First photo of B16 I've seen this year, thanks to Beatrice, whose site unearthed it from the Brazilian website Fratres in unum, of a traditionalist community.
It is featured as the site's 'Photo of the Week' and is captioned: "Vatican, February 16, 2018: A friend and great collaborator of FratresInUnum. com, Felipe Menegat, Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, at right, met with Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI."
I have chosen not to post anything so far on a minor brouhaha in the past week in which a German regional newspaper in Bavaria quotes Mons. Georg Ratzinger as saying that his brother is afflicted with a neurologic condition that is worsening and could end his life at any time sooner or later. The Vatican Press Office took it upon itself to issue a denial. It has not been determined whether the pope's brother did make the statements at all.
Benedict XVI needs our prayers, and I do not doubt that those who love and admire him do not fail to pray for him everyday. I must admit I did not think that his physical condition would deteriorate so rapidly in the past 5 years - and God forbid he should be suffering from a degenerative neurological condition!
However, those who have been mocking him because they thought his renunciation of the Papacy in 2013 was nothing but self-indulgent 'fleeing from the wolves' ought to have second thoughts now. It's hard to think charitably of them for being so uncharitable to someone who does not at all deserve to be an object of mockery, least of all from persons who collectively would not amount to anything significant compared to what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has been in his almost 91 years of life so far!
