As I said on CI back in March....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/10662503/Former-pope-Benedict-denies-he-was-forced-to-resign-in-rare-statement.html "Almost a year to the day since his historic resignation, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has denied that he came under pressure within the Vatican to give up the job.
In a rare public statement, the 86-year-old former pontiff insisted that he had freely taken the decision to become the first Pope since the Middle Ages to resign the seat of St Peter, in a move that shocked the Catholic Church and made headlines around the world.
There was intense speculation that his resignation was prompted by deep dismay over a scandal in which his butler stole confidential Vatican docuмents which were leaked to the press and revealed corruption, nepotism and mud-slinging at the heart of the Holy See.
"There isn't the slightest doubt about the validity of my resignation from the Petrine ministry," Benedict wrote in a letter to La Stampa, an Italian daily, in reply to questions by the newspaper’s Vatican correspondent.
It was on Feb 28 last year that Benedict left the Vatican for the last time as Pope and was flown in a white Italian air force helicopter to Castel Gandolfo, a papal summer residence outside Rome, where he lived for a few months before returning to a life of seclusion inside the tiny city state.
Benedict also addressed an argument put forward recently by a prominent Catholic writer that he had not in fact resigned of his own volition and that he therefore technically remained Pope, meaning that the election of Pope Francis last March was invalid.
Antonio Socci, an Italian journalist and commentator on Catholic issues, suggested recently in Libero, a conservative Italian newspaper, that Benedict was persuaded to resign by a faction of cardinals who were opposed to him.
"The only condition for the validity is the full freedom of the decision. Speculation about its invalidity is simply absurd,” Benedict wrote in his letter.
His unprecedented decision to resign – which he announced in Latin during an obscure Vatican gathering on Feb 11 – pitched the Holy See into unchartered waters.
It raised questions about how the Vatican would deal with a retired Pope, where he would live, how he would be addressed and what he would wear, amid concerns that Benedict could become a sort of shadow Pope and a lightning rod for dissatisfaction with his successor.
In his letter, Benedict defended his decision to continue wearing the white cassock and white skull cap of the papacy, saying that it should not be interpreted as a sign that he wanted to still be regarded as the Pope.
“I continue to wear the white cassock and kept the name Benedict for purely practical reasons. At the moment of my resignation there were no other clothes available.“In any case, I wear the white cassock in a visibly different way to how the Pope wears it. “This is another case of completely unfounded speculations being made,” he wrote.
Benedict has rarely been seen in public since his resignation, but made an exception last Saturday when he turned up in St Peter’s Basilica for a ceremony in which Pope Francis appointed 19 new cardinals, including Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster.
The former Pope joined cardinals clad in vivid scarlet cassocks in the front row of the basilica. He embraced Pope Francis at the start of the ceremony.
Archbishop Nichols said he did not think it was particularly unusual that the Pope Emeritus had attended the ceremony.
“He's doing exactly what he said he would, which is devoting himself to praying for the Church and living a life of prayerful seclusion,” the Archbishop said during a press conference at the Venerable English College in Rome, a 650-year-old seminary for priests from England and Wales, on Monday, two days after he was made a cardinal.
He said he thought Benedict’s public appearances would remain rare but that he would probably take part in a ceremony in April in which two former popes, John Paul II and John XXIII, will be made saints.
Benedict lives in a former convent within the walls of the Vatican, spending his days praying, reading, caring for his pet cats, walking in a small garden and playing the piano.
Earlier this month Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that Benedict’s decision to resign had been "a great act of government that affected the life of the Church".
He said the ex-pontiff “lives discreetly without a public life, but that does not mean his is an isolated life. He really gives an impression of great spiritual serenity."
Commentary:
1) So an interview granted allegedly to reassure the Catholic world about the validity of his resignation (and therefore the legitimacy of Francis' papacy) responds to concerns about Cardinal Ratzinger retaining the white cassock, skull cap, and the name Benedict XVI with, "there were no other clothes available?"
2) As John Lane stated on his website, Rome is a funny place to experience a shortage of clerical attire (what, with Gammarelli's all of 300 yards from the Vatican).
3) And apparently a year later, there are still no black cassocks to be found in the Vatican.
4) John Lane also observed that apparently there are no other names available either!
5) Like him, I never put much stock into the "forced resignation" idea (and am still not sure that I do, but the ineptitude of Cardinal Ratzinger's answer is shocking and curious).
6) More curious than this, per the article, is that the only two times Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope BXVI appears in public since the resignation (i.e., The installation of 19 cardinals; the forthcoming canonization of JPII) are public acts of the Church which only a real Pope could validly execute/promulgate.
7) Perhaps I am reading too much into that last one, but the insufficiency of his answers about the white cassock/skull cap, and the retention of the name Benedict, almost beg the reader to wonder all the more.
8) But even if indulging this line of thought proved to be true, at the end of the day it doesn't get us very far: The immediate relief felt at being able to write off Francis as a fraud and scandal is quickly dashed by recalling that BXVI was just a more conservative modernist, and things would only revert back to him.
Topic: Benedict XVI plans to concelebrate the canonization mass with Francis! (Read 5579 times)