Thank you, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Salt + Light Media

Saturday, December 31, 2022

Photo by Stefano Spaziani

“The heart of Christianity is the Paschal mystery of [Christ’s] death and resurrection….The centre of it all is the triune God, and, therefore, love as the Alpha and Omega of the world. [In these statements] the self-same truth is indicated: sharing in the witness of Jesus by that dying which is faith and love. Such faith and love are simultaneously God’s acceptance of my life and my will to embrace the divine acceptance. And all this is from the God who can be love only as the triune God and who, in thus being love, makes the world bearable after all.”
-Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Eschatology (1988), p. 100.

Echoing his words, we pray that God will receive Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI into eternal life and that he will know that “divine acceptance” which he embraced in this life. We thank God for this “simple, humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord,” who faithfully served the Church by guiding us all into a deeper knowledge of God’s gifts of faith and love. We join him, with the Holy Father Pope Francis and the whole Church, in the hope of the resurrection.

The Holy See Press Office has indicated that his body “will be in Saint Peter's Basilica so the faithful can bid farewell" beginning Monday, January 2, 2023. We at Salt + Light Media continue to follow communications from the Press Office, and will share any updated information when it is available.

May the soul of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and all the faithful departed, rest in peace.