Catholic faithful and world leaders are paying their respects to Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI who passed on Saturday.
Amid a crowd of visitors at St. Peter's Square on Saturday, some faithful crossed themselves in front of the basilica
as an act of mourning for the passing of Pope Benedict XVI.
“There is a huge void. We loved him so much, ”said Caterina Walis, 61, a housewife who walked to the square to say her goodbyes to Benedict with teary eyes.
Before hearing that he had died, she had been praying for him on Saturday morning, as she had prayed in the past days since learning that he was ill.
Like many other conservative Roman Catholics, Ms. Walis said that Benedict had served as a source of inspiration for her and a protector of the church's aims in the face of modernity's threats.
Maria Teresa Walis, her 31-year-old practicing lawyer daughter, expressed sadness that there was now just one living Pope in the church after a decade in which the retired Benedict remained on the sidelines and Pope Francis presided.
“We had two of them and it was an extra richness,” Ms. Walis said. “It is the end of an era.”
Conservative Catholics in America mourn Benedict as an unofficial figurehead.
For American Catholics, the death of Benedict means the loss of a hero and
has caused widespread grief throughout the American Church.
But for the conservative Catholics in America, his death marked the loss of their unofficial figurehead, a shadow presence whose influence they followed even after Pope Francis took over as the Church’s global leader, New York Times reports.
While Benedict had mostly disappeared from public view since his sudden retirement in 2013, many theological conservatives still looked up to him as a model of the kind of doctrinal rigor and devotion they saw lacking in the Church under Francis.
The conservatives of the American church leaders have been gaining ground recently and have openly and frequently disagreed on the subject of abortion with Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, and Joseph R. Biden, the nation's second Catholic president.
Pope Benedict's promotion of Catholic leaders, such as Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, helped to shape the nature of the Church hierarchy in the United States at its highest levels.
According to George Weigel, a conservative Catholic writer, and author of "To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II," some segments of the American Church, including the younger generation of priests, have long held Benedict "in an awe bordering on reverence."
Mourning bells ring across Germany.
Church bells rang across Germany on Saturday as leaders around the country paid their respects to Benedict XVI, the first German to be Pope in decades.
“As a ‘German’ Pope, Benedict XVI was a special Church leader for many, not only in this country,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a statement on Twitter. “The world loses a formative figure of the Catholic Church, a combative personality and a wise theologian. My thoughts are with Pope Francis.”
In Munich, the Archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, offered a prayer in Benedict’s honor. “Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is dead and we mourn him: He put his trust in You, he lived with You, he sought You. Lead him now to eternal life and grant him the joy of the resurrection.”
Benedict XVI was born in the Bavarian village of Marktl am Inn in 1927 under the name Josef Ratzinger. He grew up during World War II and, as was compulsory at the time, joined the Hitler Youth as a teenager.
However, in Germany where tributes for his church service were mixed with criticism, his legacy has been marred not by his time spent under Nazi control but rather by his handling of cases of sexual abuse as an Archbishop.
The chairman of the Catholic German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, on Saturday described Benedict as an “impressive theologian” and “experienced shepherd.” But Bishop Bätzing also acknowledged the problems in Benedict’s handling of abuse cases as an Archbishop. “He asked forgiveness from those affected, and yet questions remained unanswered,” the bishop said.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's largely ceremonial President, paid tribute to Benedict in a statement, praising him for being able to make his Catholic teachings understandable to people of all faiths. Sexual abuse in the church was also a subject that was also brought up by Mr. Steinmeier.
Benedict “was confronted with the oppressive problem of worldwide sexual abuse and its systematic cover-up,” the President wrote. “Here he had a special responsibility. Benedict knew about the great suffering of the victims and the immense damage to the credibility of the Church.”
On social media, the dean of Cologne’s Cathedral posted videos of “Fat Pete,” the Church’s largest bell, peeling in honor of Benedict. From Munich, clerics posted videos of the funerary bell ringing at the Church of St. Michael. And across Benedict’s largely Catholic home state, Bavaria, local leaders, and state parties mourned his death.
“We mourn the death of our Bavarian Pope. With him, society loses a convincing representative of the Catholic Church and one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century.”
“He gave strength and orientation to many people. At the same time, however, he also had to face the responsibility for difficult phases in his ministry, ” said Markus Söder, the Governor.
Germany's Parliament in Berlin announced that mourning flags would be flown from the parliamentary building and noted in a statement that Benedict had visited there as a guest 11 years ago.
“Never before had a Pope spoken before an elected German Parliament,” the statement said.
In the German news media on Saturday, at least two news outlets played on a famous headline from the country’s largest daily, Bild, and wrote, "We were Pope.”
In 2005, the headline that greeted Benedict’s elevation read “We are Pope."
Presidents and church leaders pay their respects.
On Saturday, leaders from Italy, other parts of Europe, and the Russian Orthodox Church paid tribute to Benedict XVI, praising his commitment to the Roman Catholic Church and traditional morals.
Russian Orthodox Church.
According to Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church who met with Benedict several times while he was Pope, the retired Pope's "unquestionable authority as an eminent theologian allowed him to make a significant contribution to the development of inter-Christian cooperation, to the witness of Christ in a secularized world, and the defense of traditional morals."
Kirill described Benedict as an admirer and friend of Eastern Christianity in a statement that was posted on the Moscow Patriarchy website on Saturday.
Italy.
President Sergio Mattarella in Italy said that Benedict XVI would be “unforgettable” for the Italian people. “His sweetness and wisdom have benefited our community and the entire international community,” Mr. Mattarella said in a statement.
He called the late Pope an intellectual and theologian who “interpreted with finesse the reasons of dialogue, peace, the dignity of the person as supreme interests for religions.”
Giorgia Meloni, the Prime minister of Italy, called Benedict a "giant of faith and religion," in a statement that also acknowledged the nation's mourning. She emphasized Benedict's contributions to the Church and the "spiritual, cultural, and intellectual depth of his teaching."
European Union.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the executive arm of the European Union and a native of Germany like Benedict, expressed her condolences to all Catholics on the passing of the retired Pope.
“Pope Benedict’s passing saddens me,” she said on Twitter. “He had set a strong signal through his resignation. “Once his physical strength waned, he continued to serve through the power of his prayers,” she wrote.
Benedict’s life.
For eight years, Benedict XVI presided over the 1.3 billion Roman Catholics around the world. He was a soft-spoken intellectual and scholar.
Benedict, as a young cleric saw the Catholic Church become more accessible to the modern world after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which he attended as a theological advisor.
The Pope emeritus supported orthodoxy and moved against dissenting theologians in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's theological watchdog.
He opposed homosexuality, abortion, birth control, and Latin American liberation theology.
As Pope, he saw how society was becoming more secularized and how the faithful were becoming more frustrated with an institution that they believed was either unwilling or unable to respond forcefully to the clerical abuse scandal that has rocked the church for the past few decades.
The Vatican said that Pope Benedict's funeral would take place in St. Peter's Square on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. and Pope
Francis would officiate at the funeral.
On Monday, Benedict's body would be in St. Peter's Basilica "to be greeted by the faithful."
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