Catholics mourn death of first retired pope in 600 years Pope Benedict XVI

Bishop of Sandhurst Shane Mackinlay said Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger, would be remembered for his response to the sexual abuse scandal and his strong leadership within the church.

As the first retired Pope in more than 600 years, the death is also quite unique.

"It's interesting, we haven't done this before, of course," Bishop Mackinlay said.

"You know, it's over 600 years since there's been a retired Pope so the protocols are a bit different and the way that it affects people is a bit different too."

Bishop Mackinlay said while Pope Benedict would be remembered with fondness and appreciation, the fact that Pope Francis had been in place now for 10 years meant this previous era was not front of mind.

There is also none of the typical speculation as to who will follow him as the spiritual leader of around 1.3 billion Catholics globally.

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"There's a respect we pray for the Pope at every Mass every time we celebrate the Eucharist and for a whole lot of other Christians as well," Bishop Mackinlay said.

"I was in Rome in October at a meeting with non-Catholic Christians, and part of that included a meeting with Pope Francis and I think they were more excited or at least as excited as the Catholics in the group."

In Bendigo, a memorial mass was celebrated at all churches on Sunday following Benedict's death the night before. This was followed by a memorial mass at St Therese's in Kennington on Monday morning.

The Sacred Heart Cathedral has also set up a memorial where a number of people have laid flowers.

Bishop Mackinlay said Pope Benedict would be remembered for reforms to the administration in the Vatican, for his final act as Pope - his abdication - and for his response to the sexual abuse scandal.

"He really formalised and established a focused and co-ordinated international response to sexual abuse in the church, taking that very seriously, introducing a zero tolerance policy, conducting audits of every country in the world though the Bishops' Conference as to what they were doing," Bishop Mackinlay said.

"He was the first pope to meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse so taking it to another level and progressing things that had been outstanding for some time."

The Bishop said there had been many priests who had been convicted, or were otherwise established as having been offenders, and it had been difficult to remove them from the priesthood.

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"He fast-tracked that and put in place very clear and straightforward procedures to ensure that any priest who was found to be an offender was laicised (removed from the priesthood)," Bishop Mackinlay said.

One such case was that of Mexican priest Marcial Maciel who abused at least 60 children, although he died before being laicised.

The church, and Pope Benedict as a former head of it, have still been criticised for the handling of this abuse crisis.

More than 4000 Australians have alleged incidents of abuse in the church with some estimates hundreds of thousands were abused elsewhere in the world over the last century.

In 2021 United Nations representatives from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) criticised the Vatican for allegations of obstructing and failing to co-operate with domestic judicial proceedings in these matters.

Bishop Mackinlay called Pope Benedict's choice to retire in February 2013 an "astonishing and dramatic innovation".

"He would have been one of the few people to be able to carry it off," Bishop Mackinlay said.

"A Pope, who was so well known for his very careful and considered approach to things for being an intellectual, very highly respected theologian who was clearly very much in his right mind and very deliberate and intentional and considered in his action.

"He established a whole protocol and an expectation really, that that resignation by a pope is now not radical or unthinkable, but absolutely normal."

Pope Benedict's funeral mass, presided over by Pope Francis, will take place on Thursday morning Rome time at 9.30am (7.30pm Thursday, January 5, Australian time) from St Peter's Square.

Online, two official channels will broadcast the funeral live, the Vatican Media Live YouTube channel and the Vatican News Facebook page.

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