Gulf Pine Catholic
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February 27, 2015
17
Pope Benedict has no regret, doubt about
decision to retire, aide says
BY CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Retired
Pope Benedict XVI has never doubted or
regretted his decision to resign, knowing
it was the right thing to do for the good
of the church, said Archbishop Georg
Ganswein, prefect of the papal house-
hold and personal secretary to the retired
pope.
“The church needs a strong helms-
man,” and Pope Benedict was keenly
aware of his own waning strength while
faced with such a demanding ministry,
the archbishop said in an interview pub-
lished Feb. 12 in the Italian daily
Corriere della Sera
.
Two years after Pope Benedict’s his-
toric announcement Feb. 11 to step down
as supreme pontiff, Archbishop
Ganswein said the retired pope “is con-
vinced that the decision he made and
announced was the right one. He has no
doubt.”
“He is very serene and certain in this:
His decision was necessary and made ‘after having
repeatedly examined my conscience before God,’” he
said, citing words from the pope’s Feb. 11, 2013,
announcement.
Pope Benedict had told a stunned audience of cardi-
nals assembled for an ordinary public consistory that “I
have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an
advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exer-
cise of the Petrine ministry.”
Archbishop Ganswein said in the interview that
Pope Benedict was aware of his “duty not to look out
for his own self but for the good of the church.”
The pope spelled out the precise reasons for his
decision, the archbishop said, and “all the other consid-
erations and hypotheses are wrong,” including assump-
tions that the pope’s resignation was not valid or had
not been done in full freedom.
“Hypotheses cannot be based on things that are not
true and totally absurd,” Archbishop Ganswein said.
“Benedict himself said he made his decision with free-
dom, without any pressure, and he assured his ‘rever-
ence and obedience’ to the new pope.’”
The archbishop said doubts about the validity of the
resignation and subsequent election of Pope Francis
stem from a lack of understanding of the church.
Also, the option for a pope to resign is explicitly
written in the Code of Canon Law,
which says a pope may step down as
long as the decision is made freely and is
“duly manifested.”
Archbishop Ganswein said Pope
Benedict, who will turn 88 in April, is
still following the prayerful, quiet life he
wanted to dedicate himself to upon his
retirement.
Like his namesake, St. Benedict --
the father of Western monasticism -- the
retired pope “has chosen a monastic life.
He goes out (in public) only when Pope
Francis asks him to; as for the rest, he
does not accept other invitations,” said
the archbishop, who lives with retired
Pope Benedict in a renovated monastery
and has been his personal secretary since
2003.
Archbishop Ganswein told the news-
paper that in addition to the pope’s usual
routine of prayer, reading, keeping up
with correspondence, receiving visitors,
watching the evening news and walking
in the Vatican Gardens, he has been
playing the piano much more often:
“Mozart especially, but also other compositions that
come to mind at the moment; he plays from memory.”
The only health issues, the archbishop said, are
“every now and then his legs give him some problems,
that’s all.” The pope, who has had a pacemaker for
several years and uses a cane, still has an incredibly
sharp mind, the archbishop added.
When asked what Popes Benedict and Francis
might have in common, Archbishop Ganswein said that
while their ways of expression are very different, the
one thing they share is “the substance, the content, the
deposit of faith to be proclaimed, promoted and defend-
ed.”
Retired Pope Benedict XVI greets a cardinal before a consistory at which Pope
Francis created 20 new cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Feb. 14.
CNS
photo/Paul Haring
Liturgies need to help people experience awe, mystery of God, pope says
BY CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The liturgy should help
the faithful enter into God’s mystery and to experience
the wonder of encountering Christ, Pope Francis told
priests of the Diocese of Rome.
People should feel the wonder and allure “that the
apostles felt when they were called, invited. It attracts
-- wonder attracts -- and it lets you reflect,” the pope
said during an annual Lenten meeting with Rome pas-
tors in the Paul VI audience hall.
Sitting behind a table and talking off-the-cuff,
glancing occasionally at a few pages of notes in front of
him, the pope led the pastors Feb. 19 in a reflection on
the homily and “ars celebrandi,” the art of celebrating
the liturgy well.
The Vatican press hall mistakenly broadcast via
closed-circuit television the first 15 minutes of the
encounter, which was meant to be closed to the media
at the pope’s request so that he could speak more freely
with his audience, said Passionist Father Ciro
Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman. While the annual
meeting had always been open to news coverage, Pope
Francis has preferred private meetings with local clergy
during his visits to different parishes in Italy, the
spokesman said.
Priests who attended the two-hour meeting said the
pope spent about 40 minutes after his talk with a ques-
tion-and-answer session -- a format used frequently by
St. John Paul II in meetings with priests and seminari-
ans and by Pope Benedict XVI in the beginning of
pontificate.
Pope Francis told the priests that “the homily is a
challenge for priests” and he said he, too, had his own
shortcomings -- pointed out in a reflection he prepared
for a plenary meeting of the Congregation for Divine
Worship and the Sacraments on “ars celebrandi” in
2005.
SEE POPE-PRIESTS, PAGE 18
