The editors of Avvenire take a deeper look at the epochal significance of Benedict XVI's unprecedented gesture.
The humility and grandeur
of Benedict XVI's decision
by Marco Tarquinio
Editor
Translated from
February 12, 2013
We have been stunned and shaken. We are greatly moved. And it is only natural, Even if the history books say otherwise, it is the first time - in human and in Christian living memory - that a Pope 'has resigned'.
And of course, it is the first time that the world could listen to his announcement 'live' in the Church's ancient language, Latin, and could see the news propagated instantly in all the possible languages of peoples and of modernity.
Benedict XVI has been inviting us for some time, openly and calmly, to consider the Christian and human reasonableness of such a gesture. But it's one thing to consider an eventuality, quite another to actually have to face the event.
Yet here we are. My hand still trembles as I write, not out of fear, but out of an incredulous yet also an already-comforted pain, and of a strange gratitude in search of comfort.
This latest and extraordinarily humble decision of Pope Benedict - to consign himself at the end of this month to a life of service to God and his brothers through silence, hiddenness, and prayer - completes (as it will gradually become ever clearer) the decision with which Joseph Ratzinger, courageous, already aged servant gifted with limpid and profound language, eight years ago accepted his election to the Chair of Peter, bowing to the will of God and the request of the Church, and presenting himself to all of us as 'a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord'.
And now, in the midst of the Year of Faith, the humility and the grandeur of Peter have been manifested in a carefully matured decision to retire from the scene, in order to pave the way for the election of a new and more vigorous 'servant of the servants of God'.
It is inevitable to turn our thoughts, with similar emotion, to another self-detachment and another great lesson that - it seems just yesterday - were shown in all fullness in the eventually arduous journey and the voice that finally gave out of John Paul II's final years.
Two distinct and complementary faces of evangelical humility have been shown to us in exemplary sequence at the start of the third Christian millennium.
And today, as it was yesterday and always, a 'scandal' and a 'sign' place us before and within an event that touches the spirit of everyone, which marks the history of each of us, which interpellates and prods, in a way that is quite revolutionary, the great community of the Catholic faith, and speaks to every other believer in Jesus of Nazareth.
And so here we are - agitated much more than we would have expected, in these days which have been truly unforeseen. Besieged with questions in a time of harsh challenges and captivating illusions which constitute nagging questions for men of faith and of science.
Here we are, in front of the Cross of Christ, and the teaching of a Pope who has reminded us in the most disarming and engaging ways of our responsibilities and our limitations.
Here we are, with open hands which are not empty. As if something precious had been taken from us and something offered to us in the same gesture.
And perhaps many of us, on this cold day in February in the Year of our Lord 2013, now understand more and better that nothing belongs to us for always, but that if we belong to Him, nothing and no one is taken from us, and everything is given to us.
We are stunned and shaken, yes. And we are extremely moved. The heart will help us to better understand the Pope's decision, and to say to him once again, with trust and hope, 'Thank you'.
Thank you because you have taught us, and will continue to do so with unique intensity and power, the vital link between faith and reason, between the life of men and women in our time and the truth about men and women in all times.
Thank you because once again, Benedict has shown to us who Peter is and how he serves the one Lord.
An epochal gesture
for a turning-point
Benedict XVI's total passion
and total detachment
by Pierangelo Sequeri
Translated from
February 12, 2013
Please be indulgent. For centuries, no theologian has been prepared to comment on the resignation of a Pope. And truth to say, I was totally unprepared for the resignation of this Pope.
His lucid and penetrating mastery of doctrine, his style that is at once so immediate and so un-mediatic, his very sincere exercise of a a ministry of gentleness but of firmness in the faith, had made me so habituated to his spiritual strength, but it also made be unprepared for the greatness of his self-detachment.
But I do sense that the ecclesial passion of his service which now - and rightly so - has been illuminated so sharply, is destined to become an epochal lesson in style for any ministry that involves both power and service in the community of faith.
I will try to muster the words to roughly express what I sense. One is servant, not master, of the Petrine ministry, in the Church and for the Church. And to demonstrate this, it is not necessary for death to occur.
And thus, we, after having received numberless gifts and proofs of his protection of the faith and of his honor, are now witnesses, emotional and stunned, at the gesture of his resignation.
The Christian Joseph Ratzinger, faithful servant of the Church, while still alive, is returning the Petrine ministry to the Church, so that she, by listening to the voice of the Spirit and interpreting the Lord's signs, may assign it to someone who would be the most suitable to instill in her new vigor that will confirm her faith, and be the leader that the Church requires at this time in history.
It is a gesture that is strange to our banal imagination, a sign of responsibility which precedes that detachment from the self that it requires interiorly = in this ministry more than in any other.
But in order to understand this fully, as something beyond just the abnegation of a great spirit, we must understand the lucidity of the action in terms of the present situation of the Church and the world.
This statement from the Pope takes place with respect to a special conjuncture of the faith and the history we are living. Not by chance, Benedict XVI has, with great determination, concentrated the fire of his words in his most recent admonitions on this conjuncture.
He announced his resignation in the full swing of the Year of Faith that he decreed, and after the Bishops' Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization. An epochal gesture to mark a turning-point in the revitalization of the faith. The courageous Pope takes his last step by walking ahead of the Church which must follow him.
How could we possibly see his action with a mere gesture of understanding and perhaps even condescension? Benedict XVI merits - and has earned - infinitely more. The final act of his ministry does honor to the Petrine charism, and must be honored as such. Of course, the very gesture itself has left us staggering and breathless.
But we can also feel that never before have we been exposed like this to the naked faith that the Pope has shown, so that the Church - and the Gospel that has been entrusted to us humans = can make way for new energies and new callings. In order that she may be allowed to demonstrate, in a completely persuasive way, her total passion for the Gospel as well as her total detachment from herself.
From Benedict's gesture, we shall owe - and it will be so for centuries - the Church's rediscovery of this strength that comes from the perfect super-imposition of total passion and total self-detachment.
And what greater thing can a Pope do to convince us to abandon, once and for all, any and all pathetic passions and ambiguous interests that distract us from the Lord's call? We can never forget the way with which he has thrown open for us the doors of a totally disinterested faith to which we must restitute passionate proof of our Christian witness, for the sake of those who have lost sight of the picture.
And we shall have no excuses if, in the face of history, we do not treasure this splendid teaching given us by the voluntary departure of a Pope.