The following article was titled "The 'martyrdom' of Benedict XVI", which I think is a melodramatic label for an act - his renunciation of the Papacy - that was anything but melodramatic. All the offenses against the Church, especially by those within the Church herself, have constituted the burden of his suffering, without us having to imagine that he felt 'martyred' because of the offenses to his person, a Cross I am sure he bears gladly as his participation in the Cross of Christ.
My extreme reaction to offenses against the person of Benedict XVI has always been due to the untruth and unfairness of the attacks, not because of what I thought he must be 'suffering' because of the calumny. It is we who suffer for him because we love him. But for the Vicar of Christ on earth, personal suffering is necessarily part of the 'job description' - it is something he must not only live with but accept with Christian joy. Moreover, saints do not behave or react to the world as we ordinary mortals do.
A theologian's thoughts on
Pope Benedict's renunciation
by Alberto Carosa
Adapted from
March 10, 2013
While Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation and the end of his pontificate are still sending shock waves throughout the world, Catholic World Report spoke with a senior theologian, Don Nicola Bux, who was among the closest collaborators of Benedict XVI regarding liturgical matters, being a consultor to the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff.
Don Nicola, a priest of the Archdiocese of Bari (southeastern Italy), has studied and taught in Jerusalem and Rome. Professor of Eastern liturgy and theology of the sacraments in the Puglia Theological Faculty, he is also a consultant for the international theological journal
Communio. Benedict XVI appointed him peritus (theological expert) at the bishops' synodal assemblies on the Eucharist in 2005 and on the Middle East five years later.
He has authored numerous essays and ten books that have been translated to many languages. Among his books is
Benedict XVI's Reform: The Liturgy Between Innovation and Tradition (Ignatius Press, 2012).
Don Nicola Bux met Joseph Ratzinger in mid-1980s, when Cardinal Ratzinger had just arrived in Rome from Munich to be the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“At that time I was taking part in the Spiritual Exercises that Cardinal Ratzinger held for the priests of Communion and Liberation'', Don Bux recalls.
What is your opinion about the decision made by Benedict XVI?
First of all, this gesture must be seen in the perspective of faith, and not from a worldly viewpoint, which always tends to misrepresent the Church.
There have been various interpretations of the gesture: from secularization of the papacy to revolutionizing ecclesiastical power, from democratization of authority to a wound inflicted on the body of the Church, and even confusing Benedict's request of pardon for his personal defects as a questioning of papal infallibility.
But did the resignations of of Benedict IX, Celestine V and Gregory XII produce any of that? Ratzinger himself has investigated in his studies how
the Petrine primacy has a martyrological dimension: the responsibility of the Bishop of Rome is by every measure personal and may not be diluted into episcopal collegiality, although it is always interacting with it.
And it is striking that Benedict XVI had just decreed the canonization date (May 12, 2013) of the Martyrs of Otranto for their heroic witnessing to the faith at the consistory of February 11, after which he announced his resignation.
Is the responsibility you referred to related to the consciousness of duty which Pope Benedict often referred to?
Yes. 'Responsibility' in this sense is meant as one's personal response to the Lord. There is an insurmountable limit of consciousness, and not only for believers, but for all men. Do you remember the Talking Cricket? Pinocchio could pretend it was not there or throw a hammer at it, but it continued to speak. Benedict XVI has also explored this theme of conscience and has often recalled by Blessed John Henry Newman 'in praise of conscience', who in his famous letter to the Duke of Norfolk, proposed a toast to conscience first and then the Pope.
The Petrine ministry, in the end, is the ultimate appeal to the conscience of every man. In his speech in Latin announcing his decision to the world, the Holy Father clearly says: “I have repeatedly asked my conscience before God.”
Compared to contemporary relativism that prompts the 'unformed' conscience into doing whatever one wants, Catholics define conscience as the capacity to distinguish between good and evil, true and false. It is the 'voice of God' which preserves the dignity of the person in his relationship with the world.
The Pope said asked his conscience at length, and this implies great spiritual suffering. Is it for this reason that you speak of “martyrological dimension” of the Petrine primacy?
Yes. The Petrine ministry has an inner martyrological dimension that demands its holder to incessantly ask whether what one is and does are adequate to all the aspects of the pontifical ministry. Such a daily exercise can actually become martyrdom. But every human being must do this - examine his conscience.
[I do not know if it is still taught to Catholic children in religious instruction, but my generation was taught to begin our prayers before bed with an examination of conscience leading to the Catholic 'act of contrition', which I find one of the most beautiful of prayers. So, decades later, I was most struck by Cardinal Ratzinger's reply to Vittorio Messori who asked him how he could sleep, considering all the nasty things written about him. He said "I always sleep well because I examine my conscience before going to sleep".]
The father of the family must constantly ask himself whether he is acting for the good of his family. Just imagine what it is like for the Successor to Peter!
And then there is something else you would have to realize. I firmly believe that what really matters, for this Pope with his great realism, is for the Petrine ministry not to be regarded as a personal attribute or property, but to be seen as a 'service' to which the Successor of Peter is called, for which he considers himself a “worthless servant”, just as Jesus himself said.
[In how many homilies have we herd Benedict XVI speak about the Pope being 'servant of the servants of God', a formulation of St. Gregory the Great that he thought best described the office of the Pope. By this criterion, Benedict's renunciation of the Papacy for increasing physical inability to carry out its tasks proves to be most logical and natural. If the 'servant of the servants of God' has to be served himself in extraordinary ways by many others to prop him up for his tasks, he is no longer the servant but the served. And for the worker in the vineyard of the Lord who can no longer do his work as others do - and as he himself used to do very well - it is time to tell the Master of the vineyard, "Please let me go so, a fit and younger man can take my place". And he takes up his mortal pack and embarks on the last stage of his pilgrimage on earth, in which ora becomes the joyful burden of his labora.]
What matters is the apostolic succession that is always guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. The Pope, any Pope, is but a link in the chain of the apostolic succession from Peter to the end of time, when the Lord will be back. Bearing this in mind, then we may very well understand that the Lord is constantly watching over this succession.
Benedict is elderly and physically declining. To what extent has his physical condition weighed on his decision?
[What an absurd question! It was the reason he cited! What is not to understand there?]
It’s true that one’s physical fitness has never been a benchmark for the government of the Church.
John Paul II did show that to us. [With all due respect, Fr. Bux is stating a pious falsification here. John Paul II's decision to stay on to the end was not to show the world that he could still govern - the consensus is that he did not, in the final years of his affliction - but how to live with extreme suffering as one's participation in the Cross of Christ.]
But as a Pope's health declines, his capabilities to govern the Church also decline, and the actual government would be wielded by those around him. In deciding what he did, Benedict XVI was abiding by the realism he has always shown.
In my opinion, his renunciation could be construed as an act of government, an invitation to reflect on our divisions, as mentioned in his homily on Ash Wednesday, and the confusion caused by non-Catholic ideas in theology. He stepped back, one might say, so that the Church can make two steps forward... He is and will remain Benedict XVI in Church history...
There are those, like people close to Karol Wojtyla, that have seen this resignation as a “descent from the Cross”.
You saw the photo that went around the world, didn’t you? That of the dome of St. Peter struck by lightning? Some said it was a sign of God's wrath for the act of the Holy Father. And why not interpret it as a sign directed to us all? In much the same way as the earthquake and the darkness on Golgotha were not directed to the Son of God, but to the men who had not recognized Him as such.
But many see the resignation of the Pope was a gesture of humility.
We need to understand 'humility' in the etymological sense of the term that comes from humus, ground. Humble is the person who is well anchored to the ground, in short, a realist. We are all called to be humble.
[But Benedict XVI is humble in every sense of the word, not just in its etymological sense, and for someone as gifted as he is to admit that he can no longer give his best and must make way someone more able is, by any measure, an act of humility. The ordinary person sees what humble is without having to define what it is!]
In the final stage of many pontificates, it has usually been said that the Pope no longer governed, that it was his entourage doing so. Benedict XVI renounced the Petrine ministry when he realized he was no longer in a position to fully exercise his mandate
[i.s., before he could be accused of having others governing in his place even though he is still Pope].
What do you think about reform of the Church?
The concept of reform is not to be understood in the Protestant way or in political terms, but in its etymological sense of re-shaping, to get back into shape. Today, this means correcting the deformations of the liturgy in the Church that, as the Holy Father has time and again noted, had become insupportable, and correcting deformations at the moral level. In this sense the gesture of the Pope is an act of effective warning.
What does it take to govern the Church today?
It means to overcome her internal divisions caused mostly by conflicts, often virulent, with regard to post-conciliar interpretations of Vatican II. Benedict XVI was very clear that Vatican II is a continuity between tradition and innovation, a message that cannot in any way be rejected.
Benedict XVI did much towards unifying the Church but he did not succeed with the Lefebvrians...
The Holy Father was very, very patient in seeking unity: a final destination that is built day by day. He has been and remains an example of patient charity toward all, as the Apostle says, and also for the future Pope. Until there is but one flock under one shepherd.
NB: The original article as published in CWR reads very awkwardly, like a poor translation from the Italian, which one must suppose was the language in which the interview was conducted, since both Carosa and Bux are Italian. I therefore smoothed out the translation without altering the sense of what was being said.
Apropos the role of conscience in Benedict's decision, and other illuminating reflections on his brief but historic declaratio on February 11, 2013, the following article in yesterday's OR is most welcome:
Benedict's renunciation of the Papacy:
The brief 'declaratio' is like a last encyclical
by Stefano Femminis
Translated from the 3/10/13 issue of
Editor's Note: We publish herewith the editorial for the March issue of Popolo, the monthly journal of the Italian Jesuits.
The brief message with which on February 11 Benedict XVI surprised the world and changed the history of the Church by announcing his decision to 'renounce the Petrine ministry' is characterized - beyond the sober style typical of this Pontiff - by a density of content and nuances on which we must reflect at length.
Even as we were preparing to go to press with the issue that you are now reading, our first reaction was to see this message as his last encyclical - literally, a 'circular letter' sent to everyone, believers or not.
Three passages stand out for us as particularly significant.
The Pope says that "After having repeatedly examined my concsience before God and have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry".
Comments and criticisms, often polemical, have proliferated about the different choices made by Wojtyla and Ratzinger in the face of declining physical health. As though there were only one right choice when facing the crossroads that both faced.
In his case, Benedict XVI has placed into the forefront the primacy of conscience. He tells us that it is not obedience to external factors, not what 'usual practice' is, not even, in the last analysis, traditions even if millennary, that ought to guide a Pope, almost as if he were just an ordinary Christian, but rather the voice of true conscience, one that is correctly formed and oriented by intense regular communication with God through prayer.
But the Pope also bears witness that listening to this inner voice gives birth to certainty. It is a message of hope that ought to shake up the world. Because is it not, in fact, the loss of every certainty, the indistinct greyness in which everything is seen in confusion, which the true tragedy of contemporary society?
The second key message of the
declaratio is the reference to "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes". It is both a lesson and a reminder. A definitive lesson that steals the argument from those who accuse the Church and her pastors of being always and despite everything, anachronistic, immobile, deaf to the changes required by a changing context.
But it is also a reminder and appeal to that part of the Church, that also exists, which looks at any change with apprehension and suspicion. In this sense, we can say that the shocking decision of Benedict XVI is written into the legacy of the Second Vatican Council, if that Council is seen as the Church's reconciliation with the world.
Finally, the Pope;s final request: "I ask pardon for all my defects". Even these words have provoked rivers of ink about 'defects' such as the presumed coldness and severity of the German Pope.
Rather, they illuminate the authentic sense that should inspire every exercise of authority, not only religious authority. If we think of the usual 'farewell' speeches that we hear from 'great world leaders', which are usually focused on exalting their achievements and eventually, on a self-justification of their failures.
But Benedict XVI, knowing well that he was writing a message that would circle the globe immediately [and take its place in history]- the man who may have had some reservations about how John Paul II sought forgiveness during the Great Jubilee of 2000 for the errors of the Church - did not hesitate to ask forgiveness for his own defects. He did not think of calling attention to the work he had done, nor take the occasion to give vent to any reproaches.
He addressed us all with utter essentiality, with an interior nakedness that was both striking and moving.
One of the first things I did after emerging from the catatonia that overtook me upon learning the news on that early Monday morning - a defense mechanism in order not to confront the fact that the unthinkable had happened and that one would have to live with it, which was even more unthinkable - was to print out the declaratio in English and Latin, and slipping the pages into a stiff transparent protector propped beside my PC so that I can read it again and again... For all its brevity, it is as awesome as Benedict's encyclicals - literally every word in it is essential - and a living illustration of love, hope and charity in truth, as well as faith (I will consider that encyclical written, whatever form it will eventually take - I am thinking perhaps the next Pope would be wise enough to ask Benedict XVI to issue it as a message by the emeritus Pope to conclude the Year of Faith that he had decreed).
There has been much comment lately in both the Anglophone and Italian media questioning the decision made by Benedict XVI to continue being called Benedict XVI and to be referred to as Pope emeritus, or emeritus Roman Pontiff, with the critics saying this is 'confusing' for Catholics.
What is confusing about having a Pope and an ex-Pope? Nobody confuses the current President of the United States with the other four living ex-Presidents who continue to be addressed and referred to as 'President'. Are Catholics more stupid than others that they cannot make the distinction - especially since Catholic doctrine is very clear about the fact that there can only be one Pope at a time?
And yet eminent commentators on Church affairs like George Weigel and Sandro Magister seem to think Catholics are in confusion. Right now, they are just anxious to know who the next Pope will be, and they know it's not up to them nor to the cardinal electors, exactly [ss Cardinal Ratzinger said so well, the Holy Spirit does not tell them who to elect but does keep them from making a disastrous choice.).
How can anyone = as both Weigel and Magister have done repeatedly in the past, and again since February 11 - praise Benedict XVI to the heavens as 'perhaps the greatest teaching Pope in history' and for the clarity of his teaching, and then cavil at his last great teaching for creating confusion?
Sandro Magister this weekend wrote a piece entitled "Danger warning: A Church with two Popes",
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?account_id=mtbrandeis%40gmail.com#inbox/13d4555d645953b6
citing 'traditionalist' theologians to make his point, as he has done before about the renunciation itself.
Hasn't Magister also often referred to Benedict XVI as 'one of the greatest theologians in our time' or something even more exalted? Suddenly, he is citing some hiherto unheard-of theologians (which is not to discredit anyone just because we have not heard of him, but to provide the right perspective) to dispute Benedict XVI's decision about how he should be addressed, and that this would lead to 'a Church with two Popes'!?!?
Anyone who thinks he 'knows' Benedict XVI from everything we know about his life and thinking cannot possibly imagine that he decided that matter out of personal vanity, but out of respect for the office itself. Worse is the assumption by these critics that Benedict is thereby fostering confusion among the faithful not just by the external forms associated with his retirement - how he is called and what he wears - but because he will be residing in Vatican City.
(If the practical reasons for this - security, protection from legal harassment, the desire not to create an alternative place of pilgrimage for the faithful who love him whether he is Pope or not - did not exist and he had gone back to Germany to retire in a monastery, they would still fault him for just continuing to be alive!]
That is an insult first of all to the faithful themselves, who may be deficient in many things but who do have plain common sense in such obvious matters.
It is an insult, more resoundingly, to the next Pope, whom the Cassandras say would be inhibited or influenced in some way by the fact that his predecessor is still alive and living nearby. What do they think the next Pope will be? A narrow-minded and selfish doctrinaire, like Benedict's critics seem to be, who does not know the authority he holds as Pope, who does not have his own mind and no spirit of generosity?
Once again, as in considering Vatileaks and the failings of the Roman Curia, and in prognosticating on the Conclave, these critics, however religious they may truly be, are projecting their secular mindset to spiritual affairs. Their spirits, not merely their feet, are so deeply rooted in the earth and earthly considerations that they will never fly as do the angels and privileged humans gifted with divine grace as Benedict XVI.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/03/2013 16:37]