The following comes from an August 16 The Sacred Page post by Michael Barber:
Indeed, it’s official. Bloomsbury is announcing that Pope Benedict has a new book coming in November 2016, entitled, The Last Testament.
The book is said to be the “nearest to an autobiography from the shy and private man who has remained ‘hidden to the world’ in a former convent in the Vatican gardens.”
The press release goes on to say that included in the book are:
• The “Vatileaks” case in which his butler leaked some of his personal letters that alleged corruption and scandal in the Vatican (the butler remains in jail)
• The presence of a “gay lobby” within the Vatican and how he dismantled it
• His alleged Nazi upbringing
• His attempts at cleaning up the “dirt in the church” (clerical sexual abuse)
• The mysterious private secretary “Gorgeous George”
Another press release states “so much controversy still surrounds Pope Benedict’s Papacy – in this book he addresses these controversies and reveals how at his late age, governing and reforming the Papacy and particularly the Vatican, was beyond him. But the book is also an autobiography – Pope Benedict starts by recalling his childhood in Germany under Hitler and the Nazis when he joined Hitler Youth under duress. It goes on to cover his early life as a priest and eventually his appointment as Archbishop of Munich. After becoming Pope, his account deals with the controversies that rocked the catholic world – how he enraged the Muslim world with his Regensburg speech, what he did and did not do to stamp out the clerical sexual abuse of children, the Vatileaks scandal and more.”
Dismantled the gay lobby? Riiiiiight.
Such a holy man. God bless retired Pope Benedict for all he accomplished with God’s grace. Spiritual advisers say, if it is truly a ‘mission from God’ you will be given 3 things: The Desire, The Opportunity & the Means to accomplish the ‘mission’. It appears P. Benedict’s age & failing stamina prevented him from finishing everything he thought needed to be done. It will be interesting to read the details of his journey. God bless him.
This is a book I am looking forward to reading. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is a most holy man. I have read his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, the Spirit of the Liturgy, In the Begonning…, and his six books on the lives of the saints collected from his Wednesday public audiences teachings. I am very glad he is still alive and pray almost daily for his health.
The Catholic world is in ruins and the former Pope sends a book our way.
He ought to come to the United States and do penance and prayer at the door of International Planned Parenthood in New York City—-or if he prefers a greater spotlight, he should consider doing penance at the Obama White House gate, the gates to Hell could not be worse.
Our Catholic clergy have been either corrupt or inordinately weak in their response to an aggressive evil Welt Zeitgeist. embodied by the likes of Hilary Clinton and her major donors like George Soros, Jeff Katzneberg, and Steven Spielberg.
So true!
Too bad that you left us, Benedict. You did a number of good, and very good, things. But, you left us in the dirt for the dissemblers, the evil-doers, the “killers and the spoilers” (to quote the lead-in to “Gunsmoke”) that largely run today’s Church.
How did this happen? Are you that much a person of Vatican II that a man such as C. Bergoglio as Pope gives you peace, makes you happy? It appears, but this is not a judgement, that you were aware, and complicit, in the continuing cementing of modernity in the Church. God have mercy on us all.
Well said!
One admirable thing that this man, Pope Benedict did, was Summorum Pontificum, for which we should all be grateful. It made the EF available to every priest of the Church. PLUS, it freed the EF from clutches of the disobedient SSPX. Now, Catholics who love the EF and its rubrics DO NOT have to go to these SSPX chapels and the chapels of the breakaway priests it has dismissed. Truly a scandal there. No longer will they have to risk their souls by going to the services of the SSPX who have no legitimate ministry in the Church. And the places where the EF is being offering is growing, as more younger (diocesan and religious) priests who have learned the EF are getting into parishes. What we need are priests who can offer BOTH forms of…
the Mass, the OF and the EF. So thank you Pope Benedict!
God bless Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He taught me so much, especially about the liturgy, the Holy Eucharist and the early Church. He is a great writer.