Pope Benedict XVI 'is to resign'

BBC ^

[Sub-Driver]

Pope Benedict XVI 'is to resign' Breaking news

The Pope is to resign at the end of this month in an entirely unexpected development, reports from the Vatican say.

[Preston Manning]

Get ready for a media smear job not seen since Pius XII was branded ‘Hitler’s Pope’

The response from the lefties will range from wishing him dead to having him stand trial for imagined crimes against liberalism.

[Jaded]

Thanks for the effort Mrs. D.

After having been away for a number of months, I see it’s the same tired garbage that’s been refuted ad nauseaum.

[Jaded]

Thanks for the effort Mrs. D.

After having been away for a number of months, I see it’s the same tired garbage that’s been refuted ad nauseaum.

[Mrs. Don-o]

This question is, n part, actually not so hard to answer.

You say that "He asks to leave the priesthood. His request is backed by the Diocese."

In that case, the Diocesan bishop can, and should, immediately remove his faculties and leave him with no assignment. This means he can no longer function as a priest. Can't preach. Can't say Mass. Can't administer sacraments. Then the Bishop can turn him over to the police, the prosecutor, or whatever arm of secular authority he would be answerable to for his crime.

That's exactly what happened in the Diocese of Knoxville to a certain (formerly Fr.) William Casey: as soon as there was a credible allegation and he admitted that it had a factual basis (a criminal act he did 40 years ago) the Bishop instantly suspended his faculties and contacted the prosecutor's office. You don't need to go to Rome for that.

This is no what the Pope does. There are 400,000 priests in the world. It is not the Pope who grants them or denies them faculties --- which means, the authorization to function as a priest. The Bishop gives and takes faculties away on his own authority, and if necessary, on the spot.

If he offender is removed from the priesthood canonically by Rome, you don't necessarily gain anything. It makes it impossible to keep him under any kind of church supervision, because he is removed from the oversight of his Bishop.

It's basically turning him loose.

I'm not a Canon Lawyer, but I can tell you there may be cases where immediately removing oversight may not be a good idea.

[EBH]

The Vatican is denying illness this afternoon.

If that is true...this raises even more concerns

We went through a number of magnificent rooms, and we finally reached the Pope. He was sitting in the dark and slept in a large arm chair. He was very ill and weak; he could no longer walk. The ecclesiastics in the inner circle looked insincere and lacking in zeal; I did not like them. I told the Pope of the bishops who are to be appointed soon. I told him also that he must not leave Rome. If he did so, it would be chaos. He thought that the evil was inevitable and he should leave in order to save many things beside himself. He was very much inclined to leave Rome, and he was insistently urged to do so.”
Anna Catherine Emmerich

[rochester_veteran]

Get ready for a media smear job not seen since Pius XII was branded ‘Hitler’s Pope’

The response from the lefties will range from wishing him dead to having him stand trial for imagined crimes against liberalism.

It's not just in the MSM, it's right here on FR! Read back on this entire thread and you'll see the vitriol, hatred and slander directed at Catholics! There's people on FR that are just as worse as the Catholic haters in the MSM.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Blaming the 1970's": here's the story on that.

Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, therapists, etc. were acting on theories in the 1970's that adult male atraction to other males, whether adults or children, was on the "normalcy" spectrum. They said it was not a manifestation of mental illness, or at least not a disorder so intractable that it could not respond to therapy. In the 1970's leading mental health figures said that "boundary issues" could be managed by counseling.

The fact that those ideas were current in the 70's is very easy to document. It's certainly true that some religious superiors took the "therapeutic" approach ("He just needs to learn how to manage his sexuality issues better") and relied on experts to certify that an offender had gained an "insight" about his "boundary issues" and now could be trusted to function within a parish.

This turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong. Sometimes there was real moral negligence on the part of these superiors, but just as often, I think, it was a well-intended but naive "therapeutic approach" --- one that had terrible and long-lasting consequences.

And it's clear that Pope Benedict grasps this, which is one of the reasons that in 2001, it was Benedict (Ratzinger) who convinced John Paul II to put the CDF in charge: precisely to get past therapy-oriented Bishops, as well as rotters like Weakland. He moved in personally to combat the abuse more efficiently.

According to the NCReporter's Vatican reporter John Allen, Jr., Ratzinger was "driven by that encounter with what he would later refer to as 'filth' in the Church. [He was] driven by a convert's zeal to clean up the mess". See article (Link)

[Morgana]

Not happened for 600 years!!

I heard it on the radio...was shocked...

[Biggirl]

I was suprised and shocked myself. I was just having my second cup of coffee this morning. I thought the BBC was creating rumors at the time.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thank you, redgolum. You are wise and charitable in your remarks, and I personally know other Lutherans who feel exactly the same way. I'm going to miss Benedict and I really hope he has things set up for a good successor.

He is a chess-player. He probably had "successor" in mind ever since the white smoke hit the sky in 2005.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I appreciate your remarks. I was just telling redgolum that Lutheran friends that I know from the pro-life movement, are saying how they respect Benedict and how much they are praying for us, that we get another good one.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

"Blaming the 1970's": here's the story on that.

I remember reading an article in the Boston Globe, probably in the 1980s, where they praised Cardinal Law for taking a therapeutic approach with priests with a homosexual inclination.

I remember thinking, when this backfires, the Globe will be the first in line denouncing Cardinal Law.

And so they were.

I wish I kept the article. I don't have the time to search through 20 years of microfiche. I wish someone did.

[Cronos]

Tsgt: hey everyone rapes children!” -- ok,if you want to believe that, it's your problem

I don't believe that

[Hot Tabasco]

What does Michael Rivero know?

You're citing MICHAEL RIVERO as a legitimate source of information????

You do know that that wacked-out, crackpot, nutjob was this site's most obnoxious conspiracy theorist until he was thankfully banned two months after you joined the site don't you?

If you have contact with him, ask him what happened to that vast fleet of white, unmarked vans, hidden in a secluded area out west, that were to be used to round up conservatives and imprison them in the equally secret, barbwired compounds...........patrolled by the black, unmarked helicopters.

[Cronos]

I don’t — why does your denomination allow the molesting of kids either?

[BlatherNaut]

It takes almost full-time work to refute the false slanders against Pope Benedict --- and even to “re-refute” them, since so many of them were exposed as false years ago. But don’t expect retractions from the New York Times and equivalent character-assassins here and elsewhere. Anybody with an interest in the truth is invited to read Raymond J. de Souza's article at National Review: A Response to the New York Times [Pope falsely accused]

I would also recommend the book "Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal" by Gregory Erlandson et al to anyone looking for a balanced exposition of the facts.

[Yossarian]

It’s the 20th century dreck surrounding it that got to me. It clashes with Mary.

My eye likes the background around Mary, but not the lower background to the Crucifix. However, I think I understand what the architect / artist was going for: The universe is peaceful and beautiful, but Christ's death on the cross for our sins was a radical, disruptive event.

[Mrs. Don-o]

No, Pope Benedict isn't a Benedictine. He's a secular (diocesan) priest.

One of those so-called prophecy guys (Nostradamus? Or that other Malarkey?) said he would be "Gloria olivae" ("the glory of the olive,") which (by a major stretch) some people identified with the Olivetans, who are a tiny branch of the Benedictines. They have one abbey in France; none in Germany.

There is no connection between the Olivetan Order and the Benedict XVI.

I always thought "Glory of the Olive" meant that the pope after John Paul II would be Martini!

:oD

[Chode]

he knows his limitations... God Bless

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thanks for that. Erlandson is great. I will add him to my semi-official list of truth-telling, knowledgeable media people. Him, and Terry Mattingly over at GetReligion.com>.