Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI Archives

Pope calls for an end to ‘collective and arbitrary’ expulsion of migrants

August 21, 2017

In a message for the Vatican-sponsored “World Day of Migrants and Refugees,” set for Jan. 14, Pope Francis called the “lamentable situation” of migrants and refugees fleeing war, persecution, natural disasters and poverty a “sign of the times,” and called for nations to rise up to the challenge of “Welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating migrants and refugees.”

Reflections on ‘Tettamanzi lesson’ for handicapping papal elections

Analysis

August 8, 2017

Italian Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan, for much of his tenure, was considered a slam-dunk obvious candidate to be pope. In the end, he had no real traction, which illustrates a key insight about papal conclaves: Like most other electoral exercises, sometimes front-runners win, and other times they vanish before your very eyes.

Ex-Vatican doctrine chief says Church did what it could on German abuse scandal

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, until recently the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke about a recent report that found 547 former members of the Regensburg Domspatzen boys choir were abused, including 67 cases of sexual violence. As former diocesan archbishop, he began the investigations into the allegations, which first surfaced in 2010.

Benedict aide: It’s a ‘fantasy’ and ‘stupid’ to use him against Francis
- Vatican
- July 19, 2017
Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI’s personal secretary, said that those trying to use the words the pope emeritus sent for the funeral of one of the “dubia” cardinals as an attack on Pope Francis are “stupid.” In his message for the July 15 funeral of German Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Benedict alluded to the Church being near “capsizing,” which is a familiar image in his writing.
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Benedict XVI calls good friend Meisner a ‘passionate shepherd’
- Global Church
- July 16, 2017
In a message read by his long-time personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI defined late Cardinal Joachim Meisner as a “pastor of souls.” Recalling their last conversation, on the eve of the prelate’s death, the German pontiff wrote that he was impressed by the cardinal’s “loosened happiness, the inner joy, and the confidence that he had found.”
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Cardinal-watch: Maradiaga bashes Burke, as Benedict lauds Sarah
- Vatican
- May 19, 2017
While the coordinator of the pope’s ‘C9’ council of cardinal advisers has dismissed American Cardinal Raymond Burke as a ‘disappointed man’ upset with his loss of power, emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has defended Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea as someone with whom the Church’s liturgy is in “good hands.”
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