The first pope to resign in 600 years has died aged 95
the forceful, tumultuous wake of John Paul II, Benedict XVI had a hard act to follow. In 2005 there were few expectations. Or rather, there were expectations of the wrong kind: that the man who from 1981 had been prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would rule the Roman Catholic church like an elderly headmaster, waspish and intolerant, with the fires of a new Inquisition gleaming in those pale blue eyes.
But just as his predecessor had possessed, behind the warm gregariousness, a carapace of cold steel, so “Rottweiler” Benedict in the holiest office showed a surprisingly soft, even timid, side. He was dotty about cats, even taking in strays. He adored playing Mozart on the piano, and on warm summer evenings at the papal retreat of Castel Gandolfo would serenade locals out of the open windows. His Bavarian roots survived in a liking for potato dumplings and sausage.
Apologies he found harder. The world seemed to expect them of him, though: an apology to the Jews for the Vatican’s apparent indifference to the Holocaust, and another to the thousands of victims of paedophile priests in Europe and North America. He said sorry in his own way, in institutional words. A general prayer for peace in the Middle East was pushed between the blocks of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
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