Local Reaction One of Stunned Surprise

By Bronislaus B. Kush
Telegram & Gazette
February 12, 2013

http://www.telegram.com/article/20130212/NEWS/102129848/1116

Pope Benedict’s announcement Monday at a consistory, or gathering of cardinals considering candidates for the sainthood, caught many area religious authorities and local Vatican watchers by surprise.

“Popes in the modern day just don’t quit so one has to believe that Pope Benedict is pretty sick and that the stresses of the job are really beginning to take a toll on him,” said Mathew N. Schmalz, a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross.

Worcester Bishop Robert J. McManus said he learned of the resignation after turning on the radio for the morning news.

“I was completely stunned,” said the bishop, who was appointed in 2004 as the fifth prelate for the Diocese of Worcester by Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict’s predecessor.

Bishop McManus had been in Rome late last month for the installation of Monsignor Francis Kelly, a Worcester native, as a canon at St. Peter’s Basilica and he had the occasion to meet the pontiff a few days later.

“Of course, he has slowed down tremendously, but at that meeting he was so lively and animated,” said Bishop McManus. “That’s why I’m so surprised by this news.”

He said the chancery will probably receive formal notification of the Pope’s decision from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States.

Bishop McManus said that Monsignor Kelly informed him yesterday that the cardinals attending the consistory were shocked when the pope, speaking in Latin, seemingly off-handedly mentioned that he was resigning.

“The television camera was panning the cardinals and you could apparently just see their faces drop as the Pope announced that he was leaving,” said Bishop McManus.

He said the pope was “brave” and “noble” in recognizing his frailties and his declining ability to serve the billion Catholics around the world.

“It was a great act of humility,” said Bishop McManus. “It must have been very difficult for him to say that he couldn’t carry on.”

Bishop McManus said there can be only one pontiff so there should be no concern about who’s in charge when Pope Benedict steps down.

He expects that Pope Benedict, given his talents and abilities, will remain a public figure but will fade into the shadows of his successor.

Bishop McManus said that Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, will run the day-to-day operations of the Vatican between the time Pope Benedict resigns and until a new Pontiff is chosen.

Francesco Cesareo, the president of Assumption College, said that although the news caught him by surprise, Pope Benedict has said a number of times that a Pontiff should step down if he could not carry out his duties.

For example, he noted that in the book “Light of the World: the Pope, the Church and the Sign of the Times,” Pope Benedict told German journalist Peter Seewald that an enfeebled Pope had “an obligation” to step aside.

Mr. Cesareo said he expects the pope will continue his academic work and that he will continue to write, though he will not allow his future books to be published until after his death.

“With his personality, I think that he will recede into the background and that he will do his best so that he does not overtly influence his successor,” Mr. Cesareo said. “We haven’t experienced the resignation of a pope in the modern world, so we are very well dealing with uncharted waters.”

He said he believes the next pope will be in the mold of his two predecessors, because all the 120 cardinals who are eligible to vote had been appointed by either John Paul II or Benedict XVI.

Mr. Cesareo said the big question is whether the cardinals will chose a new pontiff from developing nations, where the church is seeing great growth, or from a European nation where the last two popes spent considerable time fighting the secularism that they saw rising in the Western world.

“The thing that we can be certain of is that the next pope will have a solid understanding of the universality of the church and that he will be able to work with the bureaucracy in Rome,” he explained.

He said it’s uncertain if the electing conclave will pick a younger or an older candidate.

And he said he doesn’t think an American has a chance at the job, including the popular Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City.

“The American cardinals have the ability to do the job, but I think that there would be a (political) reluctance to choose a successor from a superpower nation,” Mr. Cesareo explained.

Though he may have frequently offered apologies, victims’ advocacy groups said the pope has failed to rectify the harm done to the hundreds of thousands of children who were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests.

The groups said Pope Benedict “kept the culture of secrecy intact” and that he allowed hundreds of bishops who knew of the abuse to remain in their jobs.

“Instead of remedies, he gave us words. Instead of true penitence, he gave us public relations,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks priests accused of sexually abusing individuals. “His failure to enact real change in the church’s handling of sexually abusive priests will be his significant and shameful legacy.”

Ms. Doyle said Pope Benedict could have enacted true reform by forcing the immediate resignation of bishops who did little or nothing to stop predator priests.

She said the pontiff could have decreed that every diocese post on its website the names and assignment histories of accused priests and the allegations against them.

“Benedict’s words rang hollow,” she said.

Ms. Doyle said the pope, when he traveled to the United States in April of 2008, promised that the church would do “whatever possible to help, to assist, to heal” victims.

She said, however, that the pontiff has spoken “as a shocked bystander, as if he had just stumbled upon the abuse crisis.”

Ms. Doyle said Pope Benedict was fully aware of the abuse, since he once headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was one of the Vatican agencies at the center of the crisis.

“Pope Benedict followed the same script church officials have used for years, speaking of abuse in oblique terms and only when forced to do so — ignoring the cover-ups, using past tense, as if to pretend clergy sex crimes and cover-ups are not still happening now,” added Barbara Dorris, a spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She said Pope Benedict still has time to “show true leadership and compassion” to take tangible action to safeguard vulnerable children.

Ms. Dorris urged the College of Cardinals to think about the sexually abused when picking a successor.

“For the church to truly embody the spiritual teachings of Jesus Christ, it must be led by a pontiff who demands transparency, exposes child molesting clerics, punishes wrongdoers and enablers, cooperates with law enforcement and makes true amends to those who were hurt so greatly by Catholic priests, employees, and volunteers,” she said.

Thomas Landy, the director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture at Holy Cross, said Pope Benedict’s decision to step down is a momentous historical event, given that a pontiff hasn’t resigned in about 600 years.

Mr. Landy said he believes that Pope Benedict never really wanted the job and was more comfortable as an academic.

He believes the next pope is likely to be an Italian because many cardinals feel there is a need to get better control of the Roman Curia, the administrative apparatus of the Holy See.

“There’s a feeling that the Curia has run amok, with all sorts of decisions being made without people talking to each other,” he explained. “There’s a belief that a non-Italian pope couldn’t take on the task.”

Mr. Landy believes the conclave to elect the new pope will most likely start the day after the pope’s resignation becomes effective.

“It’s just really about getting the jet tickets in hand,” he said.

Mr. Landy said there’s enough time for the cardinals to reflect on the choices and enough time for candidates to jockey for position.

He thinks the conclave will conclude its work quickly, unless there are deep divisions among the European cardinals.

Meanwhile, Mr. Schmalz, who is director of Holy Cross’ College Honors Program, said the pope’s action reflects his humility and that it shows that the pontiff is not enamored of the pomp and circumstance of the office.

Mr. Schmalz said that the pope will not lobby for a particular successor but added that he could attempt to frame a choice through his homilies or speeches over the next couple of weeks.

“He’s not going to be pressing the flesh for a particular candidate,” said Mr. Schmalz, who believes that Benedict will retire to a monastery to continue “his legacy of writings.”

Mr. Schmalz believes that Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the former archbishop of Quebec who is prefect for the Congregation of Bishops and who heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, might be the next pope.

“He’s a long shot but he’s theologically in tune with the last two popes and he has administrative ability,” explained Mr. Schmalz. “He’s also a major point person at the Vatican when it comes to the sexual abuse crisis.”

Contact: bkush@telegram.com