A Retiring Pope?

As the year comes to the end, columnists all over the world sit at their computers and do "thumb-suckers."  This is the pejorative term for a (usually) short piece of reflective writing, which doesn't need much research or shoe-leather reporting.

Recently I've seen two such notes on the internet about Pope Benedict XVI and his leadership.  One regards what seems to be the natural decline in his body's ability to keep up with the demands of the petrine office.  An AP story dated December 17 began, "Pope Benedict XVI seems worn out.  People who have spent time with him recently say they found him weaker than they'd ever seen him, seemingly too tired to engage with what they were saying.  He no longer meets individually with visiting bishops.  A few weeks ago he started using a moving platform to spare him the long walk down St. Peter's Basilica."

As the article goes on to say, the pope is 84, and this slowing down is natural.  I'll bet you that when he marks his 85th birthday next April, there will be many stories on "papabili," that is, Cardinals whose names are being whispered in clerical circles around the world as viable candidates to be the successor to Benedict upon his death.

Slowing down is one thing as a person ages.  By all accounts Pope Benedict is in good health for his age.  The AP piece moves it to another level.  "Decline raises questions about the future of the papacy given that Benedict himself has said popes should resign if they can't do the job."

Recently I was talking with someone who was with the Pennsylvania bishops last month when they made their "ad limina" visit to Rome.  This person confirmed the substance of the AP story.  In personal meetings and photo ops the pope's eyes were bright and focused.  Yet this person could also tell that Benedict had weakened in energy and spirit over the past three or four years.

A different perspective comes from John Allen's blog review of veteran Vaticanologist Marco Politi's new book, Joseph Ratzinger: Crisis of a Papacy.  Politi's core thesis is that Benedict XVI is "a part-time pope."  His passion is focused not on the governance of a world-wide church but on his private theological studies and his own writings.  In this regard, signs clearly point that he sees himself as a "teaching pope" not a "governing pope."

Allen says these are not "the grumblings of someone who just doesn't like what this pope stands for."  Rather the "teaching pope" image is confirmed even by his closest aides and most sympathetic supporters.

And, I might add, he is a teaching pope very much worth reading.  I am struck personally by the lack of cant, or pious boilerplate, in Benedict's sermons and writings which I have read.  He is deeply engaged, as would be a world-class theologian, and fully aware and in conversation with the major themes of contemporary academic, biblical and intellectual discourse.  In particular it's easy to see him as a learned, wise, and popular university lecturer in his first encyclical, Deus caritas est. 

But Politi's book raises issues about the pope's lack of willingness to use the "bully pulpit" of the papacy to affect or direct world events.  He unfavorably compares Papa Ratzinger to his predecessor, Papa Wojtyla, who was a world spokesman for human rights and forceful critic of war, violence, intollerance, and fundamentalism, and whose very presence changed history (see Poland, June 1979).

It is fair to allow that each pope, and each leader in any field, has to make difficult prudential decisions about what he/she chooses to emphasize in using time, power and authority, in light of one's personal talents and the circumstances of the moment.  It is that age-old question, what matters more to history, great men (oops, human beings) or great ideas?  Without a doubt Benedict is on the side of ideas.

And that brings me, at least, to make what may be an unfair comparison with pastoring at the level of the Vicar of Peter with pastoring at the level of diocesan bishop or parish priest.  During the waning years of Pope John Paul II's long papacy, the debilitation of his Parkinson's disease was so evident, despite the protests of the Vatican's spokesman.  I even saw this with my own eyes, fleetingly, as a spectator at a Wednesday audience in St. Peter's square in October 2004, seven months before his death.  There was pain in the pope's face as the popemobile went by our row.  The pope tried so hard to speak a few Latin words of prayer into the microphone.  98% of the spoken Angelus message from the dais was offered by visiting bishops.  John Paul was hunched uncomfortably in his wheel chair, with hovering aides ever ready to wipe his mouth.

I asked myself, how could he be pope?  Who was running the machinery of church governance behind the scenes?  Who was really picking bishops for dioceses?  How could he govern the world-wide Catholic Church?

One part of me saw the courage of a very sick man, doing his very best to carry out his important ministry in the church without complaint.  Yet another part of me judged that in his condition he may be pope, but he could not be the bishop of [name your diocese, large or small] or the pastor of St. Cunegunda Parish.  He could not celebrate the liturgy in his cathedral, administer Confirmation, lead staff meetings, visit other sick persons in the hospital, or attend the myriad of events any pastor is invited to.  With great charity and love such a bishop or priest in his condition would be given the medical care he deserved as a most distinguished cleric and servant of Christ.  He would be allowed the dignified rest and retirement befitting a man of his age and debilitation.  He would remain a bishop/priest to his dying day, but he could not pastor/lead/govern. 

John Paul II taught heroic, saintly perseverance in the face of illness.  But did he fail to teach the virtue of prudence, that to properly and rightly hold a church ministry one had to be capable of accomplishing its many responsibilities with reasonable skill and vigor?  If this is not so, why do bishops and pastors have to submit their resignation letter at age 75?

I don't know where, but I read that once John Paul II was asked about the possibility of resigning the office of the papacy.  His curt reply was that paternity cannot be resigned.  When I read this, I thought of my dad, who was then a lively resident at the Vincentian nursing home.  A massive stroke made dad incontinent and unable to walk.  He no longer was able to work in the steel mill, drive mom to bingo, cut the grass around the house, even write checks.  Yet he never stopped being my father, even though he was a wheel chair's prisoner.  He was a daily communicant, kind conversationalist, and smiling neighbor to all who met him.  I think the pope got it wrong.  Paternity cannot be resigned, but ministry can be, and in certain cases, should be, for the good of the faithful and the church.

I pray for continued good health for Pope Benedict XVI, and that his teaching and governing ministry continues for many years as a most fruitful contribution to the furtherance of the Gospel.  But I also pray that he, or perhaps a future successor, will have the great courage to know when he can no longer do the job, resign the papacy as permitted under canon law, and teach the world about another kind of paschal humility.