(LifeSiteNews) — A recent contribution by Luisella Scrosati, published on the Italian Catholic outlet La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana on October 31, focuses on Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, a topic that, over a decade since it happened, continues to spark debate – and likely will for years to come.
As canon law scholars know, if a resignation is dubious, as noted by Jesuit canonist Father Francisco Leytam in the late 17th century in his defense of the papacy (Impenetrabilis Pontificiae Dignitatis Clypeus, Romae, 1695, Disceptatio VIII, Sectio VI, § 59, p. 314): “Consequently, the second election will also be dubious, and the second elected pope will be doubtful; there will thus be two doubtful popes: some will adhere to the first, while others will follow the second, resulting in a schism in the Church.” This is precisely the scenario we are witnessing today.
In her article, Scrosati presents a study by two Italian canonists, Professors Geraldina Boni and Manuel Ganarin (see here), in which the scholars analyze the arguments put forth by Carmelite theologian Father Giorgio Maria Faré. On Sunday, October 13, during a lengthy homily, Faré explained why, in his view, Benedict XVI’s resignation was invalid, or even non-existent, and therefore Pope Francis would be an antipope.
It is not my intention to delve into the controversy or provide detailed reflections on the writings of the two eminent canonists. Instead, I will limit myself to discussing two points that particularly struck me.
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The juridical status of a pope
Setting aside the questions about munus/ministerium/officium – on which I agree with the observations of the two scholars – it seems to me that one weak point in their rebuttal of Faré’s theses relates to the notion of resignation as an actus legitimus or a purely juridical act. The canonists write: “He [Faré] considers that this would not be possible before a “‘pure juridical act’ […] which, because of [its] importance, and in order to avoid possible uncertainties and ambiguities, does not [admit] the presence of accidental elements, which are usually the condition and the term,” otherwise the act itself would also be “non-existent” (p. 5).
Premised on the fact that it seems difficult if not impossible, according to the principles of the general theory of law, that the presence of an accidental element can in itself determine the non-existence of a legal act, thus overwhelming its essential elements, the inapplicability of some codicil provisions to the pope’s acts, resulting from an interpretation of the normative dictate in accordance with the ius divinum, is again not taken into account. Only through a rough investigation, in fact, can it be inferred from the text of can. 189 § 3 CIC that the renunciation should produce an “immediate effect,” since “no provision is made for a possibility of deferment” (p. 5).
But what is not explicitly stated in canon law does not mean that it is implicitly forbidden: efficacy, on the contrary, could legitimately be deferred in time, given that renunciation is an act of government by which one determines only the cessation of the ownership of the apex office of jurisdiction in the Church, not detecting in any way the divine investiture of the office and on the understanding that the papacy does not represent the fourth degree of the sacrament of order.”
On the issue of imposing a time limit, Professor Boni herself has previously addressed this matter in depth. In past years, she promoted a proposal for canon law reform aimed at filling a gap in the Church’s legal system in cases where the Apostolic See is impeded, whether temporarily or permanently and irreversibly (see here).
Boni also advocated for regulating the temporal effects of a resignation, leaving open the possibility of deferring its effects; for clarifying the status of the resigning pope (including titles, retention or loss of cardinalatial dignity, prerogatives, functions, participation in future conclaves or ecumenical councils, attire, residence, etc.); and for avoiding confusion between munus and ministerium. She proposed a legal presumption that the resignation of the Roman Pontiff entails all powers, ministries, duties, rights, privileges, faculties, graces, titles, and insignia – both substantive and honorary – pertaining to the office.”
This proposal by the professor, supported by contributions from various canonists and sparking an interesting doctrinal debate, was dismissed by Pope Francis. He excluded the possibility of regulating the juridical status of a resigning pope during an interview with the Spanish newspaper ABC in December 2022. When asked if he intended to regulate the matter of the emeritus papacy, Francis (here) replied: “I have the feeling that the Holy Spirit has no interest in me dealing with these issues” (El Papa Francisco: «He firmado ya mi renuncia en caso de impedimento médico», December 18, 2022).
He reiterated this position during his apostolic journey to Congo and South Sudan:
It is true that I wrote my resignation letter two months after my election and handed it to Cardinal Bertone. I don’t know where that letter is now. I wrote it in case I ever face health issues preventing me from fully exercising my ministry. However, this does not mean that resigning popes should become a “trend.” Benedict had the courage to do it because he felt unable to continue due to his health. As for me, for now, I have no such plans. I believe the papal ministry is ad vitam. I see no reason why it should not be so. The ministry of great patriarchs has always been lifelong. Historical tradition matters. If we listen to gossip, though, we’d be changing the pope every six months! (A. Spadaro, La Chiesa non è una multinazionale della spiritualità. Francesco con i gesuiti del Congo e del Sud Sudan, La Civiltà Cattolica, 2023, I, quad. 4144, p. 322).
Returning to the arguments of the two canonists, they are indeed interesting, though not new, as similar points have been raised by various authors in recent years.
The silent guest
However, this argument misses the mark by failing to consider the sacred dimension of the Petrine office, which sets it apart from other ecclesiastical offices. In other words, it ignores that the papacy, unlike any other Church office, involves two subjects, one of whom – the one often overlooked – I refer to as “the silent guest.” Who is this guest? The Lord Jesus Christ, the subject systematically omitted from these analyses. Why does Christ matter, and to what extent?
In discussing the papacy, we must begin with the observation that God – or more specifically, Christ – is the efficient cause of the sacraments and of making someone pope. As Cardinal Cajetan wrote (De comparatione auctoritatis Papæ et Concilii cum apologia eiusdem tractatus, cap. XXI, nn. 305-306, in J.V.M. Pollet (a cura di), Scripta theologica, I, Roma 1936, pp. 135-136), the pope’s resignation (or acceptance of election) is not an efficient cause but only a dispositive cause, aligning with Hebrews 5:4: “No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.”
In other words, the one who resigns would be disposed to lose the papal office (by presenting his resignation), while the Lord Jesus Himself would be the one who causes the separation of the man from the office. It is the Lord who is the efficient cause, not the act itself.
In other words, just as the elected individual, upon accepting the Supreme Office, would prepare to receive from Christ the universal, full, and immediate authority over the entire Church, similarly, through renunciation, the Pope would prepare for Christ to withdraw this authority from him. Both the conferral and the withdrawal occur immediately upon the respective acts (acceptance or renunciation) being performed, without any interruption or the possibility of postponing the effects to a future and uncertain event (conditions) or a later or final time (term).
This is analogous to what happens – according to a beautiful image cherished by ancient canon law – in the Eucharistic consecration: “A Pope, as long as assent and faith remain in him, is always Pope; but as soon as he renounces or becomes a heretic, he ceases *ipso facto* to be Pope; just as in the Sacrament, the Body of Christ is present as long as the species of bread remain; but once the species perish, the Body of Christ immediately ceases to be present” (A. Montanari, Dizionario istruttivo per la vita civile, t. I, lett. A, B e C, Verona, 1776, p. 370, nt. 55).
If, therefore, the effect is immediate, ipso facto, with respect to the act performed, it follows that by its very nature, it cannot tolerate the addition of terms, conditions, or modifications.
To see this clearly, one only needs to reflect on the absurdity of an acceptance of the papacy expressed in the following manner: “I accept the election, but this will take effect starting at 10:00 a.m. on such and such a day.” Similarly, consider the absurdity of a declaration of renunciation phrased as: “Dear Lord, I will remain Pope until 8:00 p.m. on a given date X; from 8:01 p.m. on that day, I will no longer be Pope, and You may withdraw the papal authority from me.”
One does not need to be a theologian or canonist to grasp the oddity of such a solution, as it is easy to understand that it would, in effect, subordinate the Lord Jesus to our will and to human conventions (such as time and date), turning Him into a kind of secretary or notary at the service of human whims and conventions. To borrow the words of Psalm 2: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.”
In short, although positive canon law does not explicitly forbid the addition of terms or conditions to either the acceptance of the papacy or its renunciation (the latter being the opposite of the former), it is equally true that the very nature of these acts does not permit the inclusion of such accidental elements.
To be precise, we can identify some indications within positive canon law. In the case of acceptance, these indications are more abundant.
Canon 332 §1 (similarly to Canon 44 of the CCEO) states: “[A] person elected to the supreme pontificate who is marked with episcopal character obtains this power from the moment of acceptance. If the person elected lacks episcopal character, however, he is to be ordained a bishop immediately.”
Thus, both the Latin and Eastern canonical codifications link the conferral of authority to the moment of acceptance.
Canon 178 further adds: “The person elected who has accepted an election which does not need confirmation obtains the office in full right immediately; otherwise, the person acquires only the right to the office.”
General canon law, therefore, clearly shows that upon acceptance, the designated individual immediately obtains the office with full authority.
Particularly incisive and specific to the papacy is Article 88 of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis: “After his acceptance, the person elected, if he has already received episcopal ordination, is immediately Bishop of the Church of Rome, true Pope and Head of the College of Bishops. He thus acquires and can exercise full and supreme power over the universal Church.”
I would like to emphasise the adverb used by the canon legislator: “immediately.” What does it mean? Is there room for the addition of terms or conditions? Would a conditional or time- limited acceptance validly confer the office?
In my humble opinion, no. The categorical nature of the term suggests that the declaration of acceptance cannot be subjected to the addition of incidental elements, since the effect should take place “immediately” and could not be delayed. This clear indication in canon law confirms that both acceptance and resignation fall under the category of actus legitimi.
In an analogous sense, we must think that the effect in the case of resignation is also immediate, as it is a contrarius actus of acceptance. If acceptance immediately grants the designated person the power, similarly, resignation would immediately deprive them of this charism. In other words, if the acceptance of the papacy cannot be conditional or time-limited, why should resignation be? The logic of canon law suggests that adding a condition to the resignation would undermine its juridical and spiritual nature. This direct connection between acceptance and resignation implies that both actions must respect the divine dimension of the papacy.
One confirmation of this is found in § 3 of canon 189, which generally governs acts of resignation from ecclesiastical offices. According to the canonical provision: “to be valid, a resignation, whether it requires acceptance or not, must be made to the authority to whom it pertains to make provision of the office in question.”
Here, too, we have a clear indication of the juridical nature of resignation as a pure act, with the effect being immediate and consequent upon communication made in accordance with the law.
It is significant that the same Boni, in an essay dating back almost ten years, confirmed the inability to attach incidental elements to the act of resignation. Commenting on Ratzinger’s farewell words at the audience on February 27, 2013, and his papal emeritation, she wrote:
We do not believe – we do not want to believe – that Benedict XVI, in his emotional farewell to the people of God, intended to somehow distort the papal institution and adopted a technical language meant to promote a transformation of such magnitude in the canonical order: a language, moreover, as it has been proven, that for this purpose would have been inappropriate, or at least cryptic and ambiguous, far from the certainty of law that such an important act would have required. Always assuming this is admissible, which we do not believe, as the majority of canonists have always held that a resignation of the pope under condition, for example in favour of another or reserving some competences, would not be valid (Due Papi a Roma?, in Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, 2015, no. 33, p. 69).
Let us focus on that “would not be valid a resignation of the pope under condition, for example in favour of another or reserving some competences.”
In fact, there have been very important canon authors who admitted conditional resignation (although they never speak of adding a time limit). Among these, as far as I know, is the Servant of God Father Felice Maria Cappello, who, in his work De Curia Romana juxta Reformationem a Pio X sapientissime inductam, speaking about papal resignation, says:
There is nothing to prevent that the resignation may happen conditionally. In fact, neither divine nor natural law prohibits it. However, many inconveniences could easily arise from a conditional resignation; therefore, the good of the Church absolutely requires that the Pope should not make a conditional resignation to the papal dignity (De Curia Romana etc., vol. II, De Curia Romana “Sede Vacante”, Romae, 1912, p. 7, Quaest. IV).
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Benedict IX and Celestine V
The authoritative canonist then referred to the case of Benedict IX, who, after resigning the papacy, sought to regain it:
Benedict IX seems to have sent a message to the papal authority in 1045 and attempted to regain it in 1047. Whatever the truth of this historical fact, which some authors doubt or explain in a particular way, we can say one thing with certainty: a pope who freely resigns loses all right to it, so that, in order to exercise the papal office again, a new election by the College of Cardinals would be required, and if the resigning pope dares to exercise the papal dignity without a new election, he should certainly be considered an antipope. This is clearly evident from the concept of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and flows from its nature and the ways through which this jurisdiction is usually lost (ibid., pp. 7-8, Quaest. V).
Pope Benedict IX, in fact, renounced the papacy for the first time, then, after regaining the papal throne, he renounced it a second time in exchange for a considerable sum of money paid to his godfather, with the reservation of returning to the papacy a third time with retroactive effect. Benedict IX’s case is a classic example of how a conditional (or time- bound) resignation creates disorder and a crisis of legitimacy, as the unworthy Theophylactus III (his secular name) of the Tusculum counts is considered the legitimate pope the first time, and a probable antipope the other two times.
To avoid doubts about legitimacy, in the historical case of Celestine V, the resignation took immediate effect (the pope, after reading it [aloud], laid down his papal garments, put on the monk’s habit of Peter of Morrone, and sat at the foot of the papal throne).
Also, to avoid uncertainties, Fr. Cappello added that the resignation should be made public with a papal bull or apostolic constitution transmitted to the entire Catholic world (“Nor can the Cardinals proceed to a new election unless the resignation has been publicly declared through a Bull or Constitution sent by the resigning Pope to the entire Catholic world”: ibid., p. 6).
In 2015, therefore, our canonist from the Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna maintained that, according to the majority of canonists, a resignation under condition (and evidently also time-bound) would not be valid. But today, nearly ten years later, is Boni of the same opinion?
Another possible objection to this reconstruction would be that the pope is the supreme human legislator and, therefore, could by his will derogate, even in his personal case, from positive canonical law. This would be in virtue of his plenitudo potestatis, as established in Canon 331.
It is undoubted that he could do so. How could one deny it? However, although it cannot be denied that a pope is the interpreter of divine law and may, by his will, derogate from ordinary canonical norms, it is still beyond his power to innovate in divine law, which can only be done by the Divine Legislator. In short, an interpretation or modification of divine law made by a pope that innovates or changes it would, by its very nature, be invalid and without effect.
Therefore, while the pope may legislate, he can regulate those aspects pertaining to human law, but not those involving the Lord, that is, divine law. He can clarify what is implicit or provide supplementary rules regarding secondary aspects, but he cannot unilaterally change divine law or God’s prerogatives or subject the Lord to his discretionary will by setting times or conditions for the granting or withdrawal of power. The acceptance of the papacy (as well as the resignation), as we have said, is a two-way act, where one of the subjects is the Lord, who, upon acceptance, grants power, or upon resignation, withdraws it.
Therefore, the axiom – to which the two distinguished canonists refer – that what is not explicitly prohibited is permitted, does not seem to apply in cases that affect the nature, essence of the act, which would be distorted and altered, or in cases that touch on God’s prerogatives, binding the Lord to a human accidental element (whether it be a term, condition, or manner).
The resignation, then, cannot be viewed solely from a human legal perspective, but must also respect the sacred and divine dimension, over which the pope has no power to intervene.
Perhaps aware of this difficulty, Pope Francis himself might have let go of the legislative proposal advanced by Professor Boni and her team.
In conclusion, on this first point, it seems clear that an act of resignation cannot contain accidental elements, under penalty of invalidity, similarly to what occurs in sacramental matters, particularly in the case of marriage. Why do we refer to marriage? Because often theology and canon law, to represent the intimate union between the papacy and the Church, have made use of the analogy of marriage, implying that the pope, in a certain sense, marries the Church when accepting the supreme office, and separates from her through resignation.
It is significant to note that, in the case of marriage, for example, the canon law legislator does not explicitly prohibit the imposition of a term, so following the logic that what is not prohibited is permitted, should we conclude that it would be possible to impose a beginning or end term for the validity of marriage? Evidently not, because if a term were imposed, the nature of the marriage bond would be frustrated.
The so-called ‘Pope Emeritus’
Let’s move on to the second aspect. It concerns the new position created by Benedict XVI: the so-called “Pope Emeritus.”
The two canonists write:
The excerpt from Violi’s contribution, moreover, allows us to focus attention on a further aspect, relating to the juridical status of “pope emeritus,” which, although it is “absolutely unprecedented in the history of the Church” (p. 9), has been distinguished by certain similarities with the condition of the bishop emeritus who governed the diocese until the communication of the acceptance of the renunciation presented once he had reached 75 years of age (cf. can. 185 and 402 § 1 CIC). In both cases, in fact, the pope and the renouncing bishop no longer retain the power of jurisdiction over the universal and particular Church respectively, but the power of order remains, that is, “the grace and sacramental character of the episcopate, on which rest properly possible tasks and missions peculiar to [them] still reliable” (Congregation for Bishops, The Bishop Emeritus, cit., p. 4; cf. extensively Geraldina Boni, Above a Renunciation. Benedict XVI’s Decision and the Law, cit., passim).
And Benedict XVI reiterated this unchangeable arrangement when he specified that the institution of the “emeritus” would avert a diarchy at the top of the Church: since “the word ‘emeritus’ indicated not the incumbent holder of a certain bishopric, but the former bishop who continued to have a special relationship with his former see” (Peter Seewald, Benedict XVI. A Life, cit, p. 1205), a peculiar bond by virtue of the munus received with episcopal consecration which, imprinted with an indelible character, would not cease with the renunciation of the Petrine office.
Commenting on the study of lawyer Estefanía Acosta, as cited by Father Giorgio M. Faré, according to whom “the pope could in no way, given the similarities between the canonical status of ‘bishop emeritus’ and that of ‘pope emeritus,’ renounce the office of Roman pontiff;” while retaining the munus, they conclude that “all this does not correspond to the consistent and cohesive tradition of the Church as well as the actual intentions of Joseph Ratzinger, who wanted to leave the throne of Peter, paving the way for the election of his successor, while retaining, like his brethren in the episcopate, the munus deriving from the third degree of the sacrament of order” (ibid.).
For the two canonists, this perspective helps us understand the words of Pope Benedict during the audience of February 27, 2013, when, although he used a “language that is not legally unimpeachable,” he had in some way foreshadowed “the characteristic features of the status of ‘pope emeritus,’ into which he would ‘enter’ the following day, implying the loss of the office of Roman pontiff and the preservation of a bond of a spiritual nature, in hiddenness and prayer, with the See of Rome and thus with the universal Church” (ibid.).
I must honestly say that the argument of the two canonists left me rather perplexed. Although the sacramental nature of the papal office is not explicitly mentioned, it is implicitly suggested through the parallel with the figure of the emeritus bishop: “In both cases, in fact, the pope and the renouncing bishop no longer retain the power of jurisdiction over the universal and particular Church respectively, but the power of order remains, that is, “the grace and sacramental character of the episcopate, on which rest properly possible tasks and missions peculiar to [them] still reliable.”
Certainly, a resigning pope retains the power of orders, and certainly does not return to the lay state, remaining a priest and bishop. However, the papacy does not belong to the power of orders; it is an ecclesiastical office, not a sacrament, and with the resignation, no legal or sacramental link remains with the Petrine office.
The thesis regarding the sacramentality of the papacy is upheld by a minority current in canon law, to which Cardinal Ghirlanda, a trusted canonist of Pope Francis and Emeritus Professor of Canon Law at Pontifical Gregorian University, belongs. He argues that “in the event that the pope ceases from his office not due to death, he would never lose such power, as it is conferred by a sacramental act that involves an indelible character” (G. Ghirlanda, Cessazione dall’ufficio di Romano Pontefice, in La Civiltà Cattolica, 2013, I, pp. 459-60).
But this is an untenable thesis.
It seems to us that, probably, Pope Ratzinger followed his “theological frameworks,” with which he distanced himself significantly from the established canon law tradition, as noted, for example, by Professor C. Fantappiè in one of his essays (Riflessioni storico-giuridiche sulla rinuncia papale e le sue conseguenze, in Chiesa e Storia. Rivista dell’Associazione italiana dei professori di Storia della Chiesa, No. 4, 2014, pp. 91-118, particularly pp. 110 et seq.).
He certainly accomplished with the creation ex nihilo of the unprecedented figure of the emeritus papacy, wanting, in the end, to follow, in our humble opinion, the suggestions proposed by his (former) friend Karl Rahner, with whom he shared the founding and direction of the journal Concilium in his youth, from which he later dissociated for academic reasons, founding, with the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, the journal Communio.
Does the papacy imprint an indelible character?
As I explained in the interview I gave to Gaetano Masciullo and included at the end of Federico Michielan’s book, Non era più lui, published by Fede & Cultura in February 2023, pp. 159 et seq., to which I refer for more details, Rahner, since the late 1960s, and again in 1974 in a small book of about 90 pages (Vorfragen zu einem ökumenischen Amtsverständnis, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1974), proposed the idea, later promoted in Italy by the Theological School of Bologna under Alberigo, that the papacy was the supreme degree of the sacrament of orders (the fourth), so that the ordination of the pope to the primatial see would be a specific episcopal ordination conferring an indelible character.
This would imply, in plain terms, that the See of Rome could be renounced, but not that sort of sacramental imprint, which one assumes with the papacy.
Against this reconstruction, a figure above suspicion, and in fact a legitimist of Pope Francis, such as Professor Roberto de Mattei, reacted in one of his essays, commenting:
If the pope who renounces the pontificate retains the title of emeritus, it means that he remains in some way pope. It is clear that in the definition, the noun prevails over the adjective. But why is he still pope after his abdication? The only possible explanation is that the papal election has impressed an indelible character upon him, which is not lost with the renunciation. Abdication in this case would presuppose the cession of the exercise of power, but not the disappearance of the papal character. […] It is possible that Benedict XVI shares this position, […], but the possibility that he has adopted the thesis of the sacramentality of the papacy does not mean that it is true (Uno e uno solo è il papa, in Roberto De Mattei, September 15, 2014).
He added, in the same essay: “The theologian Joseph Ratzinger, although not sharing Hans Küng’s view of a charismatic and de-institutionalized Church, distanced himself from tradition when he saw in the primacy of Peter the fullness of the apostolic ministry, linking the ministerial character to the sacramental one.”
I cannot say, being a jurist and not a theologian, whether these elective affinities – let us call them that – in Rahner’s thought regarding Ratzinger’s conception of the papacy are in line with Catholic faith. It is not for me to judge. It is certain, however, that an elected Pontiff does not, in fact, receive any anointing or consecration.
De Mattei continues in the aforementioned essay:
The pope is not […] a super-bishop, nor the endpoint of a sacramental line that ascends from the simple priest, passing through the bishop, to the supreme pontiff. The episcopate constitutes the sacramental fullness of orders, and therefore there is no higher character that can be impressed above the bishop. As a bishop, the pope is the same as all other bishops. What makes the pope superior to every other bishop is the divine mission that passes from Peter to each of his successors, not by inheritance, but through a legitimately carried out and freely accepted election. […] The primacy of the pope is not sacramental, but juridical. It consists in the full power to feed, govern, and rule the whole Church, that is, in the supreme, ordinary, immediate, universal jurisdiction, independent of any other earthly authority.
In another, more recent contribution, the same author, while considering the renunciation of Ratzinger valid, nonetheless adds:
Benedict XVI, after renouncing the pontificate, retains the name, keeps the white vestments, imparts the Apostolic Blessing, which belongs only to the Supreme Pontiff, and once again breaks the silence to which he had committed himself upon resigning. In one word, he considers himself pope, albeit “emeritus.” This situation is the consequence of a grave theological error by Cardinal Ratzinger. By retaining the title of emeritus pope, as happens for bishops, he seems to think that the ascent to the Papacy impresses an indelible character on the elected, similar to the priesthood.
In reality, the sacramental degrees of the priesthood are only three: diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate. The papacy belongs to another hierarchy of the Church, that of jurisdiction, or government, of which it constitutes the apex. When elected, the pope receives the office of supreme jurisdiction, not a sacrament with an indelible character. The priesthood is never lost, even with death, because it subsists in aeternum. The papacy, however, can be “lost,” not only with death but also in the case of voluntary resignation or manifest and notorious heresy. If the pope renounces being pontiff, he ceases to be pope: he has no right to wear the white vestments or impart the apostolic blessing. He is, from the canonical point of view, no longer even a cardinal, but returns to being a simple bishop (Il vero pasticcio è la coabitazione dei due Papi, in Corrispondenza Romana, January 15, 2020).
Thus, according to the reconstruction of a legitimist like De Mattei, certainly more qualified than I am, there can be no doubt that a resigning pope cannot retain anything, except his order of episcopacy (having received the episcopal ordination, and indeed it is imposed by canon 332 § 1).
Therefore, since no sacramental value can be attributed to the papal office, but only juridical, one is either pope or not. One cannot remain, as a French theologian Jean-Philippe Goudot has asserted, once renounced, “a little pope” or a “hidden pope” (Benoît XVI: quels modèles pour une renonciation?, Nouvelle revue théologique, 2014, p. 58), retaining some prerogatives characteristic of the papal office.
It is significant to remember that in the precedent to which Benedict XVI would have been inspired, namely that of Peter of Morrone, later Celestine V, he requested – once he had renounced the papacy – to continue wearing papal vestments during the celebration of Mass, a request that was rejected by Cardinal Protodeacon Matteo Rosso Orsini (as V. Gigliotti recalls, La tiara deposta. La rinuncia al papato nella storia del diritto e della Chiesa, Florence, 2014, pp. 417-422; A. Frugoni, Celestiniana, Rome, 1954, pp. 94-99; P. Herde, Celestino V santo, in Enciclopedia dei papi, Rome, 2000, vol. II, p. 467; M. Dal Bello, Quando un papa si dimette. La storia di Celestino V, Rome, 2019, p. 59), precisely to avoid creating the doubt that the renunciation was not plena.
Emblematically, Boni, in the aforementioned essay of 2015, confirmed that “the episcopal qualification arises from the consecration, which impresses an indelible character, while the papacy is not a degree of the sacrament of orders. […] The thesis – in fact, quite a minority one – that the papacy is the supreme degree of the sacrament of orders, and that the related ordination of the pope to the primatial see would be a specific episcopal ordination conferring an indelible character, must be rejected: this, among other things, would prevent renunciation. The arguments recur in an unassailable circularity” (Due papi a Roma?, cited, p. 52).
Therefore, if, as Boni herself admitted a decade ago, it would not be admissible to imagine the papacy as the final degree of the sacrament of orders, two conclusions can only be drawn.
In fact, since with the renunciation of the papacy a pontiff does not reduce himself to the lay state, not losing the sacramental character of the episcopal consecration received (which is indelible), but returns to being a simple bishop (and not a cardinal, since the cardinalate is neither a sacrament nor sacramental), there was absolutely no need for the creation of an emeritus pope. What purpose does it serve, with this unprecedented title, to emphasize that by relinquishing his office, he did not shed the sacramental munus received with his episcopal consecration on May 27, 1977, at the hands of Bishop Josef Stangl of Würzburg?
Its usefulness is unclear, given that no one had questioned that, through his resignation, he would continue to be a bishop. In short, imagining that Pope Ratzinger intended to reaffirm his episcopal character with that title – as the two canonists seem to suggest – appears truly redundant.
The truth is that the simplest explanations are being ignored, attributing to the theologian pope a convoluted, redundant, and peculiar line of thought.
Instead, one should conclude, much more realistically and straightforwardly, either that Pope Benedict made a colossal mistake or that he, in truth, invalidly renounced the papacy – with all the consequences such a conclusion entails for his successor.
This logic cannot be escaped. Therefore, either one must admit that Ratzinger erred (with repercussions for his reputation as a “great theologian,” which would be diminished) or that he, willingly or unwillingly, never validly renounced the papacy.
In short, in my humble opinion, the essay by the two canonists, promoted by journalist Scrosati, raises more doubts than certainties, as it opts to climb highly tortuous and uncertain paths.
Written by Francesco Patruno, lawyer and Ph.D. in Canonical and Ecclesiastical Sciences. Translated from the original Italian by Gaetano Masciullo, philosopher, essayist, and journalist.