Finally, the real reason for Benedict XVI's resignation has been revealed. In a letter to his biographer in October 2022 and published by a German magazine, Pope Benedict XVI explained that medical reasons were the "primary" reason for his resignation in February 2013. .
In a letter to German journalist Peter Seewald, dated October 28, a few weeks before his death and published by a German weekly on Friday, January 27, he said his insomnia was “main reason” for his resignation in 2013. Peter Seewald is a biographer of Benedict XVI.
In a letter published by Focus weekly, Joseph Ratzinger, who died at the age of 95 on December 31, 2022, explained that the "main reason" for his resignation in February 2013 was that the "insomnia that plagued him relentlessly" since World Youth Day in Cologne in August 2005, a few months after he was elected to succeed Pope John Paul II.
An unknown accident in March 2012
His personal physician then prescribed a “strong sleeping pill” that initially helped him carry out his duties. But over time, these sleeping pills have their "limitations" and are less and less likely to guarantee its potency.
This sleeping pill was also the source of an incident that occurred during his trip to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012. According to the letter published by Focus, the morning after the first night, he found his handkerchief “stained with blood.” ” he wrote: “I must have bumped into the bathroom somewhere and fell.” A doctor had to make the wounds invisible and after this, his new personal doctor had to reduce the dose of sleeping pills and advised him to appear only in the morning on trips abroad.
A situation that has become unresolvable
The Pope emeritus wrote in the letter that he was well aware that these limitations "can only be short-lived" and this realization led him to decide to resign in February 2013, a few months before World Youth Day. in Rio that he felt he could not “get over.” So he resigned early so that his successor, Pope Francis, could go on this apostolic trip to Brazil.
Pope Benedict XVI's resignation in 2013 surprised the world, he died on December 31 at the monastery of the Mother of the Church, in the Vatican gardens where he had been for nearly ten years.