
life enforcing church doctrine and defending tradition before shocking the Roman Catholic world
by becoming the first pope in six centuries to resign, died on Saturday. He was 95.

Benedict’s death was announced by the Vatican. No cause was given. This past week, the Vatican
said that Benedict’s health had taken a turn for the worse “due to advancing age.”

On Wednesday, Pope Francis asked those present at his weekly audience at the Vatican to pray for
Benedict, who he said was “very ill.” He later visited him at the monastery on the Vatican City
grounds where Benedict had lived since announcing his resignation in February 2013.
In that announcement, citing a loss of stamina and his “advanced age” at 85, Benedict said he was
stepping down freely and “for the good of the church.” The decision, surprising the faithful and
the world at large, capped a papacy of almost eight years in which his efforts to re-energize the
Roman Catholic Church were often overshadowed by the unresolved sexual abuse scandal in the
clergy.
After the selection of his successor that March — Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergoglio of Buenos Aires — and a temporary stay at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer
residence, Benedict moved to a convent in Vatican City. It was the first time that two pontiffs had
shared the same grounds.
The two men were reportedly on good terms personally, but it was at times an awkward
arrangement, and Francis moved decisively to reshape the papacy, firing or demoting many of
Benedict’s traditionalist appointees and elevating the virtue of mercy over rules that Benedict had
spent decades refining and enforcing.
Benedict, the uncharismatic intellectual who had largely preached to the church’s most fervent
believers, was soon eclipsed by Francis, an unexpectedly popular successor who immediately
sought to widen Catholicism’s appeal and to make the Vatican newly relevant in world affairs. But
as Francis’ traditionalist-minded critics raised their voices in the later 2010s, they made Benedict a
rallying point of their opposition, fueling fears that his resignation could promote a schism.
In early 2019, Benedict broke his post-papacy silence, issuing a 6,000-word letter that seemed at
odds with his successor’s view of the sexual abuse scandals. Benedict attributed the crisis to the
sexual revolution of the 1960s, secularization and an erosion of morality that he pinned on liberal
theology. Francis, by contrast, saw its origins in the exaltation of authority and abuse of power in
the church hierarchy.

Given his frail health at the time, however, many church watchers questioned whether Benedict
had indeed written the letter or had been manipulated to issue it as a way to undercut Francis.

Benedict himself was swept up in the scandal after a January 2022 report that had been
commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church in Munich to investigate how the church had
handled cases of sexual abuse between 1945 and 2019. The report contended that Benedict had
mishandled four cases involving the sexual abuse of minors decades ago, while he was an
archbishop in Germany, and that he had misled investigators in his written answers.
Colegio de los Ángeles #6
Laura Carolina Hernández Betancurt Grammar 11° 01-01-2023

Two weeks after the report was made public, Benedict acknowledged in a letter that “abuses and
errors” had taken place under his watch and asked for forgiveness. But he denied any misconduct.

At the time of his resignation, his decision to step down humbled and humanized a pope whose
papacy had become associated with tempests. There were tangles with Jews, Muslims and
Anglicans, and with progressive Catholics, who were distressed by his overtures to the most
traditionalist fringes of the Catholic world.
It was a painful paradox to his supporters that the long-gathering sexual abuse crisis should
finally hit the Vatican with a vengeance under Benedict, in 2010.

MAIN IDEA
The article talks about that the pope defined a conservative course for the Roman Catholic Church,
but his papacy was noted for his struggle with the clergy sexual abuse scandal and for his
unexpected resignation.

Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, a quiet scholar of diamond-hard intellect who spent much of his
life enforcing church doctrine and defending tradition before shocking the Roman Catholic world
by becoming the first pope in six centuries to resign, died on Saturday. He was 95.

Benedict’s death was announced by the Vatican. No cause was given. This past week, the Vatican
said that Benedict’s health had taken a turn for the worse «due to advancing age.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis asked those present at his weekly audience at the Vatican to pray for
Benedict, who he said was very ill. He later visited him at the monastery on the Vatican City
grounds where Benedict had lived since announcing his resignation in February 2013.

POINT OF VIEW
I think that the Benedict himself was swept up in the scandal after a January 2022 report that had
been commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church in Munich to investigate how the church had
handled cases of sexual abuse between 1945 and 2019. The report contended that Benedict had
mishandled four cases involving the sexual abuse of minors decades ago, while he was an
archbishop in Germany, and that he had misled investigators in his written answers.

Two weeks after the report was made public, Benedict acknowledged in a letter that «abuses and
errors» had taken place under his watch and asked for forgiveness. But he denied any misconduct.

At the time of his resignation, his decision to step down humbled and humanized a pope whose
papacy had become associated with tempests.