And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego. During this period, he participated in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and served as a peritus (theological consultant) to Cardinal Frings of Cologne. TIME also reported in its edition of 30 April 2006 that the Vatican's position remains what it always has been with Vatican officials "flatly dismiss[ing] reports that the Vatican is about to release a document that will condone any condom use. Italian police reported that Maiolo had in a prior action attempted to accost Benedict at the previous Christmas Eve Mass, but was prevented from doing so.

Fisher, Ian "Pope tries to quell anger over speech he gave in Brazil", The New York Times, 23 May 2007. Benedict XVI chose his papal name, which comes from the Latin word meaning "the blessed", in honour of both Benedict XV and Benedict of Nursia. Thus, in his book Jesus of Nazareth, his main purpose was "to help foster [in the reader] the growth of a living relationship" with Jesus Christ.The journalist Charlotte Allen described Benedict as "the pope of aesthetics": "He has reminded a world that looks increasingly ugly and debased that there is such a thing as the beautiful – whether it's embodied in a sonata or an altarpiece or an embroidered cope or the cut of a cassock – and that earthly beauty ultimately communicates a beauty that is beyond earthly things. The man in charge of enforcing it for 20 years was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man made Pope last year. On behalf of the Hindu American community, Radhika Ramana Dasa presented a gift of an Om symbol to Benedict. Peter's Basilica, a woman later identified as 25-year-old Susanna Maiolo, who holds Italian and Swiss citizenship, jumped the barrier and grabbed the Pope by his vestments and pulled him to the ground.

In his 1968 book Introduction to Christianity, he wrote that the pope has a duty to hear differing voices within the Church before making a decision, and he downplayed the centrality of the papacy.

In 2001, Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in charge of all sexual abuse investigations. While Summorum Pontificum directs that pastors should provide the Tridentine Mass upon the requests of the faithful, it also allows for any qualified priest to offer private celebrations of the Tridentine Mass, to which the faithful may be admitted if they wish.

The encyclical was promulgated a month later in Latin and was translated into English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish. Donadio, Rachel "Pope Canonizes 7 Saints, Including 2 Women With New York Ties" The New York Times, 21 October 2012. It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work. In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was taken away by the Nazi regime and murdered during the Aktion T4 campaign of Nazi eugenics. During his visit to Brazil in 2007, Benedict presided over the canonization of Frei Galvão on 11 May, while George Preca, founder of the Malta-based MUSEUM, Szymon of Lipnica, Charles of Mount Argus, and Marie-Eugénie de Jésus were canonized in a ceremony held at the Vatican on 3 June 2007.According to a statement from the Vatican, the timing of the resignation was not caused by any specific illness but was to "avoid that exhausting rush of Easter engagements". He said "something like a human ecology" was needed, and added: "Rain forests deserve indeed to be protected, but no less so does man. According to Achille Silvestrini, Benedict chose to remove the title at a time as a "sign of ecumenical sensitivity" on the issue of papal primacy. because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal" as the Second Vatican Council was wrongly seen "as authorising or even requiring creativity", mentioning his own experience.

While visiting Brazil in May 2007, "the pope sparked controversy by saying that native populations had been 'silently longing' for the Christian faith brought to South America by colonizers.His favourite composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of whose music he said: "His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence. Later visiting the country to "reiterate the solidarity between the cultures," it was reported that Benedict made a counter-statement backing Turkey's bid to join the EU. Benedict was succeeded by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who took the papal name of Francis on 13 March 2013. He was a member of several social science academies, such as the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.