When one Pope visited a retired predecessor
Footage on Youtube shows Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 at the earthquake‑struck city of L’aquila. At the open doors of the basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio, he says prayers before a glass case. Rubble scatters the floor, for half the roof had fallen in.
In the glass case lay the body of St Celestine, in brocade vestments, a silver mask over his face, a mitre on his head and round his neck the pallium (an ancient symbol of authority in the form of a thin woollen scarf marked with crosses).
Then Pope Benedict placed on top of the glass his own pallium, in which he had been inaugurated.
It was a meaningful gesture, as was clear four years later, when Benedict resigned his see, abdicating as Pope. St Celestine, to whom he had made this pilgrimage, had resigned as pope on Dec 23 1294, five months after his election, aged 79. Dante put him in hell, since he was the man che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto, who through cowardice made the great refusal. But in 1313, Celestine was canonised, which trumped Dante and led to the saint’s relics being put on show in the church at L’aquila. They were normally visible above the altar in the north aisle, rebuilt as a three‑ storey neoclassical monument.
Celestine gave among the reasons for going a “desire for humility, for a purer life” but also “the perverseness of the people”. One of his lasting acts was to set in church law a mechanism for papal resignation. Boniface VIII, his successor, was no shrinking violet, always waging war and excommunicating monarchs. Dante took a far dimmer view of him, and consigned him to the eighth circle.
As for Celestine, he was not allowed to go back to his bare monastic cell. Fifty years before his election as pope, he had founded a congregation of hard‑ living monks, living a strict form of the Benedictine rule. After his abdication, Boniface tracked him down and locked him up in the castle of Fumone. It would have been difficult to impose conditions on him harsher than those he would have chosen himself, but in any case he died in 1296.
It seems to me that Pope Benedict XVI did nothing so brave as resigning. But his retirement has not been hard, in a house in the gardens of the Vatican, with a piano to play. Imagine if Margaret Thatcher had found a place to live round the corner from 10 Downing Street after John Major became prime minister. Considering his position, Emeritus Pope Benedict has behaved himself very well.
But if he has not tried to make himself a centre of influence, plenty of people in the Church are prepared to make Pope Francis and Pope Benedict into flags for their own private causes.
This week a book came out, written jointly by Benedict and the eccentric Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea. It argues that celibacy for priests is a valuable discipline that should be preserved. Now Cardinal Sarah has agreed to take Benedict’s name off future editions.
Francis has slapped down Cardinal Sarah before, when he wrote that priests should face east at Mass (so having their backs to the people). But only in January 2019, Francis himself told the press: “I do not agree with allowing optional celibacy.”
I can’t see Benedict was picking a fight. When pope, he published books under his old name, Ratzinger, emphasising that they bore no papal authority. He must have had the right to do so in retirement. Collegiality does not mean everyone is pope, but, like any diocese with a retired bishop, Rome should be mature enough to manage two.