Rachel Alcock-Hodgson looks back on the eight year tenure of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.In an almost unprecedented move, Pope Benedict XVI is to resign from office at the end of the month after an announcement on Monday.
Having been elected at the age of 78 in 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) was one of the oldest new popes in history. He is now the first Pope to resign in 600 years. At the age of 85, he says old age has made it impossible to carry out the job as it needs to be done.
The Pope’s announcement left his cardinals reeling. One of those called to hear the announcement, the Mexican prelate Monsignor Dr Oscar Sánchez, said none of the cardinals had expected it. “The Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it. He just said that he was resigning and that he would be finishing on February 28… The cardinals were just looking at one another. Then the Pope got to his feet, gave his benediction and left. It was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable. Extraordinary. Nobody expected it. Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.”Even the official spokesperson for the Vatican admitted he had been taken by surprise. But the brother of the German-born Pope said the pontiff had been advised by his doctor not to take any more transatlantic trips and had been considering stepping down for months. The BBC’s David Willey in Rome, said that although the news was a shock, the signs had been there to read. The 2013 Easter vigil mass, perhaps the most important liturgy of the year, usually celebrated at midnight, had been scheduled for early evening this year to allow the Pope to retire well before midnight.
In his statement the pontiff said that “in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to steer the ship of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.”
His resignation shows an acknowledgement of the rigours of the job and moreover the “strength of mind and body” required to steer the church through the modern age.
Overshadowed by sexual abuse scandals, Pope Benedict’s papacy has received mixed reactions. He has said that he never wanted to be Pope and as a piano-playing academic, was a direct contrast to the charismatic John Paul II. However, he was not the out-and-out reactionary that he was predicted to be. He oversaw a number of modernisations especially in engagement with the media as the Holy See began to communicate to the world via the Internet and Twitter (the latter sometimes in his beloved Latin – the language he used for his resignation statement).
He did remain theologically conservative throughout his tenure. To a rapidly changing modern Western world, his pronouncements on gay marriage seemed harsh and out of kilter with the changing times. But this was a man who was suspicious of making accommodations to a fickle and individualistic world hell bent on the pursuit of pleasure.
Regarding the question of contraception, he argued that condoms should be used by prostitutes but that they were not an answer to “the evil of HIV infection” and that the “sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalisation of sexuality” where sexuality is no longer an expression of love, “but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves.”
In contrast to John Paul II, he met time and again with victims of sex abuse and took action against some of those who the institutional Church had sheltered for decades. But he lacked the energy and focus for substantial reform of the various Vatican ministries that would have made the actions of bishops and priests transparent and truly accountable – a huge task for any man, let alone an ageing academic.
One of the organisations representing victims of Catholic clergy in Ireland’s notorious orphanages and industrial schools, said the outgoing pontiff had broken his promise to offer justice for the crimes of priests and other members of religious orders. John Kelly, co-founder of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, said: “In our view we were let down in terms of promises of inquiries, reform and most importantly of all the Vatican continuing not to acknowledge that any priest or religious found guilty of child abuse would face the civil authorities and be tried for their crimes in the courts.”
While a resignation in full freedom and properly published is fully within the rights of a Pope, it is extremely rare and has created a furore in the European media. Ezio Mauro, chief editor of Italy’s La Repubblica daily calls the Pope’s shock resignation on health grounds an “eruption of modernity”. The editor of German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Bernd Riegert, calls the Pope’s move “a courageous step, a revolutionary step”. “He has helped himself to freedom, he is setting boundaries. No longer will successors be able to cling onto their office.”
It is unclear who the successor will be, but Benedict’s resignation seems to be a mark of the increasing awareness of the Catholic Church’s need for modernisation.
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