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I was expecting this news, since he was old and since Francis asked for prayers for him over Christmas, but it's still sad. Benedict was 'my' pope in a way, he was most congenial to my own way of thinking. I liked that he tried to bring back old practices and traditions in liturgy and everyday piety, but it was probably too late for a real revival. Francis is not my sort of pope, though I very much do not mean by that that he is not the pope or is an antipope or anything of the sort.
I more or less came to maturity under John Paul II but I never quite was the same sort of fan of his as many were, he was slightly too rockstar for me 😀 I liked Paul VI (I was a child under his reign) even though he gets a lot of blame from all sides and is regarded as too weak (both in not pushing the 60s progressive agenda by one side, and in standing up to the 60s progressive agenda by the other). Yet he produced Humanae Vitae in a complete reversal of the expectations at the time.
Eternal rest to the soul of Benedict XVI.
And since Francis is now elderly and in poor health himself (he's been in a wheelchair at the recent services), naturally there will be talk of potential papabili for a next conclave sometime in the near future - Francis is now 86, time to start planning. Even maybe for Francis to emulate Benedict and step down while still alive but in increasingly bad health. God knows.
Pope Francis is increasingly isolated at the top, so it’s unlikely that he’ll step down(he is much more poorly regarded by the hierarchy than Benedict was at the time of his resignation).
As for papabile, given Müller’s increasing activism I suspect the general appetite among a potential conclave would be for a diplomatic figure acceptable to the conservatives, which points to Turkson or Erdö.
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