The legacy of Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States endures, says Fr Carter Griffin

Diane Montagna interviews an Italian priest and academic who knew Pope Benedict

Candlemas already. The hampers have been emptied; the cards have been taken down; the paper chains made patiently on Christmas Eve committed hara-kiri weeks ago. Meanwhile I have finally got to grips with a splendid gift kindly sent by the lovely people at the Catholic Mothers Apostolate. “The Catholic Card Game” is a cleaned-up ecclesiological

In 1969, while he was a professor of theology at the University of Regensburg, Fr Joseph Ratzinger gave a radio address in Germany, asking “What will the Church look like in 2000?” The then-future pope’s foresight and analysis are both prophetic and alarming. The speech was not merely concerned with speculating about the future of

The Personal Ordinariates established under the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus represent, as the late Mgr Mark Langham called them, “realised ecumenism”. As the first English Ordinary appointed after its publication in 2010, I naturally wanted to be present at Pope Benedict’s funeral. Usually in Rome I stay at the Venerable English College, which is the

William Cash remembers Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Fisher House, the Catholic chaplaincy at the University of Cambridge

The dome of St Peter’s was shrouded in mist for the funeral of Pope Benedict, with the cupola and the cross disappearing behind the figures of the apostles that surmount the facade. It was an extraordinary crowd gathered in the freezing cold. There were many Germans, many Italians and people from everywhere else you could think of.

Ahead of Pope Benedict’s solemn funeral on Thursday, 5 January, the Catholic Herald discussed these and other questions with Father Roberto Regoli, an Italian priest and Professor of Contemporary History at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he directs the Department of Church History. A specialist in the history of the papacy, the Roman Curia and papal diplomacy for the 19th and 20th centuries, Fr Regoli is author of Beyond the crisis of the Church: the Pontificate of Benedict XVI. In this interview, we also discuss the lasting impact of Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg Address, his deep friendship with St John Paul II and the suggestion that Pope Benedict could one day be declared a Doctor of the Church.