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In 2012, a year before his retirement, the University of Notre Dame had already published a commemorative volume of essays on Ratzinger’s impressive theology and writings. Two years before that, following his successful visit to the United Kingdom, new Catholic youth movements began springing up, followed by an unexpected increase in men and women pursuing religious vocations. After his retirement, an online initiative titled “Generation Benedict” emerged, inviting young people to describe how Joseph Ratzinger had changed their lives. And this year, the Vatican’s publishing house, in cooperation with the Benedict XVI Foundation, released a new tribute, titled Cooperatores Veritatis...

Pope Emeritus Benedict discussed the joint perils posed by radical Islam and radical atheistic secularism in a message he sent to a conference held April 19 in Warsaw, Poland, on the topic of his thinking about the concept of the state... I was greatly moved, grateful and happy to learn that an academic conference on the topic of “The Concept of the State From the Perspective of the Teachings of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI” (Pojęcie Państwa w perspektywie nauczania Kardynała Józefa Ratzingera/Benedykta XVI), attended by the representatives of Poland’s government and Church and organized under the patronage of the...

An Italian archbishop close to Pope Benedict XVI has claimed that the Obama administration may have been complicit in the “tremendous pressures” that led the former pope to resign in 2013. It is “no coincidence” that some Catholic groups “have asked President Trump to open a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the administration of Barack Obama exerted pressure on Benedict,” said Archbishop Luigi Negri in an interview Monday, citing other revelations by Wikileaks regarding efforts by the Democratic Party to sway the direction of the Catholic Church in the United States.

VATICAN CITY — Pope emeritus Benedict XVI today sent his best wishes and three mysterious gifts to Pope Francis as he celebrates his 80th birthday. The pope emeritus first offered birthday greetings in a “very warm” written message that was “particularly appreciated,” according to the Vatican. Then, in the afternoon, the pope emeritus called Francis personally. Benedict XVI also sent Pope Francis three gifts which were received “as three very personal and meaningful signs” for them both. The Vatican has not said what the gifts are. The pope began his 80th birthday by inviting 8 homeless people, two women and...

Just before tomorrow’s consistory in Rome where Pope Francis will come together with the Cardinals of the Catholic Church in order to elevate his new Cardinals, it seems that the brewing conflict which started in February 2014 with Cardinal Walter Kasper’s speech at the earlier Consistory is now coming to a head. As Steve Skojec has recently reminded us, it was at that time that 85% of the cardinals who then spoke up had rejected the “Kasper prosposal” which finally wants to admit “remarried” divorcees to Holy Communion.In this context, the Four Cardinals Letter written against the papal document Amoris Laetitia is of...

The Pope who resigned in 2013 for reasons of age Pope also confirms rumours of a homosexual old boy network in the Vatican. Such had been there during his pontificate, and he had smashed it.

At 8 pm, the Swiss Guards closed the gates of the Pope's summer palace in Castel Gandolfo. Then they left their posts. So they demonstrated on 28 February 2013 that Benedict XVI was now Supreme Pontiff emeritus, a Pope retired. Benedict retired to a convent in the Vatican and vowed to continue to live like a monk and leave the field to the successor. Benedict however cracks open the doors again this Friday...

Islam is a deadly totalitarian political system masquerading as a religion. Few in the West know this and/or are willing to admit it. Being honest about this doesn't mean hating Muslims. It means understanding the religion and why it is dangerous to the rights and freedoms and way of life in the West, and why that danger probably isn't going to go away. The last Pope seems to have understood this. At Asia Times, Spengler writes:

Former Pope Benedict says in his memoirs that no-one pressured him to resign but alleges that a "gay lobby" in the Vatican had tried to influence decisions, a leading Italian newspaper reported on Friday. The book, called "The Last Conversations", is the first time in history that a former pope judges his own pontificate after it is over. It is due to be published on Sept. 9... In the book, Benedict says that he came to know of the presence of a "gay lobby" made up of four or five people who were seeking to influence Vatican decisions. The article...

Backing from retired pope at event to mark his 65th year as a priest may help Francis gain favour among church conservativesBenedict XVI has endorsed Pope Francis’s ministry in an unprecedented Vatican ceremony featuring a reigning pontiff honouring a retired one on the 65th anniversary of his ordination as a priest. The ceremony in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace served in part to show continuity from Benedict to Francis amid continued nostalgia from some conservatives for the former’s tradition-minded papacy. Francis had invited the entire Vatican Curia, or bureaucracy, to celebrate Benedict’s anniversary, and prelates turned out in...

<p>On board the Papal plane en route to the Greek island of Lesbos where he is visiting refugees, Pope Francis remembered his predecessor in his prayers saying, "I would like to remind you that today is the 89th birthday of Pope Benedict XVI. Pray for him"</p>

It’s a somewhat obscure apocalyptic novel, much overlooked since its publication in 1907, and yet it comes with a recommendation that just about any best-selling author would covet: the spiritual leader of the whole world says it’s a good read. And not just the current pope, the previous one too.Pope Francis raised eyebrows in 2013 and again in 2015 when he recommended Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World to the faithful as a book that depicts a “globalization of hegemonic uniformity.” Similarly, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, referred to the Universalism depicted in Lord of the...

On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info.

March 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info. Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell: The missionaries of the 16th...

ROME, March 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) - In a recent interview, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), acknowledged that he must sometimes correct Pope Francis on matters of dogma, noting that the pope is not a "professional theologian." In a March 1 interview with the German newspaper Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger, Cardinal Muller was asked about his relationship with the pope and whether he is his strongest opponent. Muller first explains that he had been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI. Concerning Benedict, he adds: "With him, I was closely connected due to the fact...

From the article: But what’s most odd is that the two popes are these two popes, and that the one who spent a third of a century erecting a Catholic edifice of firm doctrine and strict prohibition now must look on at close range as the other cheerfully dismantles it in the service of a more open, flexible Church.

Since at least the fifth century, Christians had identified a spot in Jerusalem as the Pool of Siloam and the site of the miracle. But it was not until a decade ago that archaeologists found what they are certain is the ancient pool of Siloam. Like so many such finds, it was almost by accident. During construction work to repair a water pipe near the Temple Mount, Israeli archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron found "two ancient stone steps." According to Biblical Archaeology Review, "Further excavation revealed that they were part of a monumental pool from the Second Temple period,...

Kai Diekmann, Editor-in-chief of Bild Zeitung, talks about his visit to Benedict XVI: “Bright-eyed, smiley, no signs of wearinessA small reception hall, a wooden staircase that leads up to the first floor. The sitting room is welcoming and bright, there is a white leather sofa and a simple seat. A book case that reaches the ceiling, a flat-screen TV with a DVD player and some religious icons on the walls. A coffee table and a piano with a black-and-white photo of his brother Georg. The story Kai Diekmann, Editor-in-chief of Bild Zeitung, wishes to share with his readers is very...

Pope Benedict spoke honestly about Islam. Now it has come to light that he was being undermined by a shadowy cabal that wanted to install Cardinal Bergoglio — the present Pope Francis — as Pope and “modernize” the Catholic Church. One thing they’ve certainly succeeded in doing is ending all resistance to the global jihad that has victimized hundreds of thousands of Christians. The Church leadership is betraying its own people...

One thing that that has puzzled a lot of people since the selection of Pope Francis two years ago is how a left-leaning Pope could succeed two very serious conservative Popes—John Paul II and Benedict XVI—who you would have thought had stacked the ranks of the Cardinals with clergy that would perpetuate their theological and philosophical outlook. Was Benedict hounded out of office by some kind of internal Vatican scandal perhaps? Was there some ecclesiastical version of a coup?There’s no evidence that I’m aware of—until now. Three days ago the National Catholic Register ran a very curious article about...