Trial Of Pope Benedict

A Powerful Indictment of Pope Benedict and the Vatican. Joseph Ratzinger and the Vatican's Assault on Reason, Compassion, and Human Dignity. On the 28th February, 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign. In doing so, Joseph Ratzinger, the man who became Benedict, also relinquished a controversial religious career in which he was largely responsible for the Catholic Church's prodigious troubles: his scorched-earth assault on modernity and the world of ideas destroyed any hope of progress in the Church while leaving a trail of shattered lives in its wake.