March 28,  2012                      Daily Blog                  John W                   Previous 2012 blogs

Why Pope Benedict should retire soon

Dear Friends

For all of my school days,  Archbishop James Duhig (1873 - 1965) was bishop of Brisbane.
When he became a bishop in 1905, he was the youngest bishop in the Church.
When he died in 1965 at the age of 91, he was the longest serving bishop in the Church 

During his latter years,
it was a saying in the archdiocese that his faculties had declined to a point
where his housekeeper was running the diocese!

I remember serving Mass for him several times when he visited my school, Iona College at Wynnum.
His water-works were giving him great trouble,
and he was constantly, loudly, passing wind,
making it difficult for his servers to keep a straight face

He was a great friend of Iona, having given the property to the Oblates
(...eventually....after many, many reminders and pleas to hand over the deeds).
In the school's first year, he often visited Iona.
As he was leaving, he would never forget to give the priests a five pound note
with the solemn instruction "Now fathers, buy the boys an ice cream"

After which the cash strapped priests would spend the next few days
...blessing..(?) his grace's generosity as they tried to find enough money
to pay for all the ice creams (..five pounds nowhere near enough...)

(An aside: In 1997 when I was pastor of Lantau Island in Hong Kong,
Bishop (now Cardinal) John Tong and Bishop (now Cardinal) Joseph Zhen
paid a pastoral visit to the parish. 
I drove them to one of the various Mass centres,
a centre based at a small Catholic school. 
As we left that school,
I innocently told them the story of Archbishop Duhig's ice cream visits to Iona.
The two bishops immediately and most generously each took out HK$500
and gave me the solemn instruction "Now father, buy the children an ice cream"!
(and $1,000 was more than enough!)

Archbishop Duhig was a towering figure,
but he went on too long
and became a tottering figure

This was the problem with Pope John Paul II.
And now it's the problem of Pope Benedict XVI

I once asked a senior USA priest in Hong Kong
"Do you think John Paul will pay one last visit to America?"

To which he replied
"I hope not.  Up close TV pictures of him dribbling from the mouth
are not what the Church needs"

We now know that in John Paul's final years,
if not for a large part of his papacy,
most of his time and aging energy was spent on preparing for his next trip,
as well as recovering from and doing follow-up jobs related to his last trip.
Which meant that the Vatican was run by the Curia, especially Cardinal Ratzinger

And now history is repeating itself.
More than one report has mentioned how Pope Benedict
is having trouble staying focused at meetings
....and the Vatican is being run by Cardinals Levada, Bertone and Co.

Vatican II initiated the rule that bishops and priests must offer their retirement at 75.
Maybe they didn't pass the same rule for popes because only the pope could do that
....and maybe for historical reasons Paul VI and John Paul II couldn't bring themselves to retire 
(although John Paul actually thought about it, as has Benedict,  according to reports)

Benedict will soon be 85...and then?...86?...87?....90?
Many people are still mentally active (at least for part of the day!) at 85 plus.
But it's unreasonable to expect an 85 plus year old to be always on the ball,
to know what's going on around him and around the world,
not to have faculty impairment issues,
not have public wind passing times,
not to have dribble and food remnants causing him to lose face

For his own sake, and for the sake of the Church,
Benedict should retire very, very soon,
... and just before he does,
as a gift of humility to his beloved successor,
pass a "Pope shall retire at 75" law!

p.s. Dribbling clerics

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Thank you for a prayer

God bless!

John W