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Vatican publishes Pope Benedict XVI’s private homilies in English

Ishmael Adibuah By Ishmael Adibuah for EWTN News

June 24, 2026 Ishmael Adibuah The Dispatch 1 Print

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI celebrates Mass in the chapel of the Vatican's Teutonic Cemetery for his former students during their annual gathering on Aug. 30, 2015. | Credit: Ratzinger Foundation.

The Vatican has published, for the first time in English, a collection of Pope Benedict XVI’s private homilies from 2005 to 2017.

According to Vatican News, the Vatican Publishing House has published “The Lord Holds Us By the Hand,” previously released in Italian in 2025 under the title “Il Signore Ci Tiene per Mano.”

[Editor’s note: The book has been published in North America by Ignatius Press.]

The book contains Benedict’s homilies delivered during private Masses both during his time as pope and after his resignation from the papacy in 2013.

The volume includes homilies from the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, given at either the private chapel in the Apostolic Palace or the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican, and focused on developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The book offers an example of the continuity of the late pope’s theological work since his time as Joseph Ratzinger, both as an acclaimed theologian and as head of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The book also highlights his focus on the person of Christ as an accompanying figure for today’s Christians.

“The Lord Holds Us by the Hand” includes a preface by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope Benedict XVI’s former personal secretary, and an introduction by Father Federico Lombardi S.J., president of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation.

A second volume, dedicated to Benedict’s homilies given during Ordinary Time, is forthcoming.

Next year, 2027, will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI.

• Books by Benedict XVI published by Ignatius Press

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Pope Francis intends to end his days in Rome, not Argentina, journalist clarifies

March 6, 2021 CNA Daily News 2

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 6, 2021 / 07:19 am (CNA).- As some international media recently reported that Pope Francis said he did not want to visit his native Argentina again, the author of the interview with the Holy Father that was the source of that assumption clarified the context and meaning of the pope’s words.

Veteran Argentine journalist and neurologist Nelson Castro interviewed Pope Francis for his book “The Health of the Popes”.

Argentine daily La Nación published a piece by Castro Feb. 27 that included a section of his interview with the pope. The last sentence is: “I won’t return to Argentina,” which led some to assume that meant “ever.”

At the end of the interview for his book about the health of popes, Castro asked Francis “how do you imagine your death?” to which he replied “I will be pope, whether in office or emeritus. And in Rome. I won’t return to Argentina.”

In a recent interview with fellow journalist Tito Garabal on Radio Grote, Castro clarified that Pope Francis said that he would not return to Argentina “as far as coming to live (in Argentina) if he resigned, that’s how it was.”

“He didn’t say ‘I’m not going to visit Argentina again.’ I asked him how he imagines his death in Rome and so on, he said, ‘I’m not going back to Argentina to die.’”

“This is indisputable as such. And it has two aspects: as the interview is verbatim then one wants to be as faithful as possible, so much so, and I anticipate this, that when the second edition of the book and translation come out, I’m going to introduce this clarification, because it’s called for,” Castro explained.


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