11 February 2013: One of the saddest days in the history of the Catholic Church and larger modern society.

14 Comments

1. BeatifyStickler says:

   11 February 2025 at 8:47 AM

   Agreed. This has been an era of confusion and division.
2. Tom of John of God and Raphael OSB Obl. says:

   11 February 2025 at 10:06 AM

   I will never forget how orphaned, how abandoned, I felt that day. Whenever I think of Pope Benedict XVI, be it with ever so much filial love and gratitude, there is always immediately following a feeling that he left us as orphans. Whenever some new scandal comes from the current Holy Father, there is always immediately following a sense that this scandal is only befalling us because the previous Pastor abandoned the flock, so that the wolf could attack the Lord’s flock. And in my heart of hearts, I wonder if every new scandal is another lightening bolt from heaven to express the divine displeasure at what happened so many years ago today. Perhaps it is that, “All are punished.”
3. Ave Maria says:

   11 February 2025 at 11:17 AM

   The wolves must have been ferocious but now they are in charge. Scandals continue with the financial malfeasance and what too many of the “catholic charities’ have done with facilitated sex and drug trafficking as well as an illegal invasion. Things have gone from bad to worse but I hope that in the end it will be for purification.
4. summorumpontificum777 says:

   11 February 2025 at 12:21 PM

   Truly one of the darkest and most consequential days in the history of the Church. Benedict XVI was a saintly man, but he needs our prayers. O Domine, miserere eius, et tolle eius peaccatum.
5. Geoffrey says:

   11 February 2025 at 12:59 PM

   A very sad day, indeed.

   J.D. Flynn over at The Pillar offered this:

   “But we should know, at least from where I sit, that the papal resignation was a decision borne of extraordinary prayer. Benedict XVI was not perfect — he had ample shortcomings, including the administrative ones which embroiled his papacy before it ended. But no one can doubt that he was a deeply prayerful disciple of Jesus Christ, and that he believed resigning was what God wanted from him.

   “We should pray for his soul today, we should pray for the Church, we should pray for the pope, and we should pray that the kind of discipleship he modeled — faith, and intellect, worship, and culture — will flourish in the Church, so that the world will know disciples like that one.”

   https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/renuntiare-first-penance-and-some
6. BW says:

   11 February 2025 at 3:31 PM

   My wife and I have our Papal Blessing certificate for our Marriage on our bedroom wall; given by Pope Benedict XVI. In a way, it almost signified that he was our Pope (trying to avoid cults of Popes). I really like that my Dad still has the Papal Blessing certificate from Pope Paul VI on his wall (my mum, sadly, is close to death and in the same nursing home but in a different room). To them, Pope Paul VI was their Pope.

   Funny how it works. Benedict XVI’s resignation was difficult and caused massive problems, but the Holy Spirit will triumph in the end.

   At the kid’s Catholic primary school (5-11 years old for you ‘Muricans), each classroom has a triptych of Church hierarchy, with the Parish Priest, our Diocesan Bishop and the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. For the kids, he’s their Pope.

   Who knows who will next fill the See of Peter. Maybe we all need to pray a bit more.

   Popes come and go. The Church still stands.
7. maternalView says:

   11 February 2025 at 4:14 PM

   Twelve years ago today (the 11th was a Monday that year) as we checked into Domus Australia we glanced at the big TV off to the side. What we saw was so disorienting. We were in a foreign country checking into our hotel after a very early train ride from Milan. Were we really seeing what we were seeing?
   We went up to our rooms, turned on the TV and tried to make sense of it.

   The Holy Father’s schedule changed for Ash Wednesday and he had Mass at St. Peter’s. Apparently everyone else but us knew this as the lines were very, very long to get inside. So we decided to go to the Vatican Museum instead. When we left there the lines for St. Peter’s were somewhat better. So we eventually got in. We still did not know the Holy Father was going to say Mass.
   It was packed. Cardinals came in and finally Pope Benedict. To think we almost left when we saw the crowd! We figured out that it was still possible to get seated as people left out if we waited in a certain spot. We all got seats (though not together).
8. TonyO says:

   11 February 2025 at 5:35 PM

   I don’t begrudge the retirement of an aged worker who has done his work. Let him rest in peace.

   But until Benedict, no pope thought of himself that way: “I am too old and weak to carry the load, let me retire and let someone else carry it.” No pope, though sick, even gravely sick, resigned because of his ability to carry on.

   As a consequence, the reasons he gave for giving up his office don’t seem to explain. Yes, he was old. Yes, he had some illness. Yes, his capacities to rule were somewhat diminished… And? What does that have to do with it?

   One could say, with St. Paul: my weakness is my strength, for then God’s power is made manifest. If Benedict had the right of it by realizing he should resign, it seems to me that we had the right to an explanation that explains. an explanation that clarifies why his limited capacity meant something different than it did for the 263 popes before him who didn’t resign but died in office.

   Possibly, popes should have a standard, regular way out before they are extremely old and suffering from dementia, so that their name is not affixed to decisions made by underlings without any real oversight. This is a real concern, as the American presidency showed us recently. But this problem isn’t new, either – the papacy has always had the possibility of a pope who is unable to discern matters, because of his age and health. Why is it now a new problem?
9. Saint Rocco the Trubador says:

   11 February 2025 at 5:45 PM

   My dad (who lived to the sharp old age of 87) passed away on the day BXVI officially stepped down (Feb 28, 2013). My mom (who passed away in 2002) loved JPII and my dad loved both JPII and BXVI. Thankfully, neither of them had to endure the mess, confusion, and ambiguity of FI.

   I pray that we soon get either a Leo XIV or a Gregory XVII to clean and clear up the Vatican and the Church at large.
10. Saint Rocco the Trubador says:

    11 February 2025 at 6:04 PM

    I must also state that I was in high school when JPII first came to Philadelphia in 1979, and I was one of many ushers for his arrival and outdoor mass at Logan Circle down the road from Sts Peter & Paul Cathedral (I still have the yellow papal cap I wore that day). His elevation to the See of Peter at the time hadn’t really affected me, but over time I really grew to love him. His passing was a sorrowful day.

    And I remember being at my office desk when it was officially pronounced that “Ratzinger” was made pontiff. I was THRILLED when I heard his name, and then saw him step out onto the balcony to greet the throngs of faithful in Vatican Square.

    FI pales drastically in comparison.
11. Benedict Joseph says:

    11 February 2025 at 7:26 PM

    It ripped my heart out, not only for his impending departure but for the consequence it would undoubtedly generate. We’ve lived with that for near twelve years. It only gets worse with each passing day.

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13. David says:

    12 February 2025 at 11:16 AM

    I will never forget that sad day. As it happened, that evening my professional choir sang William Byrd’s glorious Lady Mass Propers and Mass for Four Voices—composed for his Catholic faith at the risk of his life—for a TLM for the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes at St. Bernadette Church. (Insignificant though this is, that day is also my birthday.) The Pastor (who had been inside the Sistine Chapel for Papa Benedict’s election as the priest assistant of a Cardinal elector who was infirm) dedicated the Mass to Pope Benedict XVI. As a reader accredited to the Vatican Library, the previous year I had been in the Paul VI Audience Hall for a concert by the Hungarian national choir and orchestra on the occasion of the Hungarian President’s visit to the Pope, which Papa Benedict attended. He and a dozen or more curial Cardinals were sitting around 50 feet away from me. When he came in, his personal holiness was palpable, in a way I have never felt in the presence of anyone else. About him, I say Santo subito. “He believed in the Light, and its glory is round him, where the clouds of earth’s sorrows are lifted at last.”
14. Gladiator says:

    12 February 2025 at 11:34 AM

    We will probably never know the full story. Unless there are secret CIA files that could be declassified.

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