Retired Pope Benedict marks 93rd birthday under ‘house arrest’

Former Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday, celebrated his 93rd birthday under strict isolation at home due to the COVID-19 crisis.


Dpa reports Benedict had stopped contacts with the outside world to minimize contagion risks.

“We live under ‘house arrest’ like so many people in Italy, and though thank goodness everybody is doing well, of course there are no visits,’’ his private secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, told Vatican News.


Gaenswein disclosed Benedict would be given an advance copy of his new biography, a 1,100-page “magnum opus” by Peter Seewald, a German author.

In 2019, Pope Francis visited his predecessor on the eve of his birthday.

Benedict XVI, known then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, resigned in 2013, the first pope to do so in nearly 600 years.

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