Pope Benedict XVI, a misunderstood man of God

The German theologian and philosopher Joseph Ratzinger, who was head of the Roman Catholic Church for eight years as Pope Benedict XVI, has died at the age of 95. Benedict resigned as pontiff in 2013 citing declining physical and mental health. He had been seriously ill for some time.

Pope Benedict was not well treated by the media and he finally resigned as head of the church in February 2013.  Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was born in the southern German state of Bavaria on 16 April 1927. He was ordained a Catholic priest on the same day as his older brother Georg in June, 1951. He was 24 years old.

After brilliant theological studies, Ratzinger was rapidly promoted to professorships at Tübingen and Ratisbonne universities, taking part in the 1962 Vatican ll Council as an expert advisor.

Barely 35 years old at the time of the council, he was widely regarded as a modernising reformer.

In 1977, Ratzinger was nominated Archbishop of Munich. In 1981 he took charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a church body based in Rome and responsible for defining and defending orthodox Catholic beliefs and traditions.

He headed the congregation for 25 years, leaving to take up the task of pontiff in succession to the Polish Pope, John-Paul II, in 2005. He was 78 years old.

Spectre of child sexual abuse

Since at least 2001 and the revelation of sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by some priests in the US city of Boston, the Catholic Church has faced a worldwide wave of accusations of misconduct by members of its celibate priesthood.

Even before his election as pope, Ratzinger had spoken of the "filth which disfigures the church," referring to global Catholicism as "a leaking vessel" in the face of widespread accusations of paedophilia.

He was the first Catholic leader to promise zero tolerance of sexual crime, whatever the status of the prelate. He pursued the Austrian Cardinal, Hans Hermann Groër, a close friend of John-Paul accused of abuse, until Groër resigned.

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At the 2008 World Youth Festival in Australia, Benedict XVI became the first pope to publicly ask for forgiveness for the sexual crimes perpetrated by priests.

While his supporters describe a man of relentless energy and determination in the fight to clean up the Catholic Church, there has been harsh criticism of Ratzinger from some quarters.

In January 2022, a report written by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl and commissioned by the Catholic Church concluded that Cardinal Ratzinger had failed to take adequate action against clerics in four cases of alleged abuse while he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982.

The pope consistently denied the accusations.

A papal victim of the soundbyte era

Ratzinger was no stranger to media controversy. His statements on Islam and religious violence, or on contraception and AIDS, on the status of homosexuals in the church, and on gender flexibility, frequently provoked public storms.

This was often the result of partial or incorrect interpretations of complex arguments, laboriously presented in the language of an institution with a centuries-long history.

Benedict the theologian was not well treated by a media machine in search of scandal and succinctness.

The late pope also fought battles against the hidebound traditions governing the curia, the church administration inside the Vatican, a hotbed of corruption, ambition and intrigue.

The weight of those struggles on his frail health finally drove him to resign as head of the church on 11 February 2013.