ONE wag on Twitter suggested that Prince Charles would have
tuned in avidly to the rolling news coverage of the shock
resignation of Pope Benedict XVI - and would have phoned the Queen
to ask: "Have you got the telly on, Mother?"
But is the papacy a monarchical vocation? And, if it is, ought
it to be? Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, in the
contrasting manners of their departure, have offered illuminating
answers.
Benedict's resignation, the first for almost 600 years,
highlights how, for centuries, the Church has been wary of papal
resignations. A living ex-pope can present his successor with a big
problem. The old pope stands, however silently, as a potential
rallying point for nostalgic discontent; the new pope may spend
much of his time looking over his shoulder. The modern media age
adds another problem. At the first sign of papal ill-health, an
avalanche of speculation will begin, which could be unnecessarily
unsettling.
None of this explains why Pope John Paul II struggled on in
office for years, despite a courageous fight with Parkinson's
disease, which meant that eventually he was unable to walk or speak
normally. His public bearing of his evident suffering was central
to his theology. The man who had been a fine athlete before
becoming pope had preached much to the world about the intrinsic
dignity of the human person. Each individual, being made in the
image of God, is to be respected simply for their being. In a world
where people are valued for what they do or own, this was a radical
reminder. It was at the core of his insistence on the protection of
the vulnerable - the poor, the sick, the disabled, the unborn, and
those close to death. All have the same intrinsic value and
personal dignity as any one else. To be, not to do, is enough to
define a person.
Preach the gospel always, St Francis of Assisi is supposed to
have said, and, if necessary, use words. John Paul's drawn-out
dying was part of his witness to the world. There was nothing
romantic about it. Suffering is an evil and a trial in itself, he
wrote in Evangelium Vitae, but it can always become a
source of good. Not to comprehend this is to disregard God and
overestimate human autonomy - one of the besetting arrogances of
our age. "Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross," he
wrote elsewhere, "spiritually uniting himself to the cross of
Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed."
But, in doing that, the burden of Pope John Paul II's duties as
pontiff fell on others, much of it on the man who would be his
successor. That may well have been a factor in bringing Benedict to
his decision to resign. A man whose life has been utterly
disciplined, internally and externally, may also have been unable
to reconcile himself to staying in office physically and
symbolically, but abdicating control of the Church.
"I am well aware that this ministry, owing to its essential
spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and
deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering," he told his fellow
cardinals, before adding the key judgement: "However, in today's
world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of
deep relevance for the life of faith . . . both strength of mind
and body are necessary."
Such logic is, as one Italian commentator has put it, "an
eruption of modernity inside the Church". If so, there is a deep
irony that so conservative a pontiff - who restored the Latin mass,
set up an Ordinariate for Anglicans, quashed collegiality and
promoted reactionaries as bishops, and slapped down US nuns, as he
had liberation theologians - should have departed by doing
something so thoroughly modern.
Paul Vallely is associate editor of The
Independent.