Planned resignations, a “timed” papacy with a withdrawal at eighty years of age: the words of the Pope during the Occurrentes meeting bring two years of assumptions and speculations to an end.
The “secret” as he called it, shared Sunday, May 29 by Pope Francis with the youth of Scholas Occurrentes, is clear and unequivocal. These are his words in response to the question as to whether he had ever thought about leaving because of the enormous responsibility: “I have never thought about leaving because of the responsibility. But I will let you in on a secret. I never thought that I would be chosen. It was a surprise but from that moment God has given me a peace that has remained to this day. This is the grace that I receive. On the other hand, I am by nature a little reckless and so I keep going.” These are words that in some way bring an end to speculation about a possible resignation at eighty years of age, which for Pope Francis would be this December.
During the last century all the popes considered resignation
The possibility of resignation was taken into account by all the popes of the last century, beginning with Pius XI. Until Paul VI, such a possibility remained confined as a secret or a thought entrusted to the confessor or to close associates. With Pope Montini, after the introduction of the age limit of 75 for bishops and the decline of the possibility of entering the conclave for cardinals over 80, the question arose once again. Certainly the Pope from Brescia had thought of giving up the papacy at 80 years of age, but was ultimately dissuaded. With John Paul II, the problem arose because of the crippling illness that increasingly limited him, Parkinson’s disease. That is, until John Paul II sent word that he would not leave, that he would not “come down from the cross”, leaving the responsibility to God to lift the burden from his shoulders. His successor Joseph Ratzinger, who was well-acquainted with the situation of the Roman Curia in the last years of the Wojtyla pontificate, those of the disease, probably thought about the possibility of resignation from the moment he accepted the papacy at the age of 78.
Ratzinger’s courage
That Benedict XVI did not want to repeat what happened with his predecessor was apparent to everyone in November 2010, with the publication of the book-interview edited by Peter Seewald, “Light of the World”, in which Ratzinger stated: “When a Pope comes to the clear awareness of not being able to physically, mentally and spiritually carry out the task entrusted to him, then he has the right, and in some circumstances even the duty, to resign.” In February 2013, with his clamorous decision, he fulfilled this conviction. Never, in two millennia of Church history, had a Pope left his post because he felt physically inadequate to support the weight of the pontificate. A brave gesture, which raised many eyebrows even among the cardinals who were considered more “Ratzingerian”. One need only think of the reaction of the then-Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, who in a television interview had spoken of the state of uncertainty created by this new situation: “There might be people who disagree with a future Pope who could mount a campaign against him to induce him to resign.”
Francis: “Benedict XVI is an example, a tremendous one”
A few months after his election, the successor to Benedict XVI spoke of that gesture. Francis, in a dialogue with journalists on the return flight from Rio de Janeiro in July 2013, said of his predecessor: “Even when he resigned, he was for me an example ... a tremendous one! A great man. A great man does this. A man of God and a man of prayer.” In the spring of 2014, returning from the trip to the Holy Land, Pope Francis was more explicit about this, responding to a reporter’s question on the hypothesis of resignation: “I will do what the Lord wants as I seek do his will. Benedict XVI had no more strength, and honestly, being the man of faith and humility that he is, he made this decision. Seventy years ago the bishops emeriti did not exist. What will happen with the Popes emeriti? We have to look at Benedict XVI as an institution, he has opened a door, that of the Popes emeriti. The door is open. Will there be others or not? God only knows. I believe that a bishop of Rome, if he feels his strength diminishing, should ask the same questions that Benedict did.”
The door opened by Ratzinger “is institutional, not exceptional”
In August of that same year, after the trip to Korea, Francis answered a new question on the same subject. “I come back to this idea, which perhaps some theologian may not like - I am not a theologian -: I think the Pope Emeritus is not an exception, but after so many centuries, this is the first Emeritus ... Today the bishops emeriti are an institution. I think ‘Pope Emeritus’ is already an institution. Why? Because our life is extended and at a certain age there is no longer the ability to govern well, because the body is tired, your health may be good but there is not the capacity to carry out all the problems of a government like that of Church ... I repeat: perhaps some theologian will tell me that this is not right, but I think of it like this. The centuries to come will say if it is so or not, we will see. You might tell me: ‘And what if you, one day, do not feel like going ahead?’ I would do the same, I would do the same! I would pray a lot, but I would do the same. A door has been opened that is institutional, not exceptional.”
No age limit
That “I would do the same” has allowed more than a few to make assumptions and predictions, as if Pope Francis had spoken of a decision that had already been made. To corroborate these speculations, sometimes fueled by self-interest and fomented by those who hoped that Bergoglio would leave the pontificate, there was an extemporaneous comment made by Francis himself during an interview with Televisa, in March 2015. “I have the feeling that my Pontificate will be short,” said Pope Bergoglio, “four or five years. I do not know, or maybe two or three. Well, two have already passed. It is like a vague sensation. And perhaps it will not be like this. All the same it can happen with the psychology of one who plays and then believes that he will lose so as not to be disillusioned later. And if he wins, he is happy. I do not know what it is, but I feel that the Lord has put me here for something short ... But it is a feeling. This is why I always leave the possibility open.”
In the same interview with the Mexican TV station, the Pontiff had also answered a question about the possibility of a “timed” papacy that would end at the age of eighty. “Also this, it is possible. But this I do not like very much, to establish an age. Because I believe that the papacy is something of a last resort. It is a special grace. For some theologians the papacy is a sacrament, the Germans are very creative with all these things. I do not believe this. It means that there is something special. To say ‘this one is 80 years old’, creates a feeling of an end, of a pontificate that would not do well, that is predictable.” “I,” Francis continued, “do not subscribe to the idea of setting an age limit, but yes I do support the idea of what Benedict did.”
Bergoglio: “I have never thought about leaving”
Thus, as he has already mentioned several times, the “open door” from Pope Ratzinger remains as a possibility in the background, in the case of incapacitating illness, or physical, spiritual, and psychological difficulties that are such as to prevent continuing. But no age limit, no planned resignation, and no decision made. “I have never thought about leaving,” and from the moment of being elected “God has given me a peace that endures to this day.”
