Those who hate Pope Benedict and his cogent brilliance and theology want the emeritus pope to die or just shut up.
Cardinal Mueller states that emeritus bishops are still a part of the college of bishops and can teach according to their indelible mark on their soul given at their Episcopal Ordination.
The term pope is a familiar term for the pontiff, which is an error in translation into English of the Italian word which is Papa. Papa means father. It is not a formal title but informal.
The word Pope in English has earned a formal name for the pope which it isn’t. One of the formal titles for “il Papa” is The Bishop of Rome. Pope Emeritus Benedict has the right to the familiar name of papa and also the formal title of Bishop Emeritus of Rome, just as Bishop J. Kevin Boland of my diocese is Bishop Emeritus J. Kevin Boland. We can still call him, Most Reverend Father, though.
3 comments:
Both concerns are true. Pope Benedict should be careful to not throw shade on Pope Francis, and Pope Francis would be foolish to not confer frequently with Pope Benedict. Pope Francis is energetic and passionate but needs the intellectual support of a mind like Pope Benedict. Likewise, Pope Benedict might still be Pope if he had enlisted a draconian such as Pope Francis to handle his enemies.
A common misquotation from Romeo and Juliet. It should read: 'That which we call a rose/By any other word would smell as sweet.'
Bee here:
Absolutely, Father. In fact, I really wondered what all the fuss was about, and soon realized many people in our Church are really more political actors than ones religious or spiritual concerns.
I have not read the book, but saw an excerpt, and it seems the most benign and beautiful exposition on the charism of celibacy, not at all a political argument or attack on those who want to remove celibacy as a requirement of the priesthood.
And I thought all the hostile reaction seen across the internet by progressives in the Church seems to mirror the kind of volatile and ugly rhetoric we often see in governmental politics, including acting as if the former Pope should stay out of Church matters! Oh my! It's like saying the author of the Book of Revelation should mind his own business and stop trying to put his two cents in on what is happening in the seven churches of Asia.
Thank you, Fr. McD, for pointing out that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did not give up his priesthood just because he retired.
God bless.
Bee
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