Pope Benedict XVI Passes Away, He Condemned the “Intrinsic Evil” of Abortion

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 31, 2022   |   10:18AM   |   Washington, DC

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI passed away today at the age of 95. The former leader of the Catholic Church was a strongly pro-life leader who condemned the “intrinsic evil” of abortion.

“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” the Vatican said in a tweet announcing his passing.

“Further information will be provided as soon as possible.  As of Monday morning, 2 January 2023, the body of the Pope Emeritus will be in Saint Peter’s Basilica so the faithful can pay their respects,” it added.

Benedict had become very ill recently and Pope Francis requested prayers for the former pontiff on Wednesday.

“I would like to ask you all for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who is supporting the Church in silence,” Francis told a General Audience at the Vatican. “Remember him – he is very ill – asking the Lord to console him and to sustain him in this witness of love for the Church, until the end.”

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said Pope Francis will preside over his predecessor’s funeral on January 5 at 9.30 CET in St. Peter’s Square, according to Vatican News.

During his time as the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict was a consistent pro-life voice condemning the evil of abortion. Earlier this year, he condemned the evil of abortion.

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He made it clear that children are a blessing and a treasure.

“Children truly are the family’s greatest treasure and most precious good. Consequently, everyone must be helped to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion,” the former pontiff said. “In attacking human life in its very first stages, it is also an aggression against society itself.”

In March, Pope Benedict brought up the conflict between President Joe Biden’s claims of faith and his support for radical pro-abortion policies.

Biden describes himself as a devout Catholic, but he also supports radical pro-abortion and anti-religious freedom policies that contradict his faith. This has caused controversy among Catholics, especially Catholic leaders in America, about whether Biden should be allowed to receive communion if he remains unrepentant.

Benedict brought up this conflict when asked about the Democrat president.

“It’s true, he’s Catholic and observant and personally he is against abortion,” he said. “But as president, he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the Democratic Party, and on gender politics we have not yet fully understood what his position is.”

Former Pope Benedict XVI warned in a 2004 memo that high profile politicians who persist in their public support for abortion should be denied Communion.

Benedict wrote the memo when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and when former presidential candidate John Kerry, a pro-abortion Catholic, was running for president. Ratzinger warned that “not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia” and said that though Catholics may have diversity of opinion on some topics, there is no “legitimate diversity of opinion” when it comes to abortion and euthanasia.

Ratzinger’s comments are particularly relevant now as Catholic bishops discuss denying President Joe Biden communion for his public support for abortion. Pope Francis has notably not commented on whether Biden should be denied communion, but the pope has repeatedly condemned abortion as evil and the killing of innocent life.

“The minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin,” Ratzinger wrote.

“Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist,” the former cardinal continued.

If the “person in question” obstinately persists in presenting himself to receive communion even after all this, Ratzinger wrote, the minister “must refuse to distribute it.”

“This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty,” the former cardinal and pope said. “Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgment on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.”

He retired as head of the Catholic Church in 2013.