Pope Benedict’s Troubled Legacy

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who led the Catholic Church for eight years between 2005 and 2013, has passed away aged 95 at his residence in the Vatican.

Benedict was known to be very unwell, with Pope Francis describing him as “very sick” on Wednesday, and asking for prayers to help his successor “to the very end.”

In February 2013 Benedict, a theological conservative, shocked the world by announcing he would become the first pope to abdicate from the post since Gregory XII in 1415. After stepping down, and being replaced by Pope Francis, he continued to live within the Vatican, adopting the name Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI after his resignation.

Benedict was born Joseph Ratzinger on 16 April 1927 in the German Weimar Republic. He had a turbulent childhood, which saw the rise of the Nazis and World War II. Benedict was conscripted into the Hitler Youth and lost a 14-year-old cousin with Down syndrome, who was taken away by the Nazis as part of their eugenics program and shortly after declared dead.

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square during his weekly audience on September 26, 2012 in the Vatican. Benedict has passed away aged 95, leaving behind a complex legacy. Franco Origlia/GETTY

The future pope began his service to the Catholic church in 1951, when he was appointed chaplain at the parish St. Martin, Moosach, in Munich. He went on to become a professor at the University of Bonn and later held a number of other posts at the universities of Munster, Tubingen and Regensburg.

Initially seen as a reformer, Benedict became increasingly conservative, particularly after the Western world was rocked by a series of mass protests, some violent, in 1968.

In 1977 Benedict was appointed as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, and four years later received the post of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from Pope John Paul II, making him responsible for rooting out heresy within the church. He was promoted to Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni in 1993, and continued to make his way up the church hierarchy until he was elected as the 265th pope in 2005, at the age of 78, following the death of Pope John Paul II.

Speaking to Newsweek Professor Michele Dillon, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire and an expert in Catholicism, argued Benedict’s legacy will be “overshadowed” by some of his socially conservative views.

She said: “I think Benedict’s legacy will always be overshadowed in public opinion by his long tenure as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, his role as the moral enforcer of the Church’s re-stated opposition to gay rights, women’s ordination, contraception and abortion.

“Even as pope—while he did not focus on these issues, but instead on the principles of love, social justice and the common good—his personal reserve and intellectualism got in the way of his ability to connect with ordinary Catholics.”

Professor Megan Armstrong, who teaches Catholic history at Canada’s McMaster University, described Benedict as a “social conservative and papal traditionalist,” from a tradition which “embraces broad differences in conceptions of papal and priestly authority, clerical celibacy, the role of women, sexuality and many other issues.”

However, Benedict’s “single-minded pursuit of his theological vision blinded him to the serious pastoral problems that beset the Church,” according to the University of Southern California’s Sheila Briggs, an associate professor of religion and gender studies.

A bombshell report into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Germany, published earlier in 2022, concluded Benedict had knowingly failed to take action against priests involved in four cases of abuse, during his time as Archbishop of Munich.

In response Benedict released a statement, expressing his “deep sorrow” and “heartfelt request for forgiveness.”

Responding to the report Andrea Tornielli, the editorial director for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, claimed Benedict had imposed “very harsh norms against clerical abusers” both as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and then as pontiff.

Speaking to Newsweek Briggs said that as Archbishop of Munich Benedict had disciplined “politically activist priests, while ignoring clerical sex abusers,” which she said contributed to the Church’s “worst crisis since the 16th century Reformation.”

She concluded: “Benedict had a superb intellect and an acute theological mind, was capable of personal empathy, but had an exceedingly poor grasp of the world in which he lived.”

Dillon added the Munich report “contributes to the view” that Benedict was “aloof in regard to the everyday realities of Catholics, including sex abuse victims.”

However, she did note he was the “first pope to actually formally apologize to Catholics for the sex abuse of priests and bishops,” which he did in a March 2010 letter to Irish Catholics.

James Lewis Heft from the University of Southern California, told Newsweek Benedict was “the first pope to take the sexual abuse crisis seriously.”

He described the former pope as a “brilliant theologian.” Heft added Benedict’s decision to stand down in 2013 was “a great act of courage and realism,” and that “he was more comfortable in the library than in the Vatican.”

Speaking to Newsweek Professor Kathleen Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, described Benedict as “a man of unwavering faith, deep conviction and towering intellect who indelibly shaped the church.”

She concluded: “For the time being, we await a papal funeral without a conclave, an unprecedented event that mirrors the experience of March 2013, a conclave without a papal funeral.”