ROME – Pope Francis has been the head of the Catholic Church for almost 10 years, but he has only been the only pope in the Vatican since Saturday.
The death of Pope Benedict XVI. retired after a decade has completed an extraordinary arrangement that helped define the current pontificate. While Pope Francis has already taken a markedly different path than his predecessor, he may feel even freer to do so now.
Benedict’s presence in smiling and mostly silent obedience to his successor was, for many conservatives, a reassuring sign of continuity in church leadership and thus support for Pope Francis. But that made Benedict’s occasional public statements all the more influential, particularly when they hinted at a departure from the current Pope’s approach to matters such as clerical sexual abuse and interfaith dialogue. Pope Francis, emphasizing his esteem for his predecessor, had an interest in avoiding explicit disagreements.
Pope Benedict XVI, Left, has consistently refrained from publicly criticizing his successor, Pope Francis.
Photo: L’Osservatore Romano/Associated Press
According to Cardinal Joseph Zen, a former bishop of Hong Kong who has criticized the current pope’s rapprochement with China, Benedict has had a reluctant influence on Pope Francis on more than one occasion. In particular, he cites Pope Francis’ decision in 2020 not to make priestly ordination easier for married men, after Benedict defended the tradition of clerical celibacy in his contribution to a book on the subject.
“Someone said that after his resignation, Pope Benedict should have kept quiet and not caused confusion in the Church. Rather the opposite seems to me: precisely because there is confusion in the Church, a pope emeritus, like every bishop and cardinal, as long as he is strong and sane, must carry out his duty as successor of the apostles to defend the healthy tradition of the church ‘ Cardinal Zen wrote on his personal website on Tuesday. “At crucial moments, even Pope Francis accepted this contribution of his predecessor when defending the priestly celibacy of the Roman Church.”
Pope Francis is also now freer to create a protocol for retired popes to make it clearer that there is only one pope at a time, according to Rev. Thomas Reese, author of Inside the Vatican. Critics from left and right have said clearer rules are needed to avoid confusion over church leadership.
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“He couldn’t do it while Benedict was alive because it would have been seen as criticism of Benedict and demeaning if the retired Pope had been told to stop wearing white, not to call himself Pope and go back to his baptismal name.” ‘ said Father Reese.
Benedict consistently refrained from publicly criticizing his successor, which may have exerted a reticent influence on some of his conservative supporters that has now been reversed with his death.
One of the late Pope’s closest confidants has already confirmed that Benedict privately disapproved of Pope Francis’ 2021 decision to restrict the use of the traditional Latin Mass, largely reversing Benedict’s lifting of restrictions in 2007.
“It hit him pretty hard. Pope Benedict read [Francis’ decree] with pain in his heart because he wanted to bring inner peace to those who simply found a home in the old Mass,” Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedikt’s private secretary, told a website close to the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost in an The interview was aired on released on Saturday, the anniversary of the retired pope’s death, although it was recorded months earlier.
Though Benedict is gone, he could still challenge Pope Francis and his allies in the realm of ideas. Benedict’s death and associated commemorations could prompt renewed public interest in his teachings, some of which are clearly at odds with those of Pope Francis, said Sandro Magister, who writes about the Vatican for Italian magazine L’Espresso.
People gathered in Vatican City to mourn the death of Pope Benedict XVI. The body of the late pope will be laid out in St. Peter’s Basilica until Thursday, when Pope Francis will preside over his funeral. Photo: Vatican Media/Shutterstock
“Francis cannot rid himself of the legacy of his predecessor, even though his predecessor is now dead, because that legacy lives on as long as his heirs know how to interpret and apply it,” said Mr. Magister.
Benedict advocated fighting what he called a contemporary “dictatorship of relativism.” His emphasis on moral absolutes and defined truths stands in sharp contrast to much of Pope Francis’ agenda, including his greater leniency on homosexuality, contraception and divorce, Magister says.
Benedict’s ideas have had a major impact on Catholic conservatives in the United States, and especially on younger clergy there.
Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, a leading progressive ally of Pope Francis among U.S. bishops, recently said that concerns about relativism, which reflect the influence of Benedict’s thinking, explain why a 2021 poll found that Half of younger American priests disapproved of Pope Francis, who is more willing than Benedict to allow gray areas on contentious issues.
Write to Francis X. Rocca at [email protected]
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