Benedict XVI during his visit to Loreto
Benedict XVI has died. The director of the Holy See press office, Matteo Bruni, gave the news to the world that for a few days he had been apprehensive about the condition of the Pope Emeritus: «I sadly inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, died today at 9.34 am, in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican».
From the morning of Monday 2 January 2023, the body of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI will be in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican for the greeting of the faithful.
The archdiocese of Fermo joins the mourning and choral prayer with Archbishop Rocco Pennacchio in the lead who joins the prayer of all the Churches and of the whole world for the death of Benedict XVI, collecting from his life the desire to continue to be “humble workers in the Lord’s vineyard”.
The president of the Region Francesco Acquaroli, learning with regret of the death of Pope Ratzinger, recalls him thus: «Spiritual guide and great philosopher who knew how to understand and interpret our age and the dangerous relativist drift like no one else».
Benedict XVI in Loreto on 4 October 2012. This photo was taken by Don Giuseppe Branchesi, who died of Covid in April 2020
WHO WAS POPE BENEDICT XVI – He was the 265th pope of the Catholic Church and bishop of Rome. An affirmed professor of theology, he was appointed archbishop of Munich and Freising and created cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, during the pontificate of John Paul II he was among his closest collaborators. Dean of the College of Cardinals since 2002, with the conclave of 2005 he succeeded Pope John Paul II.
In the ordinary consistory of 11 February 2013 he announced his resignation from the pontificate and his “resignation”. He was the eighth pontiff to renounce the Petrine ministry. After his resignation, his title became supreme pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus, while his treatment remained that of His Holiness. He was 95 years old.
POPE RATZINGER IN THE MARCHE – The Pope has been to the Marche several times and his last visit dates back to 4 October 2012 (read the article) when on the occasion of the feast of San Francesco he visited Loreto, following in the footsteps of Pope Roncalli, 50 years after historic visit of 1962, made to invoke the protection of the Madonna on the Second Vatican Council. The year before, on 11 September 2011, the pontiff had celebrated mass in front of a hundred thousand faithful in the Fincantieri area of the port of Ancona. It is necessary to commit oneself to “restore dignity to man’s days and therefore to his work, in the search for its reconciliation with the times of celebration and family and in the commitment to overcome the uncertainty of precariousness and the problem of unemployment”, he said Benedict XVI, indicating precisely in the rediscovery of Eucharistic spirituality the way forward to contribute to social recovery in an era of economic crisis. A lunch followed with a representation of layoff workers and poor people helped by Caritas.
(Cm editorial staff)
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