The journalist, writer and biographer of Pope Benedict XVI, Peter Seewald, has highlighted his «courage» in resisting attempts to convert the message of Christ «into a religion according to the needs of ‘civil society'» and praised his intellectual and moral honesty.
«He was always committed to the truth, even if it was uncomfortable,» he stressed in statements to Europa Press. Seewald last visited the Pope emeritus, who died this Saturday, December 31 at the age of 95, in mid-October at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, where he settled in May 2013 after a brief period at the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo, the summer residence of the Popes located on the outskirts of Rome and now converted into a museum.
From that meeting, which took place last October 15, Seewald stresses that he has been «imprinted with the suffering he carried on his shoulders» and the «deep pain for what was happening in the world and the crisis in the Church, especially in his homeland», in Germany, where since 2019 more than 632,000 people had left the Catholic Church according to the Episcopal Conference of this country, after coming to light a year earlier 3,677 cases of child abuse perpetrated in the last 70 years.
«Next time we will meet in heaven», said the Pope Emeritus as a farewell, who has kept intact during these 9 and a half years the intellectual lucidity that characterized his pontificate, although his strength has been fading little by little, as his personal secretary, Georg Gänswein, who has remained at his side all these years, has explained on several occasions.
«He knew exactly where the journey was going and what to expect at his destination. Christ’s promise of eternal life was one of his favorite subjects,» Seewald recalled. «If belonging to the Church has any meaning, it is that it gives us eternal life and, therefore, the right and true life in general. Everything else is secondary,» said one of the greatest experts on the German Pope, whom he met in November 1992.
«As a former communist and journalist for ‘Der Spiegel,’ I was not very close to Joseph Ratzinger,» he has admitted. «I was even more surprised to meet a man who had nothing of a prince of the church (…) Everything about him seemed modest, unpretentious, accessible,» he said.
He also highlighted the theological stature of Benedict XVI who was able to demonstrate «that religion and science, faith and reason are not opposites.» «His way of teaching reminded me of spiritual masters who convince not with vain lessons, but with silent gestures or hidden clues. Above all, through example itself, which includes integrity, loyalty, courage and a good dose of willingness to suffer,» he said.
A «NOBLE» PERSON, «RESERVED» AND «WILLING TO LISTEN».
About his personality, he has explained that he was «a warm person, but also particularly noble and reserved.» «Never in the almost thirty years that I accompanied him as a journalist did he invite me to dinner. He did not want to undermine the professional distance that formed the basis of our open and critical interviews,» she has revealed about their continuous meetings.
Asked about what he will miss, he has highlighted «his shy smile», as well as «his elegance, with which he made the heavy easy without taking away its secret or trivializing the sacred». «Above all, his willingness to listen, in which no one could surpass him,» he pointed out.
«He was both a thinker and an orator, especially a lover of people who, when asked how many paths there are to God, always answered: ‘As many as there are people,'» he concluded.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
