Ganswein: Benedict “is convinced that the decision he made was the right one”

From CNS: 

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has never doubted or regretted his decision to resign, knowing it was the right thing to do for the good of the church, said Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to the retired pope.

“The church needs a strong helmsman,” and Pope Benedict was keenly aware of his own waning strength while faced with such a demanding ministry, the archbishop said in an interview published Feb. 12 in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Two years after Pope Benedict’s historic announcement Feb. 11 to step down as supreme pontiff, Archbishop Ganswein said the retired pope “is convinced that the decision he made and announced was the right one. He has no doubt.”

“He is very serene and certain in this: His decision was necessary and made ‘after having repeatedly examined my conscience before God,'” he said, citing words from the pope’s Feb. 11, 2013, announcement.

Pope Benedict had told a stunned audience of cardinals assembled for an ordinary public consistory that “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”

Archbishop Ganswein said in the interview that Pope Benedict was aware of his “duty not to look out for his own self but for the good of the church.”

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Photo: Benedicit XVI in 2008 via Wikipedia / Creative Commons