a Pope Francis Pope Emeritus prayer request Benedict 16 This Wednesday (28), after he said he was “very sick.” The Pope made this appeal at the end of his general meeting without giving details.
in 2013, 95-year-old Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to resign. He has lived in the Vatican ever since.
“I would like to ask everyone for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who silently supports the Church. Let us remember him. He is very ill, asking the Lord to comfort him and support him in this testimony of love. The Church to the end.”
According to the Vatican, the current pope visited his predecessor shortly after the general audience.
Shortly after Francis’ statement, the Vatican also said that Benedict’s health had suddenly taken a turn for the worse in recent hours, but that his condition was “under control” and that he was “undergoing ongoing medical treatment”. Until a few weeks ago, those who saw the Pope Emeritus would say that his body was very fragile, but his mind was still sharp.
One of the last known photos of Benedict XVI was taken on December 1, when he met the winners of the theologians’ award that bears his name. He was sitting looking very weak. Since his resignation, Benedict has lived in a former convent in the Vatican Gardens, with his secretary, Archbishop George Ganswein, as well as a few other assistants and a medical staff.
He announced his intention to resign on February 11, 2013, shocking a meeting of cardinals, justifying that he no longer had the physical and mental strength to run the Catholic Church.
He formally resigned on 28 February of that year, moving temporarily to the papal summer residence south of Rome while cardinals from all over the world flocked to Rome to choose his successor. Pope Francis, the first pope in Latin America, was elected on March 13, 2013.
While the current Pope has always praised the Pope Emeritus, saying it was like having his grandfather in the house, The presence of two men in white in the Vatican was sometimes problematic.
The conservative wing of the church saw the titular pope as a standard-bearer, and some ultra-traditionalists even refused to recognize Francis as the legitimate pope. Benedict XVI, the first German pope in a thousand years, was elected in 2005 to succeed the famous Pope John Paul II, who held the position for 27 years.
The Cardinals chose him for continuity and what they called a “safe pair of hands.”
For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Emeritus was now the powerful head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, then known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
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