Poor Pele...

 Having to be lumped into the trio of year-end "famous" deaths* with the longtime misogynist celebrity interviewer Barbara Walters (she wasn't a journalist anymore than Ezra Klein is...) and the notorious ex-pope Benedict, who some say was a closeted gay who tolerated the sexual abuse history of children in the Church, and wished to return to yesteryear -- the high Latin masses and pre-reform Vatican.

Pele, you were a great one!

The other two mortals?  Rest in peace.  May your memories not bring too much pain or discomfort to others who survive you...

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ADDED:  See if Pele weren't in there -- dead at 82; ex-pope Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger) 95, and Walters 93, we could drop the ... "only the good die young..." comment.  

It would be funny watching Barbara trying to chat Joe up in the line a-waiting judgment in the afterlife ... Barbara never liked women who didn't need men to advance themselves, and Joe just didn't like women, who he saw as inferiors too. Uncomfortable naturally around 'em like that, German and all, of a certain time: hausfraus, know your role...

Give me the Dominicans and Franciscans over the Benedictines and Jesuits, any day in the modern era.  There's a reason the parishes are closing quickly in America and in Europe they are shuttered whilst the conservative church grows in Africa and Asia today, attracting new followers for Christ...  

Wars necessarily open eyes, and the hypocrisy of teh Church in not advancing moral causes often makes good men pursue Christ without supporting the early baggage that has enriched the men who would hold others back in the name of heaven.  Serve the common good, and the pews would be filled with those eager to take in the teachings and receive the Holy Spirit in communion with others. Serve power and the powerless will turn to God elsewhere to enrich us, for He speaks directly to us too.  (I think that's why He told Pope Benedict to put the people first and step down already...)

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Joseph Ratzinger: 

He spent his eight-year papacy trying to turn back the rising tide of secularism in Europe, defending the church’s response to widespread allegations of clerical sexual abuse and, toward the end, dealing with the embarrassing leak of his private documents by his personal butler.

He also hewed unswervingly to strict Catholic orthodoxy, a theological absolutism he honed and enforced during his years as guardian of church doctrine under Pope John Paul II, with a zeal that earned him the nickname “God’s Rottweiler.”

He always seemed more comfortable in such a role, behind the scenes, rather than out in front of the adoring masses. Benedict’s diffident public manner contrasted starkly with the hearty, open-armed, people-loving style of both the pope who reigned before him, John Paul, and the one who came after, Francis.

Indeed, Benedict once compared his election as pope to having the guillotine fall on him, a prospect that made him feel “quite dizzy.”

“I told the Lord with deep conviction, ‘Don’t do this to me. You have younger and better [candidates] who could take up this great task with a totally different energy and with different strength,’” he told a group of German pilgrims soon after his inauguration as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

“Evidently, this time he didn’t listen to me,” Benedict added with a touch of the humor he displayed in private but seldom in public.

He had just turned 78 when his fellow cardinals picked him on April 19, 2005, a choice that pleased traditionalists but dismayed liberals who had hoped for a new direction on such issues as women’s role in the church, divorce and homosexuality. As he himself half-predicted, age began to catch up with him; the nonstop stress of visits to foreign lands, audiences with dignitaries, management problems in the Vatican and authoritative papal writings wearied him.

By the time he announced his intention to resign, Benedict was 85, frail and careworn, and had cut down on his public appearances. One visitor said later that the already-diminutive pope seemed thin and “halved in size,” and the Vatican revealed that Benedict had fallen and bloodied his head during a 2012 trip to Mexico.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the pope told a group of listeners Feb. 11, 2013, stunning those who understood the import of his remarks, which were delivered in Latin.

Some months later, Benedict revealed that he had decided to resign because “God told me to” during a months-long mystical experience, which had deepened his desire for a closer relationship with the divine. Seeing the galvanizing effect of his successor, Francis, on the church only strengthened his conviction that he had done the right thing, Benedict said.