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There's more than one way to look at this:
“I continue to wear the white cassock and kept the name Benedict for purely practical reasons," he wrote. "At the moment of my resignation there were no other clothes available."
This part is actually really funny, but absurd (disingenuous?). I'm sure that someone could have dug up a nice black cassock for him.
Don't miss the context of tense. "I continue to wear..." is the present tense. "At the moment of my resignation there were..." is the past tense.
The reason HE IS GIVING for having done that in the PAST does not necessarily have anything to do with the the PRESENT situation, that is, why he continues to wear white and by extension, why he continues to keep the name, "Benedict," may logically have nothing to do with why he had done so AT THE TIME of his abdication. -- Oh, oh: it wasn't a resignation unless he was turning over his office to some competitor. Does that mean that Francis was the obvious runner-up all along, the one
to whom Ratzinger RESIGNED?
The fact is, he is the first pope in history to abdicate AND to keep his papal name. Furthermore, as this quote reminds us, he is the first pope in history to
abdicate and to SAY that he "
resigned." The previous popes who abdicated reverted back to their pre-papal names. Add that fact to the mix and you get a different message, IMHO.
I expect that comment was tongue in cheek.
And really, why should he not dress as he does? There is very little precedent for this.
I suppose you could think of it as "tongue-in-cheek," but this should not be a laughing matter, or a time for clever jokes. He is WRITING a response there, not speaking it, and he knows that what is WRITTEN endures, while words spoken "fly."
All that considered, it appears all the more likely that history will look back on this as telling us something that isn't so obvious. For as to what was "available," certainly his erstwhile name, "Joseph Ratzinger" would have been available, that is, unless the word "available" is taken to mean something a bit other than what we may presume it to mean, for example.
"Oh, but he wasn't talking about 'available' in regards to his name but only his wardrobe!" -you might be wont to contend. But look again:
“'I continue to wear the white cassock and kept the name Benedict for purely practical reasons,' he wrote.” What he wrote was that
the reason(s) for having kept the name 'Benedict' and the reason(s) for having kept wearing white are the same reason(s). And of what category are those reasons? They are all practical reasons. But not only practical, but PURELY practical.
How many times in his lifetime has erstwhile Joseph Ratzinger employed the word "
PURELY?" And he is not given to exaggeration. He has always been subtle, understated and resolute, which tends to give power to words which when spoken by others given to hyperbole, seem more like flagrant hyperbole, instead of words with power. When he says "purely," he means "purely," or without any admixture of other things that don't belong. He means the reasons were "practical" to the exclusion of other categories, such as "convenient" or "necessary" or "political" or "environmental" or "theological" or "valid."
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Topic: Benedict XVI (Read 2455 times)