Posted on 02/13/2013 7:51:59 AM PST by Kaslin
The media, of course, is calling it a resignation. But it not so much a resignation of a political office as it is a renunciation. The 85-year old pontiff’s decision to renounce the power and prestige of the papal office is so unexpected, almost unprecedented, as to take the world by surprise.
Of course, we Americans of all people can understand what thoughts must have coursed through Pope Benedict XVI’s mind as he prayed about this weighty decision. We saw this kind of renunciation with our first president, George Washington. He did not leave the presidency before his second term expired, true, but he renounced all further exercise of power on March 4, 1797. It was then he strode out of the Senate chamber in Philadelphia. He purposely prodded President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, the new nation’s elected leaders and Washington’s own successors, to go before him. He knew the importance of symbolism. King George III had once been George Washington’s bitterest enemy. He said if Washington renounces his power, he truly will be the greatest man in the world. He did. He was.
Pope Benedict XVI knows that however insistent the world is, however menacing its foes are, the Church of Jesus Christ will stand forever. This Pope has not tried to keep up with the times. Or the Times. Too many church bodies today are desperate to be thought modern. Some are indifferent to the lives of the unborn. It’s as if they missed that story about Herod and the Innocents. Or, those synods and conventions that breathlessly ponder whether or not to take the plunge and declare that marriage between persons of the same sex is the new revelation. It’s an insight that the most serious Bible scholars for two thousand years somehow managed to overlook. And we can view with sorrow those religious bodies that solemnly declare that affordable health care for all is so important that it’s worth trammeling freedom of religion in order to mandate it.
In renouncing the power and the glory of the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI is clearly putting the life and mission of the Catholic Church and her 1.2 billion believers above his own earthly being. He knows that the challenges the Church faces—the dictatorship of relativism in the developed countries and the murderous threats of militant Islam in the Bloody Crescent—will demand the vitality of a younger man. Still, no one can doubt the steadfastness of this Pope’s witness.
When he issued his first papal encyclical, the media raced to report it. What would be the Pope’s subject? Ordination of women? Priestly celibacy? The threat to religious belief from a culture increasingly drenched in sensuality? Inquiring minds wanted to know.
Pope Benedict XVI has never marched to the media’s drumbeat. He did not seek to satisfy the agenda of the hour. Instead, the Pope reminded the City and the World what it was in danger of forgetting: God is Love.
As he renounces the papal throne, it’s funny to remember the media caricatures of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger before he was elevated. In the days of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger was often called the Pope’s “enforcer.” In those days, he headed the Vatican’s sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
While critics in the media dubbed Cardinal Ratzinger “God’s Rottweiler,” a none too subtle reference to his German birth, and a hint of ferocity, the real Joseph Ratzinger belied all the press hype. Soft-spoken, mild-mannered, even sweet-tempered, he defied all the stereotypes.
It was his unyielding support for his brother in Christ, Karol Wojtyla, soon to become Pope John Paul II, that brought Cardinal Ratzinger to the attention of the world. Their fraternal collaboration was one of the great partnerships of the modern era.
That brotherhood was itself a testimony to the eternal truth that God is Love. The Bavarian teenager Joseph Ratzinger had been forced into the Hitler Youth. Young Karol Wojtyla, the Polish seminarian, had come within a hair’s breadth of being murdered by that same Nazi regime that slaughtered millions of Poles and Jews.
The fact that Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict the XVI could have overcome national differences to work together for the New Evangelism is a source of hope for all mankind. By unapologetically defending Christian Truth, we work for peace, we advance reconciliation. Now, the scene opens upon a dramatic new vista. Whomever the College of Cardinals chooses in Rome, he and we will live in interesting times.
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI built on an imperishable foundation. Their legacy can inspire all mankind.
I wish some of the fossils in Congress would follow his lead.
God bless him, and God help us.
Bump
I would imagine there’s more to the story. Otherwise all popes would up and resign when they got too tired to carry on, but they don’t. Prayers for BXVI; prayers for the Roman Catholic Church.
Understandably, in a world where the arrogance of "power and prestige" in public office abounds, our human minds are "surprised" when confronted by acts of humility.
Perhaps, this understanding is especially difficult in America where, for decades, as Michael Ledeen observed in 2008, on another subject altogether, as he wrote of the degree to which Americans have been "dumbed down" on some basic ideas underlying our own freedom as a nation:
Ledeen said, "Our educational system has long since banished religion from its texts, and an amazing number of Americans are intellectually unprepared for a discussion in which religion is the central organizing principle."
In the Pope's speech in Germany a few years ago, he observed:
"A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."
To understand the Pope's "resignation," it seems, one may be called upon to examine ideas which have not been part of "the dialogue" of our culture for some time now--ideas derived from ancient writings deemed by so-called "progressives" as out of touch with "the times."
Few students of recent decades may have been provided the opportunity to read the following excerpt from former U. S. Army General and First American President George:
"I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the state over which you preside in his holy protection: that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow-citizens of the United State at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field: and, finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the divine author of our blessed religion: without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can ever hope to he a happy nation." - Circular Letter to the Governors, June 13, 1783
Here.
George Washington, too, "resigned" his office, never seeing that Office as a place of power or prestige, but as one of service.
I think his decision was described honestly in his resignation.
I also used the George Washington analogy when discussing the pope’s decision. With people living longer now, Pope Benedict started a new precedent in which retirement for popes will now become the norm rather than the exception. By walking away, Benedict XVI will now be remembered as a revolutionary pope.
In America now, where arrogant men and women put accumulation of power and their own determined re-election goals ahead of the future liberty of untold millions of present and future generations, one finds no example of such humility and servanthood as was evidenced by that One George Washington called "the divine author of our blessed religion."
Another positive result from Pope Benedict’s resignation is that it would to put an end to the death watch that every pope goes through. Instead, it will be more like the retirement speculation that we have with Supreme Court justices.
Another positive result from Pope Benedict’s resignation is that it would to put an end to the death watch that every pope goes through. Instead, it will be more like the retirement speculation that we have with Supreme Court justices.
Another positive result from Pope Benedict’s resignation is that it would to put an end to the death watch that every pope goes through. Instead, it will be more like the retirement speculation that we have with Supreme Court justices.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.