Happy birthday Joseph Ratzinger. Today, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI celebrates 94 years. He is extremely fragile, and his body is now weaker, but his mind is still clear enough to be able to carefully follow the major events occurring in the world.
Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927 in Marktl, Germany, and was the 265th Pope of the Church from April 19, 2005 to February 28, 2013, when he chose the path of resignation.
“It was a tough decision – he said last month in an interview with Massimo Franco published in the Corriere della Sera – but I took it in full consciousness, and I think I did well. Some of my little fanatical friends are still pissed off, they don’t want to accept my choice. I think of the conspiracy theories that followed: Who said it was the fault of the Vatileaks scandal, some gay lobby conspiracy, some of the case of conservative Lefebvrian theologian Richard Williamson. They don’t want to believe in conscious choice. But my conscience is fine. “. A road he never found out he decided to do eight years ago, which also earned him a series of criticisms from his closest aides at the time. But there is no turning back, and he himself has repeatedly said that “the Pope is one”.
However, an aura of mystery remains about the true reasons that led to his resignation, and it seems that not even the 1209 pages of the autobiography written by Peter Siwald and edited by Garzanti have given answers. at Benedict XVI. Life, The pope emeritus told his biographer that he had not made the historic decision to abandon the papacy due to the Vatileaks scandal that led to Paolo Gabriele’s “personal servant” pulling piles of documents. No scandal, his choice was conscious.
Ratzinger chose to spend the rest of his life in a convent in the Vatican. There he lives with four Memories Domeni, his private secretary, Mgr. George Ganswin, and Sister Birgit Wansing, who helps him every day to respond to the letters he receives.
Coexistence in the Vatican among “Papists”? So far this is possible and without consequences. Benedict XVI assures his biographer that “the personal friendship with Pope Francis not only remained, but grew over time.”
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