Just 10 days after Pope Francis was appointed head of the Catholic Church, he received an ominous gift from his predecessor — a large white box.
The then-76-year-old Pope Francis flew to the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo to meet with Pope Benedict XVI, who was just a month into his retirement.
There was an auspicious air to the meeting.
It was the first time two popes had met each other in more than 600 years.
The last recorded meeting had been in 1294, when the retired would-be hermit Pope Celestine V met his successor, Pope Boniface VIII — Celestine was executed less than a year later.
Pope Benedict XVI lived another nine years before dying of lung disease in 2022.
“Everything is in here,” he told the newly appointed Pope Francis, as the two sat across from one another in the palace library.
The box between them on the table contained documents relating to what Pope Francis later described as the church’s most painful abuse stories — “cases of abuse, corruption, dark dealings, wrongdoings”.
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