A look back at the esteemed personalities who left us this year, who'd touched us with their innovation, creativity and humanity. By CBSNews. The Associated Press contributed to this gallery. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI April 16, December 31, stunned the world in when he announced, after eight years in office, that he lacked the strength to continue as head of the Catholic Church.
The thenyear-old thus became the first pope in years to resign. The first German pope in a thousand years, Benedict β born Joseph Ratzinger β was a theologian and writer devoted to history and tradition, who was elected to succeed Pope John Paul II.
He used his position to redirect the world's focus on faith in an era of secularization. On his first foreign trip as pope, at a World Youth Day gathering in Cologne, Germany, he told a million attendees, "In vast areas of the world today, there is a strange forgetfulness of God. It seems as if everything would be just the same even without Him. He reached out to other faiths, and became only the second pope in history to enter a synagogue. As a conservative, many of his actions such as relaxing the restrictions on Latin mass satisfied traditionalists, but were controversial among more progressive voices in the clergy.
There were also PR gaffes; he was criticized for telling reporters, in , that distributing condoms would increase, not decrease, the spread of AIDS. But he was also forced to confront the fallout of the church's sex abuse scandal, and notably apologized to victims. Benedict's dramatic decision to retire, rather than to remain in office until his death, paved the way for the election of Pope Francis, a more progressive cleric. The two lived as neighbors, an unprecedented arrangement, as Benedict wrote and lived a monastic life in the Vatican Gardens.
Francis would say having Benedict at the Vatican was like having a "wise grandfather" living at home. Trailblazing broadcaster Barbara Walters September 25, December 30, forged a path for women in an industry that was dominated by men, so much so that, when she was hired as a writer for NBC's "Today" in , she was only allowed to write for women.
