Even after his retirement a decade ago, the former pope remained the unofficial figurehead of the conservative wing of the American church.
The death of Pope Benedict XVI Saturday sent a broad wave of mourning through the American church. At the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, a single bell tolled for 15 minutes at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
But his death held special meaning for the conservative wing of American Catholicism: It represented the loss of their unofficial figurehead, a shadow presence whose influence they followed even after he resigned in 2013 and Pope Francis became the church’s global leader.
While he largely faded from public life since his unexpected retirement, the former pope — whose early reputation as a firebrand once earned him the nickname “God’s Rottweiler” — remained a hero to many theological conservatives, who viewed him as a standard-bearer for a kind of doctrinal commitment and rigor they saw lacking in the church under Francis.
In recent years, the conservative wing of American church leadership has been gaining power and has clashed openly and often with the country’s second Catholic president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, over the issue of abortion.
On Saturday, during a vacation in St. Croix, Mr. Biden released a statement that said he and his wife “join Catholics around the world, and so many others, in mourning the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,” adding that the pope “will be remembered as a renowned theologian, with a lifetime of devotion to the church, guided by his principles and faith.”
Mr. Biden remembered Benedict’s comments during a 2008 visit to the United States and White House, where the pope noted that the “need for global solidarity is as urgent as ever if all people are to live in a way worthy of their dignity.”
Ms. Pelosi, a Democrat of California who is also Catholic, expressed her admiration of Benedict’s spirituality and recalled welcoming the pope to Washington in 2008 and visiting him at the Vatican the next year.
“Paul and I join our fellow Catholics in mourning the passing of Pope Benedict XVI: a global leader whose devotion, scholarship and hopeful message stirred the hearts of people of all faiths,” she wrote in the statement, referring to her husband.
Benedict’s promotion of Catholic leaders, including Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, helped shape the character of church hierarchy in the United States at its highest levels. Parts of the American church, including the younger generation of priests, have long held Benedict “in an awe bordering on reverence,” said George Weigel, a conservative Catholic commentator and author of “To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II.”
Catholics make up about 20 percent of all U.S. adults. The church has grown increasingly polarized in the past few years, and the faction that has opposed Pope Francis’ agenda has strengthened.