‘Lord, I love you’: Aide recounts Benedict’s last words
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s last words were “Lord, I love you,” his longtime secretary said Sunday, quoting a nurse who helped care for the 95-year-old former pontiff in his final hours.
Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, a German prelate who lived in the Vatican monastery where Benedict took up residence after his 2013 retirement, said the nurse recounted hearing Benedict utter those words at about 3 a.m. Saturday. The retired pope died later that morning.
“Benedict XVI, with a faint voice but in a very distinct way, said in Italian, ‘Lord, I love you,’″ Gaenswein told the Vatican’s official media, adding that it happened when the aides tending to Benedict were changing shifts.
“I wasn’t there in that moment, but the nurse a little later recounted it,″ the archbishop said...