In this manner [my] pontificate is being devalued and fused into a sadness about the situation (pontificate?) of the Church today.
THIS IS ONE SHARP POPE!
UPDATE: Sept. 21: Here below are the full texts of the two letters Benedict XVI sent to Cardinal Brandmüller, on Nov 9, and Nov. 23, 2017 (Register translations).
His Eminence
Most Reverend
Cardinal Walter Brandmüller
President Emeritus of the Pontifical Historical Commission
Palazzo della Canonica
00120 Vatican City
Vatican City, 9 November 2017
Your Eminence,
In your recent interview with the FAZ [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung] you say that I created, with the construction of the Pope Emeritus, a figure that does not exist in the entirety of Church history. Of course, you know very well that popes have retired, even if very rarely. What were they afterwards? Pope Emeritus? Or what instead?
As you know, Pius XII left instructions in case of being captured by the Nazis: that from the moment of his capture he would no longer be Pope but a Cardinal again. Whether this simple return to the Cardinalate would have been in fact possible, we do not know. In my case it surely would not have made sense simply to claim a return to the Cardinalate. I then would have constantly been exposed to the public in the way a Cardinal is – indeed, even more so, because in that Cardinal one would have seen the former Pope. This could have led, intentionally or unintentionally, to difficult consequences, particularly in the context of the present situation.
With the Papa Emeritus I have tried to create a situation in which I am absolutely inaccessible to the media and in which it is completely clear that there is only one Pope. If you know of a better way and thus believe that you may condemn the one I have chosen, please tell me about it.
I greet you in the Lord
Your Benedict XVI
***
His Eminence
Most Reverend Cardinal Walter BrandmüllerPresident Emeritus of the Pontifical Historical Commission
Palazzo della Canonica
00120 Vatican City
Vatican City, 23 November 2017
Your Eminence,
From your kind letter of November 15th I assume I may conclude that in the future you no longer want to comment publicly on the question of my resignation, and for this I thank you.
The deep-seated pain that the end of my pontificate has caused in you, as in many others, I can understand very well. But the pain in some — and it seems to me also in you — has turned into anger, which no longer regards only the resignation, but increasingly is expanding to my person and to my pontificate as a whole. In this manner [my] pontificate is being devalued and fused into a sadness about the situation of the Church today.
From this fusion a new kind of agitation gradually results, for which the little book by Fabrizio Grasso, La rinuncia (Algra Editore, Viagrande/Catania 2017) could become emblematic.
All this fills me with worry and, precisely for that reason, the end of your FAZ interview left me so troubled, because it ultimately cannot but foster the same sort of atmosphere.
Let us pray instead, as you did at the end of your letter, that the Lord may come to the aid of his Church. With my Apostolic blessing I am
Your
Benedict XVI
1 comment:
I was so proud of Pope Benedict, a truly consequential Pope, who liberated the truest expression of the Catholic Faith, the Extraordinary Form. Unfortunately, most of us have to still endure "Brand X" due to petty or immature priests. In stark contrast to them, Father McDonald is truly a man of generous and liberal spirit - addressing the spiritual needs of all Catholics, not just the ones he prefers to satisfy. If I were a priest, I would hope that I had the humility to follow his example.
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