Has Ex-Pope Benedict “Lost It”, Some Ask – What’s Up, Doc?

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
January 28, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/has-ex-pope-benedict-lost-it-some-ask-whats-up-doc/

While Pope Francis seems very concerned about “breeding rabbits”, a new controversy has me thinking of Bugs Bunny’s famous question, “What’s Up, Doc?”. Specifically, what is the interrelationship between elderly popes’ mental health and papal infallibility ?

Informed Catholic readers are stirring up a controversy over ex-Pope Benedict’s current mental capacity in comments to an unrelated National Catholic Reporter (NCR) article about a new ban on altar girls here   [National Catholic Reporter]

These NCR comments were triggered by the ex-Pope’s latest re-writing of history, his own on the subject of remarried Catholics and communion, as described in my remarks here Pope Francis vs. Shadow Pope Benedict — Who is Infallible  and at [Commonweal]. This controversy also raises sharply Fr. Hans Kung’s recent warning to Pope Francis here [Huffington Post]  about having a Shadow Pope living at the Vatican, with his ambitious personal “convent mate”,  Archbishop Georg Gänswein, also serving as head of the papal household under Francis.

The single most pernicious ideological obstacle a billion Catholics face, in my view, is modern popes’ unrelenting drive to protect their self interested myth of personal infallibility. This myth overwhelms all contrary historical and scientific evidence and even human decency on so many issues and unnecessarily harms millions of women, children, couples, gay folks, divorced and remarried, et al..

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A sample of these NCR comments follow in italics:

I came to NCR this evening very angry over a story in Commonweal about B16, and I ran it this altar girl insanity! My anger has become visceral rage. Apologizing in advance, I am going to step totally off topic (although “outrage” is a common factor), and rant about B16. 

If not dementia, then it’s FEAR of something. 

When you will no longer allow your younger self to be your younger self, you have taken censorship to an inhuman degree.

I would consider this a form of intellectual self-harm, and say the best thing we can do is pray for his recovery. The sad thing is that he thinks it makes sense to censor Truth for the good of the Church- what kind of ecclesiology is that?

Praying for his recovery? This is not unique to him [ the ex-Pope] in his “dotage”. More importantly is the harm done by intellectual dishonesty spread over many, many years and many, many people who were “faithfully” accepting.

Please click on the above NCR link for many more similar comments.

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Of course, papal infallibility is a “power myth” mainly invented by Pope IX in 1870 in the face of loss of his kingdom, the Papal States, to Italian nationalists under Garibaldi. Subsequent popes have maximized the myth to enhance their power. Will Pope Francis reverse directions?

Papal secrecy and spin preclude us from ever really knowing an aging pope’s mental capacity. Pope John Paul II ruled for years despite major health problems.

In the ex-Pope’s case, there is an alternate possible explanation — unprincipled intellectual pride and jealousy. As early as when his major academic dissertation was rejected at Munich, the ex-pope has shown he will go with whatever wind will advance his career.

The ex-Pope also, in my view, has exhibited considerable resentment living so long in the shadow of his former colleague and superior theologian, Hans Kung. Now Kung and his former assistant, Cardinal Walter Kasper (the ex-Pope’s longtime principal Vatican theological competitor) appear to have Pope Francis’ ear, which must rankle the ex-Pope and his ambitious “convent mate”, Georg.

The German Shepherd has never been shy about barking back or worse. And it surely appears that the German Shepherd has gotten his bark back.

The ex-Pope (who seemingly, in effect, stabbed in the the back many dozens of his former and superior theological colleagues, e.g., Karl Rahner, Hans Kung, JB Metz, Bernard Haering, Charles Curran, Elizabeth Johnson, Margaret Farley, Matthew Fox, Jacques Dupius, Roger Haight, et al. , as the ex-Pope almost obsessively climbed the ecclesiastical ladder), is now back to take on Kasper and Kung again, and even Pope Francis, it appears.

It is time for our ex-bouncer Pope to stop dancing and remove the ex-Pope, and his apparent theological partner, Cardinal Mueller,  from the Vatican campus ballroom, no? Mueller can then concentrate on cleaning up the child abuse mess, as he is supposed to be doing, instead of working on the ex-Pope’s books that few will likely ever read in any event.

If Francis fails to act here, why should others in the hierarchy hesitate to take unending pot shots at Francis’ reform efforts?

Who is really in charge at the Vatican? Pope Francis or the Shadow Pope Benedict? Some days, it is difficult to tell, no?