Click to ENLARGE. Base news stories from ‘Google News‘.
IF I prayed, this is what I would pray for. That God would take better care of his faithful Catholic clerics — starting with the pope.
Yes, yes — I know all about ‘Free Will’ (or ‘Free Williy‘ as I call it) & how God does not micro-manage.
But, come on. He is said to know all. So, he had to know this was about to happen.
Poor priest. Doing the GLORY of GOD and then this.
And we have the poor, crippled pope. God should be nicer to the pope. He is an old man. Cut him some slack. Don’t make him a cripple. Give him non-stop HICCUPS as was the case with WWII pope Pius XII. I could live with the pope hiccuping as he spoke. Better than seeing him hunched in a wheelchair.
Per then ‘Cardinal Ratzinger‘ their initial connection was a mutual love for music, in particular the piano. They played the piano to each other & together. He referred to her as his muse. Way before he became pope, she moved into his apartment in Rome. It was rationalized as her being his housekeeper. She was, always, way more than that; the muse part closer to the truth. When he became pope she moved to the Papal Apartments and was officially part of the papal household. As started in the (way too brief) Wikipedia entry she even had a post in the crucially important ‘Secretariat of State‘.
She was his collaborator & confidante & has been openly credited as having edited the books he published during their association. She was in essence, the ‘Benedict XVI’ equivalent to “Pius XII’s“, ‘Popessa‘, ‘Pascalina Lehnert’, though their relationship probably wasn’t as long as the 41-years that Lehnert devoted to ‘her pope’.
During Benedict XVI’s papacy, Stampa was adept at keeping a low-profile vis-a-vis the media though she got implicated in the ‘Vatileaks‘ debacle.
She was never mentioned, as far as I know, as being a part of the ex-pope’s household in the converted monastery. She might have been, & it was kept secret.
For a decade or more Benedict had two very close confidantes both living with him — Stampa & his (other) secretary Georg Ganswein. Given that he was male, Ganswein never needed to be kept out of sight. Well it is well known that Georg was with the ex-pope right to the end & played a key role in the funeral. But then there was also these two ladies in black who sat in the front row, alongside Ganswein at the St. Peter’s Mass & at the private ceremony in the crypt. I am sure one of them was Stampa.
Pope Francis (possibly to the surprise of some) is dead right in that a pope can resign BUT the thorny issue has to do with the part that he added claiming: ‘there was nothing wrong‘. That claim is contentious.
Papal resignations, thanks to St. Celestine V (#196, 1294), have been legally permissible since 1294. Celestine, way shrewder than most realize, got this legalized before he opted to resign. But, that was in 1294. [In 1917, papal resignations were CODIFIED within Canon Law. So, there is no doubt or debate that a pope can officially resign/retire/abdicate. Perfectly kosher.]
However, since 1294, only two popes have resigned!
726-years & 71 popes since 1294 & only 2 have resigned/retired.
ONLY 2 out of 71. 2.8%.
That must say SOMETHING.
If it was SO ‘OK’ for popes to resign don’t you think we might have had a few more.
Yes, of course, being Pope is the ultimate job in the world. Prior to Francis saying ‘NO SO’ the pope was the Vicar of Christ (on earth). It doesn’t get better than that. A Pope has total autocratic powers & within the sovereign ‘Vatican City State’ he cannot be held accountable for any of his actions BY ANYONE on earth. So, it is not a job that one would relinquish lightly.
In recent years we have seen at least two popes that hung on to the end despite serious, lingering health issues: Pius XII & John Paul II. The latter is said to have stated or implied that ‘you cannot climb down from the Cross‘.
While resignations are legal they do cause issues — unsettling the flock key among them. Then there is the possibility (some times even real danger) that there could be a schism. It also ‘weakens’ the OFFICE of the papacy — makes it feel more mortal! No longer an office held for life. An office that the holder can renounce & walk away.
So, while Francis is right that a pope can resign, he probably is wrong in saying that there is nothing wrong with it.
