Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s death was used by people in a self-serving way to “score points”, Pope Francis said on Sunday.
During a press conference on the papal plane returning from South Sudan, Pope Francis said he thought that his predecessor’s death was “instrumentalised by people who want to serve their own interests” by setting the pope and the pope emeritus against each other.
He said that “people who instrumentalise such a good person, so close to God I would almost say…they are people who belong to a party, not to the Church”.
Many are in the habit of making political parties out of theological positions, he emphasised. “I leave it alone. These things will fall on their own, or if they don’t fall they will move on as has happened so many times in the history of the Church.”
It is likely that Francis’ remarks may have been a response to the book written by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI’s secretary, which states that Benedict was unhappy about certain moves made by Pope Francis, such as restricting the Latin Mass.
Pope Francis’ comments were made aboard the papal plane from Juba, South Sudan, to Rome, at the end of a six-day trip that also included nearly four days in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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