UPDATING ON THE RUN
This from ANSA, the Italian news agency:
- Mons. Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict's older brother, said he had known for months about his brother's plan to resign, according to a newsflash from Die Welt.
[I have been trying to rack that down with no success so far. But I am all numb just now, performing reflexively and not really focused as I should be...]
- Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, whose seven-year term as President ends in May, said that the Pope's decision represented "great courage, and the greatest respect on his part".
(He couldn't have imagined when he bid farewell publicly to Benedict XVI two weeks ago that the latter would precede him out of office.)
ANSA also adds the following statements from Fr. Lombardi:
"There is no specific illness that influenced the decision of the Pope," Fr. Lombardi told newsmen today. "In the past several months, his strength has greatly diminished. We know his age and that it is normal for persons at his age to progressively lose their physical strength. The Pope has felt this in recent months and has acknowledged it lucidly".
The Pope has suffered pain in the joints, but the weight of his responsibility has also affected his general condition, according to sources in the Vatican. He also suffers from chronic atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeats that can be extremely debilitating and even fatal)
but has refused to use medicines prescribed to prevent blood coagulation. [That's a strange thing to allege - he has been reported to be on anti-coagulant medicine since he had a slight cerebral stroke in the early 1990s, and one cannot imagine him refusing to take medication when it is prescribed for his health.]
Fr. Lombardi said that "the Pope has absolutely not been depressed, and has constantly shown spiritual calm and self-mastery in his relations with others. There were no signs of depression or discouragement even if he must have been profoundly affected by recent difficulties, but I would not say these had anything to do with his decision," Lombardi continued.
The 'instant historians'
already having their (nay-)say
Very appropriate for Benedict XVI, who has been the lightning rod for almost all the major media attacks (and therefore public opinion) against the Church for the better part of three decades, to announce his historic decision as the Christian world begins Lent.
What greater sacrifice could a Pope offer for Lent than to renounce his office, knowing full well not just that he is doing so for the right reasons - for which he has squared his conscience with the Lord - but that he is thereby inviting a fresh load of opprobrium to be heaped on him by the media and other critics who cannot and will not waste any occasion to unload on him!
Unfair treatment by the media has always been, to my mind, the greatest cross Joseph Ratzinger has had to bear, as physical suffering was for John Paul II. And as a man of God, and the Vicar of Christ since April 19, 2005, we can be sure he sees this cross, as John Paul saw his cross, as his way of participating in the passion of Christ.
Benedict XVI is too clear-thinking to subject the Church to anything similar to her seeming lack of direction and governance in the final years of the previous Pontificate. The world has seen the example of suffering in Christ shown by John Paul II, a lesson that will forever mark the Church and Christians around the world. It does not need another such extreme example from a Pope, and this Pope has rightly decided he will set a different example, no less humble and historic.
Surely, he knows that the rest of his days will be marked by the same cross of unfairness and vilification perpetrated by a hostile media, but that too is the inevitable consequence of a decision I can only consider selfless.
An article in Corriere della Sera is headlined 'John Paul II did not come down from his cross' which is precisely the perverse reaction that has cropped up in some quarters. A most unworthy comparison that even the Blessed Pope himself would find despicable.
An obseervation from a follower of Father Z's blog, who appears to have watched the consistory proceedings on CTV:
It is perhaps also important to note that the Pope has not merely “stated his intention” of resigning. The Pope has already actually resigned the See of Peter, but has stipulated that his resignation will be effective on February 28th, 2013, at 8:00 p.m., when the Vacancy of the Holy See will begin.
The necessary juridical declaration has already been made. The Pope took the care of making it formally, before an Ordinary Public Consistory, today, February 11th, 2013, and after reading his Declaration he handed to Cardinal Sodano (the Dean of the Sacred College) the written and signed document containing the Declaration of Abdication. The written document is actually dated Feburary 10th, 2013.
With the formality of making the announcement in the presence of an Ordinary Public Consistory, and particularly by making the formal declaration in the present tense (“declaro”) it is clear that the resignation is already an accomplished juridical act, that is for the moment ineffective, and that will become effectively automatically once the term of days, the lapse of time, established by the Pope is reached. No additional documents will need to be signed, and no additional statements made.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/02/2013 18:52]