VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
9.8.2016
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While retired Pope Benedict XVI said organization and governance are not his strong suits, he also said, “I am unable to see myself as a failure.”
In a book-length interview with the German author Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict said that when he resigned he had the “peace of someone who had overcome difficulty” and “could tranquilly pass the helm to the one who came next.”
The new book, “Last Testament,” will be released in English by Bloomsbury in November. The German and Italian editions were set for release Sept. 9, but some excerpts were published Sept. 8 by the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Pope Benedict insisted once again that he was not pressured by anyone or any event to resign and he did not feel he was running away from any problem. …
Seewald also asked Pope Benedict about reports that during his pontificate there was a so-called “gay lobby” in the Curia and the group protected certain priests by threatening to blackmail others.
The retired pope replied that a commission of three cardinals he had named to investigate a major leak of reserved documents and conduct an administrative review of Vatican offices and procedures identified “a small group of four, perhaps five persons,” which a few Vatican officials and the media later would refer to as the “gay lobby.”
“We dissolved it,” Pope Benedict said.
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