Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger):
"We will soon have priests reduced to the role of social workers and the message of faith reduced to political vision. Everything will seem lost, but at the right time, at the most dramatic stage of the crisis, the Church will be reborn.
She will be smaller, poorer, almost catacombal, but also more holy. Because it will no longer be the Church of those who seek to please the world, but the Church of the faithful to God and his eternal law. Rebirth will be the work of a small rest, seemingly insignificant yet indomitable, passed through a process of purification. Because that's how God works. Against evil, a small herd resists."
...and yet he abandoned us.
No he did not abandoned us. It is all part of God's plan. The Great Apostasy needed to happened before the Antichrist may be reveled. Had it not been been for Pope Benedict resignation to be the bishop of Rome (He resigned to be the bishop of Rome, he did NOT resigned to be the Vicar of Christ) this Great Apostasy from Rome would not have happened.
" (He resigned to be the bishop of Rome, he did NOT resigned to be the Vicar of Christ)" Quote him where he said so. You can't and you won't. He resigned the Papacy which includes aspects of the office. Let's ask the man himself. Vatican City, Dec 9, 2014
At least part of the reason for wanting his new title to simply be "Father" rather than Pope Emeritus or Benedict XVI is to put more space between him and the role of the pope, so that there is no confusion as to who the "true Pope" is
What a horrible faithless man. A man who destroyed the faith of untold millions with his modernist heresy, his ecumenical apostasy, and his promotion of immorality.
Defeat Modernism, you seem to be talking about bishop Bergoglio, not of Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict XVI resigned @Bautisado48 and all the wishful thinking of you "Benedict Buddies: ain't gonna change that.
You are correct Ultraviolet, he did resigned, but only to his ministerium of the bishop of Rome, not to his munus of the Vicar of Christ. It goes far beyond wishful thinking, it is backed up by the concrete document of resignation.
The Church he speaks of will obviously not have a bloated, incompetent bureaucracy leading it.