Posted on 09/07/2017 10:15:08 AM PDT by Sean_Anthony
The Political Pope: How Pope Francis is Delighting the Liberal Left and Abandoning Conservatives
With all the controversy that surrounded the election of Pope Francis upon the resignation of Pope Benedict in 2013, it seems that Catholics may have lost sight of a very key element of this episode, namely, that Benedict XVI never resigned his papal office, but only the active exercise thereof.
On the eve of his resignation, he said: “Anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church… “The ‘always’ is also a “forever”—there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this.” (General Audience, February 27, 2013)
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