FAKE DEATH NEWS: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI not dead but critically sick KossyDerrickBlog KossyDerrickEnt

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Thursday, December 29, 2022

FAKE DEATH NEWS: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI not dead but critically sick

Pope Francis has said that his predecessor Pope Benedict, the 95-year-old former pontiff who resigned from the post nine years ago, is "very sick" after a deterioration in his health on Wednesday.

"I want to ask you all for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict who sustains the Church in his silence. He is very sick," Francis said during his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday.

"We ask the Lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the Church to the very end."

A Vatican spokesman later confirmed that "in the last few hours there has been a deterioration due to the advancement of (Benedict's) age."

"The situation at the moment remains under control and continually monitored by his doctors," the spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said, adding that Francis visited his predecessor at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City after his general audience.

Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, DC, asked Catholics and "folks of good will to pray for Benedict XVI," in a Twitter post Wednesday.

"He served our Church in many roles - priest, scholar, diocesan bishop, curial official, & Pontiff. May Christ reward him for his loving service," Gregory said of Benedict.

In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by making the almost unprecedented decision to resign from his position, citing "advanced age."

Benedict's announcement marked the first time a pope had stepped down in nearly 600 years. The last pope to resign before his death was Gregory XII, who in 1415 quit to end a civil war within the Catholic Church in which more than one man claimed to be pope.

In 2020, the Vatican said Benedict had suffered from a "painful but not serious condition," following reports in German media that he was ill.

Two years earlier, in a rare public letter published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Benedict wrote that "in the slow waning of my physical forces, inwardly I am on a pilgrimage toward Home."

Benedict's legacy has been clouded by recent scrutiny of his time as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, between 1977 and 1982, after a Church-commissioned report into abuse by Catholic clergy there was published in January.

The report found that he had been informed of four cases of sexual abuse involving minors -- including two during his time in Munich -- but failed to act, and that he had attended a meeting about an abusive priest.

Benedict later pushed back against those allegations, admitting he had attended the meeting but denying he intentionally concealed his presence.

In a statement shared with CNN, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) spoke of the "mixed feelings" the public may have of Benedict. "Sadly, many clergy abuse victims are not out of the woods in terms of healing from their wounds and getting the justice they deserve," SNAP wrote.

He added that the situation “at the moment remains under control,” and that the Pope Emeritus is constantly monitored by doctors.

Mr. Bruni also said that after the General Audience in the Paul VI Hall, Pope Francis went to the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican where Benedict XVI resides.

“We join him in prayer for the Pope Emeritus,” Mr. Bruni said. Earlier this month Francis revealed he frequently visited his predecessor.

Speaking of Benedict as a "saint" and a man of high spiritual life, he said the former pope was lucid and had a good sense of humour.

The former Pope has struggled with speech for some time and two years ago a Maltese cardinal said Benedict had told new cardinals that "the Lord has taken away my speech to let me appreciate silence". "He speaks softly but follows your conversation," Pope Francis told Spanish newspaper ABC.

When the Pope took new cardinals to meet him at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in August, Benedict looked frail but he shook them all by the hand and engaged with them.

Benedict XVI was 85 when in February 2013 he surprised Catholics around the world with his decision to step down, less than eight years after he had been elected Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Not since Gregory XII stepped down in 1415 had a pope resigned.

Benedict had presided over his predecessor John Paul's funeral Mass. He was the eighth German to become Pope and was known for his conservative, traditionalist views, campaigning against the social activism of liberation theology.

But his papacy was marked by a scandal involving child sexual abuse by priests. Two reports in 2009 detailed the extent of paedophilia and cover-ups within the Irish Church - and it later emerged that almost 400 priests had been defrocked by Benedict in 2011 and 2012.

However, earlier this year the former Pope accepted that errors had been made in handling sexual abuse cases while he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

A German inquiry commissioned by the Church found that he had failed to act in four cases. Benedict denied wrongdoing but asked forgiveness for any "grievous fault".

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the current archbishop of Munich, said he had seen Benedict in September and called on churchgoers to include him in their prayers.

Although Benedict was the first Pope for 600 years to stand down, Pope Francis made clear in his Spanish interview this month that he too had signed a letter of resignation in 2013 "in case of health impediment or whatever", handing it to Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state at the time.

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