Mourning for Pope Emeritus: Francis pays tribute to Benedict XVI in New Year’s sermon

PPope Francis has his deceased predecessor Benedict XVI. recognized as a noble and gentle person. In the homily of the Vespers service on New Year’s Eve, Francis said: “It is with emotion that we remember his so noble, so gentle person.”

Francis thanked God for giving the Church and the world to Benedict XVI. have given. He feels gratitude “for all the good he has done and especially for his witness of faith and prayer, especially in these final years of his retirement.” Only God knows the value and power of his intercession, of the sacrifices he made for the good of the Church.

Benedict XVI died at his home in the Vatican on Saturday morning at the age of 95. “It is with great pain that I have to announce that Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus, passed away today at 9.34 a.m. in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

Francis will preside over the funeral service for the late Pope on Thursday. Bruni announced that the funeral service should take place on St. Peter’s Square. Benedict XVI I wished for a simple ceremony for my own funeral service before his death. The Requiem on St. Peter’s Square will therefore be “solemn but simple”. Benedict’s body will be laid out in St. Peter’s Basilica from Monday. This should give believers from all over the world the opportunity to say goodbye to the deceased head of the church.

Three days before his death, Benedict XVI. According to the Vatican, the Anointing of the Sick has been donated. That Wednesday was also the day that Pope Francis, in his general audience, called on the faithful to pray for his predecessor, who he said was very ill.

Bätzing expresses great respect

The chairman of the Catholic German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, called on the faithful in Germany to pray for the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. on. “He was a great gift to us,” said Bätzing to journalists in Limburg on Saturday afternoon. Today is a day of mourning, but for him also a day of gratitude and respect for “a great man of the church”.

Bätzing called Benedict XVI. a “brilliant theologian”. Like hardly anyone else, he tried to make the depths of faith clear to the people. He influenced generations of theology students. Benedict was not born for the public and the stage, but more for inwardness, but also for the leadership of the church with prudent care. He also recalled that Benedict was the first German pope since the early modern period to “put a number of stumbling blocks in the way” of ecumenical coexistence in the country of the Reformation.

The bishop emphasized that it was during his pontificate that Benedict really revealed the horrors of abuse. “Like no one before him, he made it clear that every form of abuse is a crime.” He was the first pope to invite people affected by abuse to talk to him on many of his trips abroad. Questions remained unanswered about his own dealings with abusers as Archbishop of Munich and Freising. “We have to live with these open questions,” said Bätzing.