THE POPE IS OUT. LONG LIVE THE POPE

Published by "Open Democracy" on February 22, 2013 

The imminent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was announced on February 11, and the choice of dates, as always in matters concerning the Vatican was  certainly not coincidental. February 11 is, in fact, the anniversary of the  1929 Lateran Pacts, which put an end to almost sixty years of the Holy See’s virtual and  largely self imposed diplomatic isolation which had followed the irrevocable 1870 declaration of Rome as the Capital of the  newly emerged Kingdom of Italy.  Any pretense to real temporal power had been lost for ever, but  February 11, 1929 signified the Holy See’s return as a fully recognized actor on the International scene,  deprived though it may have been of some of the more visible  indications of temporal power such as a national territory and a military defense force.

The flurry of comments  following the historic announcement,  include a number of interesting and thoughtful  assessments of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate, and the general evaluation has been preponderantly, in some cases even scathingly, negative, or, at best, critical. The most noticeable in this negative evaluation has been the German press, which, at the time of his nomination had been rather optimistic, at times even lyrically enthusiastic..

At this stage, however, such assessments could well be premature, influenced, as they inevitably are, by the contrast in style, although  much less in substance, between Benedict and his predecessor.

 There are, nonetheless, some fundamental aspects  that need to be examined, considering the historical impact of the decision, an extremely rare event in the history of the Papacy.

It would appear particularly relevant objectively to analyse the  veritable reasons  which induced the Pope to  announce this decision, which, it is said, took even some of his closest aides by surprise. Those who have had the opportunity to meet Benedict in recent weeks have been unanimous in their assessment that he indeed appeared  ailing, weakened and, above all, fatigued,  so that the  motivation given for the decision is certainly to be accepted, also in consideration of the fact that Benedict himself had been  considerably shocked by John Paul’s insistence  of continuing in the fulfillment of his mandate until the very end, in spite of severe health problems. 

It has to be stressed, however that age and ill health, though certainly relevant,  were  not the only factors to induce the Pope’s resignation.

Pope Benedict XVI presented himself, from the outset, as an extremely committed conservative theologian, but never  showed those  leadership traits which are essential in the governance of such an immense and complex empire as the Roman Catholic Church. Although the Pope's powers appear to be absolute – he is perhaps the only remaining absolute monarch in the world – his actions are  strongly limited by the political complexity of the governing body itself, in which  Cardinals of different  nationalities and schools of thought vie in a centuries old ruthless struggle for supremacy and need a strong hand to keep their actions under control. When Benedict took over the Papacy – and this was a  carefully planned election which took no one by surprise - the  evidently growing weakness of his predecessor’s  reign had already given  rise to a strong accentuation of the powers of the Curia. And the new Pope, since the very beginning,  was unable to exercise the  authority required to bring all these factions under control.

Much stress has been put by commentators on the scandals which supposedly weakened Benedict’s Pontificate  ultimately causing it to be considered a failure. It has to be remembered that  scandals,  whether of a financial nature or otherwise,  have riddled the Vatican for many years, and  also the  sex abuse scandals  in reality predate Benedict’s accession to power: it could even be said that he had the courage publicly to admit their existence  and  thus depart from the preceding  policy of  simply sidestepping the issue by  appointing the guilty to  different posts. Scandals alone were certainly not the sole cause  of  the Pope’s apparent  failure, but rather a weakness in leadership and an inability to  appoint  appropriate  people to delicate posts and, above all, to remove others  from positions  of power which they used unabashedly  for their own political agenda.

On the other hand, however, in dramatic contrast to these considerations, it has to be recalled that Pope Benedict found no opposition within the curia in  his determined drive to distance the Church from the Ecumenical  “liberal” directions taken half a century ago by John XXIII on the occasion of the Vatican II Council. This is a difficult task because, according to the doctrine of papal infallibility, (a rather recent addition to Roman Catholic Dogma, proclaimed by Pius IX at the Vatican I Council in the eighteen sixties), a Pope cannot be  accused of having erred, and corrections to directions taken by a Pontiff  can take many decades. The very short Pontificate of John Paul I – slightly over a month long – was the last to be held by a Pope publicly committed to the respect of the dictates of the Vatican II Council, and the Church, since the election of John Paul II, has been constantly distancing itself from Vatican II. The idea, of course, is to lay the blame not on Pope John XXIII, by definition blameless, but on those, both within and outside the Catholic world who have constantly, often willfully  misinterpreted the meaning of the event which needs to be shown as a moment  consecrated to continuity rather than  rupture.

There is an understandable tendency to concentrate attention on statements made by public figures on  important, formal occasions, but Vaticanists know that  Popes sometimes use more obscure or modest instances to enunciate  important principles. In a homily recently delivered to  an audience of humble Parish Priests, the Pope  very firmly reiterated  his belief that  the “misinterpretations” of  the Vatican II results  have to be corrected, and it is safe to  say that this will be the more probable direction taken by the future pontificate.

Speculation abounds on the possibility that, for the first time in its history, the Conclave will elect a non European – even an African or an Asian – Pope. This is actually a matter of very relative importance and, should the Conclave so decide, it would be more  with a view of showing the  “universality” of the Church, and  also of  giving vicarious pleasure and pride to  a particular nationality or ethnicity rather than in the  effort to  impart a new direction to the Vatican’s policies. All the Cardinals deemed  possible papal candidates, be they African, Asian or from the Americas, have spent enough time in the Curia to be thoroughly trained, some would say “Italianised” and  the vast majority of the  present day Cardinals,  no matter what their geographic or ethnic origins, have been chosen by  extremely conservative Popes, precisely with a view of preventing “dangerous” deviations, of the type experienced in 1978.

With the voting  hotly contested as it probably will be there is also the possibility of an outsider, a maverick  unexpected  candidate obtaining the required majority, and thus upsetting the  plans of the mainly Italian led conservative  faction of the Curia. This is, of course, possible, but extremely unlikely,  and the winner will most probably be if not Italian, at least a man of the Curia, well versed in what his duties will be expected to be.

Carlo Ungaro