Sleep deprivation was a key element in breaking a 600-year-old taboo in 2013. A letter written by pope emeritus Benedict XVI to his biographer, whose content was released this Friday (27) by the German magazine Focus, reveals that the insomnia that afflicted the religious was among the main reasons that led to his resignation from the pontificate, almost ten years ago.
The religious leader sent the message to the German Peter Seewald on October 28, weeks before he died, so he passed away on December 31, aged 95. In the text, Joseph Ratzinger says that insomnia has accompanied him “without interruption” since the World Youth Day in Cologne, in August 2005, months after being elected as the successor of John Paul II.
The pontiff’s private physician at the time prescribed “potent medicines”, which allowed him to maintain the workload at first, but the effect would have reached a limit over time, according to the report.
The revelation to some extent supports the thesis that Ratzinger resigned because he was sick and weakened by the routine of almost eight years of the papacy, in which he led three encyclicals – at the time, Italian newspapers initially said that he was disgusted with sexual and financial scandals in the Vatican hierarchy, a version that ended up not being confirmed.
The use of sleeping pills would also have caused an incident during a trip to Mexico and Cuba that Benedict 16 made, while still pope, in March 2012.
On the first morning of the trip, the priest found the sheets “completely soaked in blood”, according to the letter cited by the magazine. “I must have hit something in the bathroom and fallen,” he wrote. After undergoing medical attention, he was left with no visible injuries.
The case, however, made a new doctor of the then pontiff insist on reducing the use of pills and recommending that he only participate in morning events during trips abroad. In the letter, Ratzinger states that he was aware that the medical restrictions would be possible “only for a short period of time”.
The realization, then, allied with exhaustion, led him to resign in February 2013, a few months before the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, which he did not consider himself capable of facing. Benedict XVI left his post early enough to allow his successor, Pope Francis, to fulfill his agenda in Brazil.
Almost ten years after leaving office, the pope emeritus died in December at the monastery in the Vatican gardens, where he spent his retirement years.
His pontificate was marked by crises, such as the Vatileaks scandal in 2012, which revealed a wide network of corruption in the Vatican, and cases of sexual abuse against minors committed by religious in several countries.
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