http://portchester.patch.com/blog_posts/pope-benedict
There is nothing traditional about spurning two millennia of custom that requires the successor of Peter to hang around the throne until God calls him home.
And while Pope Benedict’s announced abdication is not unprecedented – Pope Gregory XII quit under intense political pressure in 1415—his departure may be the first prompted by ordinary human frailty.
Facing one’s encroaching infirmities requires courage and wisdom that is not often seen in monarchs, potentates, or popes. Benedict’s decision to lay down the Petrine miter while he still lives may constitute his greatest and most radical contribution to the church.
He has, in a sense, liberated all his successors and other powerful leaders from the excruciating bondage to duty that compels them to endure weakness and pain until their last agonized breath.
He has, indeed, born testimony to a truth many popes, bishops, pastors, rabbis, and imams cannot face: that no one is irreplaceable; that the world will go on without you; that God will find other people and other means to get the job done.
In that sense, Benedict XVI has changed the church and other religious institutions forever. We wouldn’t have expected that kind of change from Joseph Ratzinger, but we will always be in his debt.
For many Protestant ecumenists, including me, Benedict’s extreme act may prompt a reappraisal of his personality and reign.
He is not the soul of ecumenical or interfaith cooperation. He referred to the Roman Catholic Church as the “true” church and declared all others as “deficient.”
Yet he welcomed Orthodox patriarchs, rabbis, and ecumenical activists to the Vatican. Early in his reign, he hosted former World Council of Churches General Secretary Sam Kobia, a Kenyan Methodist, and they clearly enjoyed each other’s company. The resulting photograph prompted Protestants to repeat an old joke: “Who’s the guy up there with Sam?” It was a sign that Benedict can be, if not entirely open minded, then disarmingly polite.
Even so, I must confess, there are things about His Holiness that chill the cockles of my Baptist heart.
He has turned his back on the ordination of women as priests, despite the experience of Protestant churches that women match and often exceed the skills of men as pastors, bishops and primates. And despite the fact that the Holy Spirit continues to call women to pastoral ministries within the Catholic Church and elsewhere.
He supported a church investigation of nuns for straying from church doctrine and seemed indulgent of the ancient old boy network that gives the ultimate power to define doctrine entirely to men.
Too, Benedict has carried the burden of presiding over a church contaminated by the “filth” – his word – of clergy sexual abuse of children. He has apologized to victims for the abuse they suffered, but carries in his heart the memory that as a cardinal, he, too, protected an abusive priest.
No one knows better than Benedict XVI what St. Paul said about sin: everyone does it. Everyone falls short of God’s glory.
To his critics, Benedict is a sinner like everyone else, working out his salvation in fear and trembling.
But, like all us sinners, he is also capable of great grace and great wisdom.
And grace is what shines through so brightly in his announcement today.
When your conscience says you have given all you can to the cause to which God has called you, there is no shame in setting your burden down.
May God bless the Pope for sharing that liberating insight with the rest of us sinners.
Thank you for putting up such an honest and yet respectful discussion of Pope Benedict.
ReplyDeleteIn God's Love,
Troy Iuliucci
Indeed. I enjoy such writing & point of view in several articles: Mission From God, this one, & Holy Wormhole. It's nice when a Baptist isn't 'against the Catholic Church. I am a Baptist who hungrily studies history, art, & science. So much of what I see that is beautiful & holy does come from Catholic sources. Only, if I'm using a lot of it, I do identify myself as raised Baptist & non~ or inter~denominational. [avoidance of stigma] [I'm glad your wife is a preacher; for many men won't allow it. I tried to prove to myself that submission to man would certainly work, because the preachers said so. It's not true. If I hadn't become reclusive, I would be an evangelist, perhaps. I prayed that Pope Ratzinger would resign; then straightaway, he did. Thanks for being bold in writing on wormholes, especially in association with Jesus. That's the 2 search terms which led me to your blog. I visited Jesus through a wormhole, from in a dream. He turned back from a large outdoor gate toward me when a voice was heard, "Jesus is there." He came toward me & the group he walked with just waited. He took me hand; & while continuing to hold it, I spoke for about 2 or more minutes in some language I did not understand. He looked like a tall native American with long brown hair & exotic eyes. I became bewildered that it was such an effort to talk & not know what I said. I woke up & went in the other room, where I saw a ghost; & I'm not normally able to see them. I got spooked , ran outside, & came back to the spot a half hour later... nothing. I went to sleep on that part of the floor with my pillow. I don't see how, in the transfiguration, that the appearance of Moses & Elijah symbolically indicates a raising of Jesus above the law & prophets. I think they were there to commune with him; having been summoned or not; & perhaps to assist in the wormhole navigation. Sometimes, I have been led by a guide or 2 myself; usually 1 who is as chauffeur, so as to better relate to that kind of travel, maybe. At other times done by myself; there was once when 2 guides showed up & I refused to go. My gaze was relaxed; fixed on the glass covering a painting or print. A tv was casting dancing reflections onto it an undefined angle. It was that easy. Do the people at CERN know that? William Henry may have told them. LOL
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