In a letter to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, the Bishop of Coventry expressed his sadness to hear of Pope Benedict's death, and also gave thanks for his life and ministry over many decades.
In his letter to The Most Reverend Bernard Longley, The Right Reverend Dr Christopher Cocksworth said:
I was very saddened to hear the news of Pope Benedict’s death today. Please know that the prayers of the Diocese of Coventry are with you and our dear brothers and sisters in the Archdiocese of Birmingham and, indeed, the whole Communion of Rome, in your great loss. With you we mourn the passing of a brilliant intellectual, a finely tuned theologian and a Christian leader and a loving pastor.
Pope Benedict’s visit to the UK in 2010 was an important moment in the life of all the British Churches and the country itself. His address to Parliamentarians spoke to policy makers and legislators of the necessary relationship between faith and reason in the ordering of human affairs. Pope Benedict’s presence and words at Evensong in Westminster Abbey, culminating in his prayer with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the shrine of St Edward the Confessor, were a vivid expression of his ecumenical commitment and his desire for the Petrine Ministry to serve all Christian people. His celebration of the Eucharist and the Beatification of John Paul II were marked by his own simplicity of style and humility of spirit. I count it a privilege to have witnessed all three historic occasions.
Over the years I have been greatly blessed by Pope Benedict’s writings in the various stages of his fruitful life, most notably by his deeply edifying trilogy on Jesus and by his writings on Mary, with their deep attention to scripture. His combination of scholarship and spirituality in his writings and teaching remains an inspiration.
As you know, it was a special joy for me to be able to join you in visiting Pope Benedict during his retirement and to present him with a copy of my book, Seeing Jesus – a book influenced by his own writings. In that more personal setting I saw the warmth of his character and the depth of his pastoral heart.
I give thanks for Pope Benedict’s life and ministry over many decades; and, although ‘weeping over the grave’, I rejoice that – in the words of his Foreword to his Jesus of Nazareth – his ‘personal search “for the face of the Lord” (Ps 27.8)’ has come to a most joyous and wondrous encounter (again using the words of the same psalm) in the ‘light and salvation’ of ‘the house of the Lord’.
Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with the saints,
where sorrow and pain are no more,
neither sighing, but life everlasting.