“Pope Benedict is very much in my heart and in my prayers. I give thanks to God for his ministry and leadership.”
Pope Benedict XVI famously visited the U.K. in 2010, where he celebrated Mass at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow; led a prayer vigil for young people at Hyde Park, London; and ended his visit with the beatification of John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham.
The president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, Bishop Hugh Gilbert, described the late pope emeritus as a “shy and scholarly man” in a statement released Dec. 31.
Bishop Gilbert said: “With the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict, we lose one of the leading Catholic figures of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of our own.
“By nature, a shy and scholarly man and by profession a priest-theologian, he found himself drawn ever more into public life as archbishop of Munich, as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, and finally as pope, the first German since the end of the Second World War to attain world pre-eminence.
“He once wrote: ‘My basic intention has been to expose the real core of the faith underneath the encrustations, and to give this core its true power and dynamism. This has been the constant direction of my life.’ His full stature will surely emerge increasingly. May he rest in peace.”
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