Theologians concerned about newly engaged role of Benedict, pope emeritus – National Catholic Reporter

Vatican Metropolis — When Pope Benedict XVI haunted a assembly of cardinals Feb. 10, 2013, with files he can be renouncing the papacy on the end of that month, he promised that as the ex-pontiff he would retreat from the general public perceive and support the Catholic Church “by a existence dedicated to prayer.”

But by the third anniversary of his resignation, Benedict used to be taking on a extra though-provoking characteristic.

First got here a March 2016 interview with a Belgian theologian that focused on the interrogate of God’s mercy, real as Pope Francis used to be within the course of celebrating an Unprecedented Jubilee Year, also focused on mercy.

In November 2016 got here a book-size interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, where Benedict defended his 2005-13 papacy against criticism. “I create now not glimpse myself as a failure,” he said within the book, titled Final Testomony: In His Be pleased Words. “For eight years I performed my work.”

Now comes a letter blaming the persevering with clergy abuse crisis on the sexual revolution and theological dispositions after the 2nd Vatican Council, weeks after Francis hosted a most important-of-its-style bishops’ summit on abuse that focused as an alternative on the endemic structural components which like abetted conceal-up within the church for decades.

What to create of this model of a pope emeritus who emerges from the shadows unannounced customarily to present his feedback on fresh affairs, and even on components being dealt with by his reigning successor?

Reasonably a pair of noted theologians and church historians are expressing serious peril that Benedict’s quite loads of to get in such public motion undermines Francis and plays into narratives splitting Catholics between two popes, one officially in vitality, and the opposite wielding influence as he writes from a tiny monastery within the Vatican Gardens.

“Benedict told us he used to be going to reside a lifetime of aloof contemplation,” said Christopher Bellitto, a historian who has written extensively on centuries of popes. “He has now not. A ancient pope might well well well moreover neutral gentle now not be publishing or giving interviews.”

Richard Gaillardetz, a theologian who specializes within the church’s structures of authority, known as the precedent being space by Benedict’s most recent letter “troubling.”

The frequent pontiff, said the theologian, is offering “a controversial diagnosis of a pressing pastoral and theological crisis, and a space of concrete pastoral cures.”

“These are actions simplest appropriate for one who actually holds a pastoral location of labor,” said Gaillardetz, a professor at Boston College.

“So now we like got a scenario wherein a ancient pope is offering a parallel pastoral and theological evaluate and a parallel pastoral and theological agenda that can’t support but be considered as an alternative to the divulge pastoral management of the present and simplest bishop of Rome,” he said.

Even the Vatican appears to be like to be to be struggling to place what to create with a ancient pope who wants to get in public debate. As Benedict’s most recent letter appeared on numerous real-wing Catholic web sites overnight April 10, the Holy Leer Press Place of work appeared unprepared, unable even to respond to questions on whether the text used to be real.

In fact it used to be Archbishop Georg Ganswein, Benedict’s non-public secretary, that confirmed for many journalists that the text used to be certainly from the ancient pontiff.

“The institution of the pope emeritus within the age of mass media and of social media might well well well moreover neutral gentle be regulated fastidiously,” said Massimo Faggioli, an Italian church historian and theologian who teaches at Villanova University.

“Right here is one thing that must be done especially in regards to the papal entourage,” he said. “The Vatican is a Renaissance court and it’s advanced ample to manipulate one court without a must contend with a ‘shadow papal court’ — which is what we like got this present day.”

Gaillardetz and Bellitto, a professor of historical previous at Kean University in Unique Jersey, both said Benedict’s plan to continue wearing white after his resignation and to call himself the “pope emeritus,” as an alternative of one more title corresponding to the “emeritus bishop of Rome,” have not helped create obvious that there is simplest one pope at a time.

“These choices like moderately predictably fed deeply troubling ‘two pope’ theories,” said Gaillardetz.

Almost in the present day after the starting up of Benedict’s letter, one Italian journalist pointed to the decent advice the Vatican presents to retired bishops about how to back an eye on their relationships with their reigning diocesan prelates.

“The Bishop Emeritus will watch out to now not intervene in anyway, without prolong or circuitously, within the governance of the diocese,” states Apostolorum Successores, the Congregation for Bishops most recent directory for bishops, released in 2004.

“He’ll want to handbook obvious of each attitude and relationship that might well well well even impress at some roughly parallel authority to that of the diocesan Bishop, with detrimental penalties for the pastoral existence and cohesion of the diocesan community,” it continues.

“The Bishop Emeritus always carries out his job in rotund settlement with the diocesan Bishop and in deference to his authority,” it states. “In this plan all will put clearly that the diocesan Bishop on my own is the high of the diocese, in price for its governance.”

Or, as theologian Natalia Imperatori-Lee place it about Benedict: “It’s most important that he (and, possibly extra importantly these around him) educate a ministry of silence lest it appear that he wants to undermine the fresh, simplest, Bishop of Rome, who’s Francis.”

“To continue to focus on on issues the pope is working vigorously to real within the worldwide, advanced actuality … that’s the church is to support dissent [and] to flirt with schism,” said Imperatori-Lee, a professor at Long island College.

“Let the pope be the pope,” she urged. “And let the pope emeritus pray for him.”

[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]