the torments of Pope Benedict

It may seem absurd to many to describe the death of a painfully frail 95-year-old man as a singularly sad event. But in the case of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. it is important to consider the poignant and disturbing circumstances of his death.

I was in St. Peter’s Square on April 10, 2005 when the loudspeakers blared the words “Josephum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Ratzinger.” That was an electrifying surprise. The Bavarian-born chief thinker of Pope John Paul II was on the list of all candidates, but his reputation as the “Rottweiler” of the old pope made him an outsider candidate. I hadn’t thought for a moment that the cardinals would vote for him.

Spiritual fire of the intellect

Well-informed Catholics knew that Ratzinger was one of the most important theologians in the Church’s 2,000-year history. His argument that sacramental acts transcend the worldliness of time and space sprang from an imagination eternally alive through art and philosophy.

But his mission to renew the church from within through the spiritual revival of sacred traditions was not compatible with a doctrinal change regarding the ecclesiastical role of women or the ecclesiastical inclusion of sexual minorities. Therefore, many liberal Catholics – including those who were uncomfortably aware that Benedict XVI. was the most intellectually gifted pope in centuries – apocalyptic predictions about the coming Rottweiler papacy.

Even among conservative cardinals, there was a consensus that Benedict should have reverted to his original name and dressed in black instead of white.

Benedict did not disappoint them at all. After being forced by Pope John Paul II to play the role of doctrinal enforcer, he decided to rule in office as a minister and scholar. There is no doubt that his passion for the intellectual has hampered his power as Pope.

So Benedict XVI withdrew. returned to his study to write a biography of Jesus of Nazareth, while high-ranking Vatican Curia officials hung about like elder playboys in Dubai, using proceeds from the worldwide collection for sexual services or money laundering.

The pope made no attempt to cover up the machinations of sex offenders within the church, but his disciplinary measures were ineffective. When it became known that retired Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had been a serial abuser of seminarians, he urged him to withdraw into an existence of prayer and then did nothing when “Uncle Ted” ignored him.

The simple beauty of Benedict’s encyclicals, in which he attempted to capture the purifying essence of Christian love, was difficult to reconcile with the debauchery of some of the world’s most influential cardinals, which fueled a spate of media scandal.

Huge shock

During 2012, 85-year-old Benedict decided he no longer had the physical strength to reform the Vatican. On February 11, 2013, he gathered his cardinals and informed them – characteristically in Latin – that he was resigning from the See of Peter.

He was the first pope to resign from office since Celestine V in 1294. The shock was tremendous, especially for Catholic traditionalists. They believed that Benedict XVI. with the lifting of restrictions on the celebration of the ancient Latin Mass in 2007, had healed the wounds caused by the “infantile” worship imposed on them by Vatican II.

Ratzinger had been a theological adviser to the council. He never rejected the emphasis on more accessible and open evangelization, but he detested the “Year Zero” philosophy of progressive Catholics, who seemed to believe that Christianity itself had been reinvented at the Council.

Benedict must have been confident that his successor would develop what he called his “hermeneutics of continuity”. The aim was to reintegrate the Latin Mass and its music into the life of the Church. Reestablishing the balance within Catholicism, he felt, was essential as a corrective to the political and cultural fashions that liberal Catholics were increasingly making as demands after the Council.

But the highly learned Pope miscalculated. He seems to have hoped that the Chair of Peter would be filled by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, a moderate conservative who advocated dialogue with other religions but was staunchly opposed to changes in Catholic teachings on sexual morals. Instead, the cardinals – disgusted by revelations of cocaine orgies and mafia-style bribery within the Vatican – voted for Buenos Aires Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who promised (but never delivered) fundamental changes in church leadership.

The thing with the promise of silence

The new Pope Francis ostentatiously renounced some of the papal whims cultivated by Benedict. There would be no more red shoes, and he simply withdrew their hands from anyone who tried to kiss the ring on his finger. In doing so, he cultivated contact with left-leaning journalists, who readily portrayed him as a modest but charismatic reformer.

Meanwhile, Benedict retired to a monastery on the Vatican grounds. Though no longer Pope, he still wore a modified version of his white cassock and took the extremely confusing title “His Holiness Benedict XVI.” on.

On rare occasions he wrote an essay or book in which he appeared to criticize an innovation such as the abolition of compulsory celibacy for Latin Rite priests, which Francis was calling on the bishops of the world to do. But by and large he kept his promise of silence, and not a single case is known of Benedict openly criticizing Francis. So we can only guess what was on the mind of the former Pope when his successor began to dismantle his legacy.

From the moment he became Pope, Francis has encouraged the Church to discuss sensitive and divisive issues. As a result, the world’s cardinals have been drawn into factional struggles over issues – such as the ordination of women and the blessing of homosexual couples – that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI both spoke of. had assured that they were settled for all time.

Curiously, Pope Francis has always been reluctant to modify the Church’s teachings, although he has suggested to Catholics that the official line could be ignored in practice. However, during the eight years of his pontificate he made a decision that may have been intended to bitterly humiliate his predecessor. In 2021, without warning, Pope Francis issued a partial but arbitrary and strict ban on many celebrations of the traditional Latin Mass.

Muted sadness

Benedict said nothing, just as he remained silent as evidence mounted that his “reformist” successor was shielding personal allies from allegations of sexual abuse. There was nothing he could do without breaking his vow of silence, thereby confirming Catholic conspiracy theorists who believed Benedict never actually resigned.

Of course, Benedict had himself to blame for this rumor. Even among conservative cardinals, there was a consensus that he should have reverted to his original name, Ratzinger, and dressed in black instead of white. The consensus was even greater that Pope Benedict should not have resigned so early. But of course that was wisdom after the fact.

Few expected that Bergoglio, touted as the lead candidate in 2005, would succeed him in 2013, and fewer still could have imagined that Francis’ pontificate would reopen so many of the wounds that Benedict closed in unexpectedly gentle and tactful ways tried to heal. Had Catholic journalists investigated Bergoglio’s oddly troubled relationship with the Church in Argentina, they might have foreseen some of the chaos, but they didn’t.

Mourning the death of Benedict XVI. and the celebration of his pontificate are muted. Many conservative Catholics will be distracted from trying to contain their anger at what they see as the self-pitying folly of his resignation.

In 2005, they witnessed an apparent miracle. The author of a series of intellectual masterpieces that offered Catholics a luminous glimpse of renewed service to God was elected pope. Eight years later, the genius of faith left the See of Peter in a helicopter after being overwhelmed by the responsibilities of his office. And then the Catholic Church drifted apart. Through whose fault?

We can be sure that Joseph Ratzinger asked himself this question many times, perhaps even every day, during his nearly decade-long retirement. What we will never know, however, is how he answered them.

Damien Thompson is a journalist and author. He is co-editor of «The Spectator». He previously worked as Editor-in-Chief of the Catholic Herald and as a religious affairs correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. His contribution appeared on the death of Pope Benedict XVI. in the British online magazine Unherd. – Translated from the English by Andreas Breitenstein.