Prayer never hurts.
Prayer is always a good idea! Many genuinely saintly people have had to live through difficult bishops and popes, and they did it by praying. I’m not saintly, unfortunately, but prayer helps anyone, even me.
As for BXVI, I don’t think we’ll ever know, or not in this lifetime, at least. He asked in his first address that we pray that the wolves not devour him, but I guess they did.
There’s a book out in Europe that says that Bergoglio and the Gang of Four (Kasper, Danneels, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and one other that I don’t remember) had their knives out for Ratzinger from the start, because they had wanted to get Bergoglio elected the first time around but failed in that conclave. The 4 cardinals in question are elderly, “progressive,” have participated in the destruction of the Church in their countries, and in at least two cases have been implicated in criminal protection of pedophiles.
That said, I don’t know what they could have done to force BXVI out. Personally, I don’t think he would have left because of a threat against him or his reputation, but he would have done just about anything to protect JPII, feeling that respect for JPII was so great that the faith of many would have been devastated had some negligence been revealed on his part.
The only thing I can think of is JPII’s unaccountable protection of Fr Maciel, who was removed by BXVI as soon as he took office, since I think that JPII was morally unimpeachable but it is very possible that he tolerated or possibly even protected, through some misguided impulse, people who were not good for the Church. JPII was very Slavic and very inclined to the magnanimous gesture, but that’s not necessarily good for the Church and it could be that he trusted the wrong person (the way Cdl O’Connor trusted Fr Bruce Ritter when the Cardinal announced to the press that the charges were all a lie because Fr. Ritter had affirmed to the Cardinal that he had done nothing wrong...the day before the incriminating recordings were released).
So I don’t know, that’s just a random supposition, but I think if BXVI was forced out, it was because he thought he was protecting someone else and protecting the faith of the simple people (us!).