As much as I respect +Joseph Ratzinger, as important as his theological writings are to me, his decision to renounce the Throne of Peter is indefensible. A man whose life was characterized by an abiding respect for the traditions of the Church suddenly decided to innovate, and, in doing so, pulled the rug out from under Catholics who expected custom.
At the time, I was inclined to defend him. Maybe he's seriously ill, I reasoned. Maybe he'll be true to his word and disappear in a monastery, a la Pope Gregory XVII in Morris West's
book The Clowns of God.
It didn't turn out that way. And now?
Apres toi, le deluge.
Benedict's innovation appears to have another layer. The latest
news from Rome (translated stories on
Rorate Caeli) is that he perhaps didn't really renounce the papacy. Apparently Benedict only cast aside the governing functions of the papacy and has retained prayer and suffering as his "office." As such, goes the story, the Church is effectively being ruled by a diarchy that consists of a CEO (Pope Francis) and Chairman (Benedict).
Ah. That clears everything up.
We have two popes at the head of the Holy Roman Church. Say that a few times to yourself. Now, take a slug of Early Times.
The lengths some are going to pass this stunning news off as just another evening in Roma resemble Han Solo trying to reassure Death Star command after shooting up detention block AA-23. First, there's this from Vittorio Messori, the
Corriere Della Sera reporter who broke the news:
"If it truly is so, so much the better for the Church: it is a gift that they are near each other even physically - one who directs and teaches and one who prays and suffers for everyone, but most of all to sustain his confrere in his everyday pontifical office."
Oh, dear. Then there's this from "The Anchoress":
"In a way I cannot explain, reading this filled me with joy. I’m sure it is filling others with horror and fear. They run to Revelation all-too-willing to consider verses about imposters and anti-Christs than to consider verses about two witnesses. Or anything else."
Funny, I thought we were supposed to be Roman Catholics, not Pentacostals. Now we see the chaos Benedict's pseudo-renunciation is causing.
Aside from the vapid dig at Steve Skojec (whose writings on the apocalyptic aspect of the dysfunctions in Rome are intellectually serious and definitely worth your time), what fills me with horror and fear is the dumbed-down Catholicism of the "The Anchoress." If you've ever listened to the Catholic Channel on SiriusXM, you know what I'm talking about:
fides without
ratio. "The Anchoress" can't explain what she's read because there is no rationalization for it. In this formulation (brother, is that a euphemism), 'joy' becomes a convenient substitute for thought.
Von Balthasar's book
In the Fullness of Faith offers a guide to the serious ecclesial problems caused by two popes. Inasmuch as abolishing the primacy of the Petrine Office truncates the Gospel, the
de facto diarchy contradicts it. Christ chose Peter as first among equals. The Francis-Ratzinger paradox, in essence, finds Christ in error for not raising one of the other apostles up as Peter's coequal.
This, in turn, corrupts the spiritual element of the Petrine Office. The term
Vicar of Christ, let us not forget, refers to the unseen, spiritual element; the pneumatic and eucharistic Christ acting through the apostolic successor to actualize what is testified in Scripture. The concept that one pope governs and the other suffers and prays is to split Peter in two. And it calls into question the ability of the Holy Spirit to work through Pope Francis. Does one man lay more claim to the Holy Spirit than the other? How does this affect Francis' ability to conduct ordinations, for instance? Or to fulfill the other sacred functions entrusted to the pope?
Finally, the Petrine Office is the sole unifying principle in the
Catholica:
"[T]he more worldwide the Church becomes, the more threatened she is in the modern states with their fascism of the right and of the left, the more she is called upon to incarnate herself in the most diverse, non-Mediterranean cultures, and the wider theological and episcopal pluralism she contains, the more indispensable this reference-point becomes. Anyone who denies this is either a fanatic or an irrational sentimentalist." (emphasis added)
How to repair the damage? As I see it, there's really only one way. And that is for Pope Francis to order Benedict away to a monastery, where he would live cloistered as Joseph Ratzinger, no longer garbed in a white cassock, until such time as God called him home.
What are the chances of that happening?
