VATICAN CITY – In a rare new interview, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has said his “conscience is clear” about his resignation from the papacy eight years ago, that “there is only one Pope” and that his decision to resign it was “conscious choice” and has nothing to do with “conspiracy theories.”
“It was a painful decision, but I think I did the right thing. My conscience is clear, “Benedict XVI said Corriere della Sera senior correspondent Massimo Franco.
The 45-minute interview, which took place at Benedict’s Mater Ecclesiae residence in the Vatican Gardens on February 28, eight years after his departure from the apostolic palace, covered a variety of topics, including the president of the United States. Joe Biden, about whom Benedict expressed some reservations.
“It is true, he is a Catholic and an observer. And personally he is against abortion, “Benet observed.” But as president, he tends to run in line with the Democratic Party’s line. …. And on gender policy we still don’t really understand which one. it’s their position, ”he said.
Corriere della Sera, however, he gave more prominence to Benet’s views on his resignation, heading the interview “Ratzinger, 8 years ago the resignation – ‘No two popes'”.
“It was a difficult decision,” Benedict XVI recalled. “But I did it with full awareness and I think I did the right thing. Some of my “fanatic” friends are still angry, they didn’t want to accept my choice. “
He noted the “conspiracy theories” that followed his resignation, and said that “some said it was because of the Vatileaks scandal, others because of a gay lobby conspiracy. , others for the case of Lefebvrian’s conservative theologian Richard Williamson. ”
“They don’t want to believe it was a conscious decision, but my conscience is clear,” he said.
“Just a Pope”
The interview also pointed out that only Francis was pope: “The Pope is only one,” said Franco who said Benedict, and noted that the pope emeritus “lightly touched the palm of his hand on the armrest, as if he wanted to give it is the strength of a definitive statement ”.
This issue has considerable frustration for Benedict, who is aware of the heated debates that took place after his election so that he could still somehow be pope. Proponents of these arguments say that these have been partly fueled by Benedict’s own comments, his willingness to retain many external pitfalls of the papacy (leading to calls from Cardinal George Pell and others to establish protocols for retired popes ), and especially for a 2016 Rome speech by his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.
Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, who served as chairman of Benet’s Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, has been one of the main critics of the resignation, lamenting that Benet did not consult his fellow cardinals before making the decision, and that the institution of the pope emeritus “does not exist in the whole history of the Church and in canon law.”
According to Franco, Benet seemed in the interview to want to “exorcise” the “disorientation, surprise and slander” that accompanied his decision to resign.
“The uniqueness of the papacy is obvious to him,” Franco wrote, adding that, in his view, this understanding does not apply “to some sectors of conservative Catholicism that are particularly relentless in their hostility to Francis.” .
This was not the first time Benet had insisted on this point with Franco. He seemed to express similar concerns when the two met in 2019, saying, “The Pope is one, he is Francis,” although it was unclear whether Benedict himself had said it or Franco quoted someone else. This time, however, the words seemed clearer.
This last interview began with a deliberate gesture at the similarities between Pope Francis and Benedict XVI, as Franco described that Benedict’s “Sala Guardini” was shown, so named because it houses, among other things, the complete works of the theologian. twentieth-century German-Italian Guardini, a favorite of both Benedict and Francis.
His mind remains clear
Franco went on to describe Benedict’s physical well-being: his sentences stopped, he wrote: “the voice is a breath, come and go”, and Archbishop Gänswein repeats and “translates” some of the words of the Pope Emeritus “While Benet nods approvingly.”
He added that “Benet’s mind is clear, as fast as the eyes, attentive and alive” with his “slightly long white hair under the white papal cap” and that “from the sleeves sprout two very thin wrists that underline an image of great physical fragility “. He also wears “a watch on his left wrist and on his right a strange device that looks like another watch, but which is actually an alarm ready to fire if something happens to him.”
For Benet, the routines of the day remain “usual,” Franco added, and every day he reads newspapers selected by Vatican offices in addition to L’Osservatore Romano, Corriere della Sera and “two German newspapers.” Politics is “often discussed” at the table with the Memores Domini, consecrated lay people who have attended Benedict for a long time, also when he was in the apostolic palace.
Turning to other issues discussed, Franco said the Pope Emeritus hoped that Mario Draghi, sworn in as Italian technocratic prime minister on February 13, would “succeed in resolving the crisis” that is paralyzing the country after COVID, and went add that he is a “Man who is also much appreciated in Germany.”
Regarding the virus, for which Benet was vaccinated, he recalled how Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy, recovered from COVID after a long battle, but that he had received news from the cardinal, that ” it’s much better now. ”
Iraq: “A Dangerous Journey”
But when the issue referred to Francis’ visit to Iraq from March 5 to 8, “Benedict’s expression becomes serious, worried,” Franco wrote. Benet said that he thought it was “a very important journey”, but that “unfortunately it comes at a very difficult time, which also makes it a dangerous journey: for security reasons and for COVID. And then there is the unstable situation. “I will accompany Francis with my prayers,” he said.
Franco noted that Vatican police officers and members of the Swiss guard are already in Iraq making preparations and that Italian intelligence agents have also been present “for weeks, but it is not of course with whom they collaborate “.
The interview ended with Franco describing how Benedict presented Franco and his editor with a souvenir of the interview: a commemorative medal and a marker with a photo of him giving a blessing, both from when he was Pope. “Once again, the paradox emerges,” Franco wrote, “not only his own, but that of a Church involuntarily immersed in the inextricable intertwining of two papal identities.”
When he left Benet’s residence, Franco wrote that when Benet “repeats in a veiled voice” there is only one Pope, “he is sure to address” fans “who are not satisfied.
“He is speaking to reassure Francesc’s followers who fear the intellectual shadow of this age-weakened old theologian,” Franco concluded. “But perhaps, after eight years and with his inner voice, the Pope Emeritus subconsciously whispers to himself as well.”