Pope Benedict XVI, the predecessor to Pope Francis, has gone to meet his maker. It was inconvenient to have two men alive at the same time whose every utterance, while wearing a special hat, was deemed by Catholics to be infallible. When he resigned in 2013, at the age of 85, he was the first pope to hang up his mitre since the middle ages. Popes are supposed to die ‘in harness’, not resign.
Two years ago Benedict defended the requirement for clerical celibacy. “I cannot keep silent,” he wrote in a book, From the Depths of our Hearts, suggesting that priestly celibacy protected the mystery of the church. What the doctrine actually protected was the church’s reputation, and the liberty of paedophile priests, who instead of being handed over to the police, as the law demanded, were moved to distant parishes where their abuse of children could continue.
Pic: a smiling Pope Benedict XVI recalling his days in the Hitler Youth (Creative Commons)...
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