Posted on 02/13/2013 1:15:27 PM PST by Jyotishi
Rome -- Repeatedly over the last three days, media agencies have asked me to comment on the following question: Did Benedict XVI really resign just because he's old and tired, or was it really because of the sexual abuse crisis, the Vatileaks mess, and the various other meltdowns that have occurred on his watch?
My answer has been that it's not an either/or. Benedict may not have quit "because of" the pedophilia scandals or any other specific controversy, but it's hard to believe they didn't play a role, at least as background.
One can certainly take Benedict at his word that he feels his strength fading and simply believes he no longer has the capacity to do the job. Yet it defies reality to believe that the various sources of turmoil in the last seven years haven't taken a toll and that they help account for the fatigue he now feels.
It's clear they caused him anguish. Back in 2009, when his decision to lift the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops triggered a global firestorm when it turned out one of them was a Holocaust-denier, Benedict sent a letter to all the bishops of the world to explain what had happened. He apologized for the Vatican's handling of the situation and openly confessed his own consternation at the criticism it triggered.
"I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility," he wrote at one point. At another, he said he felt he had been treated in some quarters "hatefully, without misgiving or restraint."
Benedict is a realist, and he undoubtedly recognizes that breakdowns such as the Williamson affair suggest that something needs to be fixed in the internal management of the Vatican. His resignation suggests that given his age and perhaps his skill set, he's concluded he's not the one to fix it.
Today there was a sort of semi-confirmation of this reading of events from Portuguese Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, a veteran Vatican insider who's 80 and thus won't take part in the coming conclave. Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli asked Saraiva Martins if Vatileaks and the other scandals of the last couple of years might have been part of the reason Benedict reached this decision.
"I imagine they might have influenced it," Saraiva Martins said.
As revelations go, it's not exactly a thunderclap. It's the first time, however, that a Vatican cardinal has said out loud what pretty much everyone believes: The pope doesn't live in a vacuum, and if he finds himself weakening, the long list of fires he's struggled to put out has to be part of the reason why.
31 Comments
And maybe not. Could be just old age and tired.
"Sort of"...."semi-"...."might have". And that also means "might not have". The National Catholic Reporter's John Allen saw fit to write an entire column around this "not exactly a thunderclap"? What a waste of time.
The failure of the writer to properly address Pope Benedict and instead only call His Holiness “Benedict” indicates the bias the writer has against the pontiff. That alone is sufficient.
National Catholic Reporter is to Catholisism what David Brooks is to Conservatism.
He is old and on his second pacemaker. A slow fade out.
Actually, I read a very good (I thought) analysis by a Spanish blogger who seems to have some inside knowledge of the Vatican. He said that Benedict simply felt that he could not handle the Curia anymore, and that Benedict is genuinely frail and fears that if anything further happens to him, the Curia will simply take over and do whatever its members feel like doing. They have NOT been supportive of BXVI, and have in fact impeded and undermined him (the whole Vatileaks mess, the mishandling of the Williams matter, and the failure to enforce his decrees in the sex abuse cases or even his decree making the Latin Mass more available are all attributable to various members of the Curia - and may well have been intentional rather than the product of incompetence, in many cases).
The blogger explained that BXVI had seen JPII grow weaker and unable to control these apparatchiks, who simply ignored his directives and did what they wanted, often invoking his name because he was by then so out of it that he couldn’t oppose them. So essentially, because of the Pope’s weakness, the Church was being governed by a bunch of faithless, useless (mostly) Italian bureaucrats. BXVI did not want this to happen to him or the Church under his authority.
I think one of the major tasks of the next Pope will be to blast the lairs of the Curia and get rid of most of them with some kind of major reorganization. One of BXVI’s problems was probably that, after all his years at the Vatican, he was too well known to the Curia and too accustomed to the dysfunctional situtation to immediately take the steps necessary when he took over. This let it fester and gave them time to dig themselves in more deeply.
That’s also the reason that he did this so abruptly, catching them completely off guard - so they would not have time to plot.
My God bless Pope Benedict in his final years and embrace him when he returns home.
...or what the ELCA is to Lutheranism.
The Catholic Reporter is NOT Catholic. It reminds me of Catholics for “Choice.”
Please don’t believe anything they say.
I was wondering if this is the CINO paper that was told by the local bishop or archbishop to stop using “Catholic” in its title to imply it’s part of or i communion with the Roman Catholic Church. From your comment, I take it that it is that paper.
I believe I recall my wife (Cradle Catholic) telling me (recent convert) that either their home bishop or the USCCB that the above "religion" news-rag could no longer legitimately use the word "Catholic" in their name.
“..either their home bishop or the USCCB that the above “religion” news-rag could no longer legitimately use the word “Catholic” in their name.
Yes, you are correct. Coincidentally my husband told me, less than one-half hour ago, that he read that the Bishops told them not to use Catholic, but they refused.
Glad we’re doing our part in getting the truth out about this NON-Catholic fake, spinning “news.”
“..either their home bishop or the USCCB that the above “religion” news-rag could no longer legitimately use the word “Catholic” in their name.
Yes, you are correct. Coincidentally my husband told me, less than one-half hour ago, that he read that the Bishops told them not to use Catholic, but they refused.
Glad we’re doing our part in getting the truth out about this NON-Catholic fake, spinning “news.”
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