As Catholics, the media and people from all around the world try and digest Pope Benedict’s resignation, I think it’s fair to ask ‘why’, and ‘why now.’
Benedict says his health is not up to it. That seems fair.
If the Pope says he’s not up to it, I think we have to believe him don’t we?
He’s not going to “tell porkies”.
However people believe what they want and a number of conspiracy theories have emerged including:
- Benedict’s health is actually much worse than he’s let on as evidenced by several alleged late night helicopter flights to hospital.
- Benedict’s fall in Mexico last March where he hit his head on the bathroom sink leaving his white hair and pillow stained with blood has seriously affected him.
- He has leukemia.
- He is tied to the Vatican Bank financial scandal.
- And the most far-fetched, his resignation came after a long night of soul-searching following the England rugby team’s victory over Ireland in Dublin.
Does anyone know when the next Dan Brown novel is to be released?
Since resigning, and for the first time, Benedict has spoken openly about the betrayal of Paolo Gabriele, his former butler.
“To me it is simply incomprehensible”, Benedict said.
“I cannot fathom this psychology”, he is said to have told German author Peter Seewald, who wrote a book on Benedict in 2010 based on interviews.
It’s clear that Benedict has been very hurt by Gabriele’s betrayal and whatever we think of his papacy most seem to agree that Benedict is a highly intelligent man, a humble man, a man of faith and a loyal servant of God. To him, betrayal is the ultimate ignominy.
However many talents Benedict has though, it seems he might not have been a strong administrator, and while entrusting much of the Vatican’s administration to the Curia, the loyalty he showed them, was alas, not returned.
One thing we know about Pope Benedict is he plays a strong hand in key appointments and none more key was the appointment of the Vatican’s Secretary of State (Prime Minister) Cardinal Bertone.
While I don’t think there is any question about Bertone’s loyalty, he seems to have been a polarising character. Benedict, unable to deal with the power struggles at the Vatican and the situation surrounding Bertone, the Cardinal’s resignation is just one the many eventual outcomes of having a new pope.
Benedict may not have the physical nor mental strength to deal with the Vatican’s power struggles one by one, but “for the good of the church” his resignation gives his successor the chance of starting over with a new Curia, as it were beginning with a ‘clean slate’.
There’s a tendency to over-simplify events of this magnitude, to look for one reason when in fact there can be multiple factors that converge and point to an eventual outcome, and what the ‘theory of the clean slate’ does not explain is the pace at which Benedict’s resignation has come about, particularly since the Year of Faith has only just begun.
‘This’ year of faith is not just an ‘ordinary’ year of faith, but is a personal initiative of Pope Benedict.
A pivotal part of the year of faith was to have been the third part of Benedict’s encyclical on the theological virtues, (faith, hope and love), the virtue of Faith.
Benedict began writing part three but now the Church is effectively left with an incomplete encyclical.
The outcomes of Benedict’s resignation are clear, the haste with which it happened remains uncertain.
– John Murphy is a Marist priest working in digital media at the Marist Internet Ministry, New Zealand.
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