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In his spiritual testament published by the Vatican following his death, the late former Pope Benedict XVI asked those he “wronged” for forgiveness.
The German-born late pope passed away on Saturday morning in his residence at the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae Monastery at the age of 95.
Born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, he succeeded Pope John Paul II in 2005 and became the first pope in over six centuries to step down from the role.
In the spiritual testament dated August 29, 2006, Benedict XVI spoke of the “many reasons” he had to be thankful for his life.
He described the “dark and tiring stretches” of his path as a necessary experience for his salvation and thanked God for picking him whenever he began to “slip”.
“To all those whom I have wronged in any way, I ask forgiveness from my heart,” the letter reads.
“If at this late hour of my life I look back over the decades I have been living, I first see how many reasons I have to give thanks.
“First of all, I thank God himself, the giver of every good gift, who gave me life and guided me through various moments of confusion; always picking me up whenever I began to slip and always giving me the light of his countenance again.
“In retrospect, I see and understand that even the dark and tiring stretches of this path were for my salvation and that it was in them that he guided me well.”
Born in Germany when the country was only struggling to recover from the first World War, the former Pope thanked his parents who raised him in such a difficult time and spoke affectionately of his siblings.
Benedict XVI urged the church to hold fast to their faith and not let science or research shake the foundations of their belief.
Although, he acknowledged that “faith too has learned to better understand the limit of the scope of its claims” because of natural science, he reminded the church that he had seen science offer “apparent certainties against the faith” only to see them vanish, “proving not to be science, but philosophical interpretations only apparently pertaining to science”.
In the end, the former pope wrote, “I humbly ask: pray for me, so that the Lord, despite all my sins and inadequacies, may receive me into his eternal dwelling”.
Unlike the late Pope John Paul II’s letter, Benedict’s included no instructions for his funeral and made no mention of what should happen to his belongings.
