Boston area Catholics remember Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: ‘You paid attention to every word he said’

Boston area Catholics joined those from around the world Saturday in mourning the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the first pontiff to resign from the job in nearly 600 years.

Benedict died Saturday morning at age 95 in the Mater Ecclesia Monastery in Vatican City, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement. Benedict’s health had deteriorated since Christmas, he said.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in a statement, said he found Pope Benedict XVI to be an “engaged” and “thoughtful” leader who stayed true to the mission of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI elevated O’Malley, who serves as archbishop for the Archdiocese of Boston, to cardinal in 2006.

“His fidelity to maintaining the truth and clarity of the Catholic faith, cultivating ecumenical and interfaith dialogue and reaching out to inspire the next generation of Catholics have been great gifts to us all,” O’Malley said in his statement.

Benedict, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, of Germany, served as the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog before becoming pope. After being elected pontiff in 2005, he continued the conservative course charted by St. John Paul II, using intellectually rigorous sermons that decried how the world seemed to think it could do without God.

Ray Flynn, the former ambassador to the Vatican, praised Pope Benedict XVI as soft-spoken yet highly intelligent.

“You paid attention to every word he said,” Flynn, a former mayor of Boston, told the Herald Saturday. “He taught me so much and especially to know what you’re talking about and to prepare.”

Flynn said he served as ambassador before Benedict became pope, but they talked often about the U.S. and his work in Germany to help his homeland recover from Nazism following World War II.

“He was so focused on reuniting his country and then the world,” Flynn said of Benedict. “I never passed up an opportunity to talk to him. He’ll be missed.”

Catholics from around the world were stunned when Benedict announced his resignation on Feb. 11, 2013, saying he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.

His decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Pope Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.

And now Francis will celebrate Benedict’s funeral Mass, the first time in the modern age that a current pope will eulogize a retired one. The mass will be held on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in Vatican City’s St. Peter’s Square, six hours ahead of Boston.

Boston Catholic Radio 1060 AM will be airing the mass live.

“Pope Benedict called us to truth and beauty,” BCR Chairman Lou Murray told the Herald. “He consistently pointed out the failures of modern dictatorship of relativism.”

It was Benedict’s devotion to history and tradition that endeared him to members of the traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church. For them, Benedict remained even in retirement a beacon of nostalgia for the orthodoxy and Latin Mass of their youth.

Benedict relaxed the restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass.

Edgar M. da Cunha, bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, in a statement recounted his experiences meeting Pope Benedict, including when he came to the U.S. in 2008 and met with all of the country’s bishops at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.

“The influence of Pope Benedict has had on the Church is great, and his legacy will live on for generations to come,” da Cunha said. “He had an incredible gift to communicate the truth about the Church and worked determinedly to reconcile faith and reason.”

Benedict’s legacy was colored by the global eruption in 2010 of the sex abuse scandal, even though as a cardinal he was responsible for turning the Vatican around on the issue. It was considered the greatest crisis in the Catholic Church in decades.

Benedict met with victims across the globe, wept with them and prayed with them. Under his leadership, the Vatican updated its legal code to extend the statute of limitations for cases and told bishops’ conferences around the world to come up with guidelines to prevent abuse.

O’Malley said one of his “most moving experiences” with Benedict was when they met with survivors of clergy sexual abuse during the pope’s visit to Washington in 2008.

“He was then, and at all times remained, committed to the Church supporting their journey towards healing and doing all that was possible to ensure the protection of children, young people, and vulnerable adults,” O’Malley said of Benedict.

Herald editor Joe Dwinell and the Associated Press contributed to this report.