Pope Benedict XVI was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict’s election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known by the title “pope emeritus” upon his resignation. Ordained as a priest in 1951 in his native Bavaria, Ratzinger embarked on an academic career and established himself as a highly regarded theologian by the late 1950s.
He was appointed a full professor in 1958 at the age of 31. After a long career as a professor of theology at several German universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone with little pastoral experience. In 1981, he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia.
From 2002 until his election as pope, he was also Dean of the College of Cardinals. Prior to becoming pope, he was a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century; he had an influence second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions as one of John Paul II’s closest confidants. He lived in Rome from 1981 until his death in 2022. His prolific writings generally defended traditional Catholic doctrine and values.
He was originally a liberal theologian, but adopted conservative views after 1968. During his papacy, Benedict XVI advocated a return to fundamental Christian values to counter the increased secularisation of many Western countries. He viewed relativism’s denial of objective truth, and the denial of moral truths in particular, as the central problem of the 21st century. He taught the importance of both the Catholic Church and an understanding of God’s redemptive love.
Benedict also revived a number of traditions, including elevating the Tridentine Mass to a more prominent position. He strengthened the relationship between the Catholic Church and art, promoted the use of Latin, and reintroduced traditional papal vestments, for which reason he was called “the pope of aesthetics”. He had been described as “the main intellectual force in the Church” since the mid-1980s.
On 11 February 2013, Benedict unexpectedly announced his resignation in a speech in Latin before the cardinals, citing a “lack of strength of mind and body” due to his advanced age. His resignation took effect on 28 February 2013. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415, and the first to do so on his own initiative since Celestine V in 1294.
As pope emeritus, Benedict retained the style of His Holiness and dressed in the papal colour of white. He was succeeded by Francis on 13 March 2013, and he moved into the newly renovated Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City for his retirement on 2 May 2013. The retired Benedict XVI later made occasional public appearances alongside Francis.
In addition to his native German language, Benedict had some level of proficiency in French, Italian, English, and Spanish. He also knew Portuguese, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Biblical Greek. He was a member of several social-science academies, such as the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He played the piano and had a preference for Mozart and Bach. Benedict XVI was also the only pope to become a member of the Hitler Youth during his lifetime.
Some of the best quotes from Pope Benedict XVI are listed below.
- “All the great works of art, the cathedrals – the Gothic cathedrals and the splendid Baroque churches – are a luminous sign of God, and thus are truly a manifestation, an epiphany of God.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Do not be satisfied with anything less than Truth and Love, do not be content with anything less than Christ.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Do not desire anything less for your life than a love that is strong and beautiful and that is capable of making the whole of your existence a joyful undertaking of giving yourselves as a gift to God and your brothers and sisters.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Freedom of conscience is the core of all freedom.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “God is not distant: he is ‘Emmanuel,’ God-with-us. He is no stranger: he has a face, the face of Jesus.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “God is the source of life. To set God aside is to separate ourselves from that source and, inevitably, to deprive ourselves of fulfillment and joy.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “God loves us. This is the great truth of our life; it is what makes everything else meaningful.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the Earth.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “God’s love for his people is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Having faith means drawing support from the faith of your brothers and sisters, even as your own faith serves as a support for the faith of others.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “If in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be ‘devout’ and to perform my ‘religious duties’, then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely ‘proper’, but loveless.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “If we look to the saints, this great luminous wake with which God has passed through history, we truly see that here is a force for good that survives through millennia; here is truly light from light.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “In the name of freedom, there has to be a correlation between rights and duties, by which every person is called to assume responsibility for his or her choices, made as a consequence of entering into relations with others.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “It is important to be in the ‘we’ of the Church, in the ‘we’ of the life of the Liturgy.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “It is true: God disturbs our comfortable day-to-day existence. Jesus’ kingship goes hand in hand with his passion.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Let unifying love be your measure; abiding love your challenge; self-giving love your mission!” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Love is the only force capable of changing the heart of the human person and of all humanity, by making fruitful the relations between men and women, between rich and poor, between cultures and civilizations.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Men and women were created for something great, for infinity. Nothing else will ever be enough.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Mercy is what moves us toward God, while justice makes us tremble in his sight.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “One who has hope lives differently.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Purity of heart is what enables us to see.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The aim of all Christian education, moreover, is to train the believer in an adult faith that can make him a “new creation”, capable of bearing witness in his surroundings to the Christian hope that inspires him.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The church is not a political power; it’s not a party, but it’s a moral power.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The foundation of the world is love, so even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right — it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The loss of joy does not make the world better – and, conversely, refusing joy for the sake of suffering does not help those who suffer.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The ways of the Lord are not easy, but we were not created for an easy life but for great things, for goodness.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Through Mary, and the other holy women, the feminine element stands at the heart of the Christian religion.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “To acknowledge the beauty and goodness of marriage is to realize that only a setting of fidelity and indissolubility, along with openness to God’s gift of life, is adequate to the grandeur and dignity of marital love.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God’s love.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “To have Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Truth is not determined by a majority vote… Truth draws strength from itself and not from the number of votes in its favor.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves not humanity, but inhumanity.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “We let ourselves be molded and transformed by Christ and continually pass from the side of one who destroys to that of the one who saves.” – Pope Benedict XVI
- “Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.” – Pope Benedict XVI
