The Pope in the Attic: Benedict in the Time of Francis
What’s it like for the first living ex-pope in 600 years to watch from up close as the successor he enabled dismantles his legacy?
By Paul Elie | The Atlantic |April 16, 2014
These days, he is an autoclaustrato, a self-cloistered contemplative in an order with a membership of one.
His name is still Benedict, 15 months after he renounced the papacy. His clothes are still white, the papal vestments sans cape and sash. His home is now the Mater Ecclesiae, a monastery up on the hill behind St. Peter’s Basilica, erected by John Paul II as a house of prayer near the Apostolic Palace, the site of the papal apartments.