04.16.2022 12:18 (Akt. 04.16.2022 12:18)
Weak at 95, but “with a clear and sharp mind” © APA / dpa pool
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. celebrated 95 years on Saturday. The Vatican said Joseph Ratzinger would spend the day at his home, the “Mater Ecclesiae” monastery in the Vatican Gardens. As the birthday falls on Holy Saturday, no major celebration was planned. Also, Benedict XVI. His health is now quite poor, although he has a “clear and sharp mind”, as his private secretary Georg Gänswein repeatedly emphasizes.
Pope Francis had already paid an early visit to his predecessor on Wednesday night. The bishops of Austria also congratulated Benedict XVI. already in advance. In a statement to Kathpress, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn called the pope emeritus a “gift to the Church and theology”.
Born April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Joseph Ratzinger was the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from April 19, 2005 until his resignation on February 28, 2013. Prior to that, Joseph Ratzinger was prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Vatican Faith for over 23 years and Archbishop of Munich-Freising from 1977 to 1982.
The report published in January 2022 by the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising on dealing with sexual abuse also criticized Ratzinger’s time as Archbishop of Munich. The president of the Conference of German Catholic Bishops, Georg Bätzing, wrote in his congratulations to the former Pontifex that he regrets “that at this advanced age you still had to face considerable storms in public about yourself. But the Munich report left no other choose to explain yourself, and you did.” In all the debate about this processing, “you shouldn’t close your eyes to what you’ve done for the church and what you’ve lived through.”