The story of the first Pope to resign in over 700 years.

Pope Benedict made history when he became the first Pope in over 700 years to resign from office, stunning the Catholic Church the world over. At last, Last Testament is a stunning and frank autobiography from the shy and private man who has since remained cloistered in a former convent in the Vatican gardens. In interviews with Peter Seewald, the Pope Emeritus breaks his silence on corruption within the Vatican, clerical sex scandals, and the challenge of reforming the Papacy.

In these interviews, Benedict discusses such wide-ranging controversies as:

- The “Vatileaks” case in which his butler leaked some of his personal letters that alleged corruption and scandal in the Vatican
- The presence of a “gay lobby” within the Vatican and how he dismantled it
- His alleged Nazi upbringing
- His attempts at cleaning up the “dirt in the church” (clerical sexual abuse)
- The mysterious private secretary “Gorgeous George”

On a more personal level he writes with great warmth of his successor Pope Francis, who he admits has a popular touch, a star quality which Benedict himself has lacked. Much controversy still surrounds Pope Benedict's Papacy--in this book he addresses these controversies and reveals how at his late age, governing and reforming the Papacy and particularly the Vatican, was beyond him.

About the Authors

On April 19, 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI and became the 264th successor to Peter as the 'Vicar of Jesus Christ'. He may well be the most accomplished theologian to be elected Pope in modern times. From 1981 he spent over twenty years as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a role often depicted as the 'defender of the faith'. Cardinal Ratzinger was also President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and of the Preparatory Commission that codified the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1994.

In an unprecedented move he resigned as Pope on 28 February 2013.

Peter Seewald has worked as a journalist for Stern, Spiegel and the S�ddeutsche Zeitung and is one of the most admired authors on religion in Germany today. His previous book of interviews with Pope Benedict Last Testament was widely reviewed in the religious and international press.

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