Requiescat In Pace, Pope Benedict XVI

Thank you Pope Benedict XVI. Thank you for your service to the Church and your papacy. Thank you for being the Pope when I converted to the Catholic Church. Thank you for freeing the Latin Mass from the clutches of so many hateful and evil bishops who hate God and the Catholic faith. May Our Lord welcome you into eternity with the words:

Matthew 25:23 “…Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

Pope Benedict XVI was our Holy Father when I was looking into and researching the Catholic faith and trying desperately to disprove even one single doctrine of Catholicism, and not have to follow where the truth was leading me and convert. I was running out of arguments against the Catholic faith because when I placed Church teaching up against the very best of Protestant objections, the Church was undefeated. I didn’t want to become Catholic, because honestly, Protestantism is so much easier.

Yet I knew I had to follow where the truth led, no matter how much I may hate it. And with Pope Benedict XVI as the Bishop of Rome, there was a serious man, with a serious mind, who had writings of deep thought and well-reasoned arguments. He was a man who actually believed the Christian faith and eloquently defended it. When I surveyed the landscape of the Catholic Church, and saw the contemptible cadre of bishops that then, and still do, run the Church, it was the humble servant in Rome who I could look to and comfort myself that they weren’t all bad.

I am eternally grateful to Pope Benedict XVI, because I honestly cannot say that I would be Catholic today if Pope Francis had been the Bishop of Rome when I was considering converting. Pope Benedict XVI was sincere in his faith and Pope Francis doesn’t believe the Catholic faith. (Some might be upset at such a statement, but actions speak louder than words.) I was desperate at that time, looking for the purpose of life and pondering the biggest questions that man has ever faced. I was in no mood to suffer or endure those who don’t even believe what they are selling. I am in the Church Jesus built today and if it had been a different man in the office, it is doubtful that I would have converted.

I’m also thankful to Pope Benedict XVI that he, more than any other man in the Church, was responsible for attacking the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. He brought investigations out of the individual dioceses and into his office in the Vatican under Pope John Paul II. The incidence of sex abuse plummeted with him taking over and bishops were no longer able to hide and stall investigations in their dioceses.

I’m thankful to Pope Benedict XVI for issuing his apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, which allowed priests to offer the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) without needing any approval of their bishop. This allowed the TLM to explode in popularity and growth because it is objectively a holier and more prayerful Mass compared to the Novus Ordo Mass. The TLM is the Mass of the ages and the Mass of the saints. It connects us to the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering in such a more splendid way because it is the Mass that THEY participated in. This letter, I believe, will be the small spark that starts the smoldering fire, that eventually turns into a blazing inferno that purifies the Catholic Church and drives out the smoke of Satan which has filled up the Bride of Christ. The TLM is where the next generation of priests will come from and they will actually believe the Christian faith, unlike the vast bulk of the current bishops and priests today.

There are several things that you did, or didn’t do, that I don’t understand right now. Why you didn’t excommunicate and defrock at least some of the raging heretics in the Catholic Church, I don’t understand. Why you didn’t bring down the hammer harder on former Cardinal McCarrick, I will never understand this side of Heaven. Why you kept allowing Communion in the hand and didn’t clean up or end the Novus Ordo, I also won’t understand here on earth. I will hope and pray there are bigger issues that limited your ability to make these needed changes and I pray that these issues get cleaned up quickly in the Catholic Church. Thankfully I am not your judge because I am not qualified to judge you. I leave that in the most holy hands of Our Lord and will ask the Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin and Queen of Heaven, to welcome you with her most powerful intercessory prayers.

So once again, thank you Pope Benedict XVI, may you rest in the eternal light of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. If you needed to go to Purgatory first, may your time there be short. Requiescat In Pace, Pope Benedict XVI