In private letters, Benedict rebukes critics of Pope Francis

The remarkable letter ROME — last month calling on Pope Francis to resign for allegedly shielding an abusive American cardinal also served as a public call to arms for some conservative Catholics who pine for the pontificate of the previous pope, Benedict XVI. For years now, they have carried his name like a battle standard into the ideological trenches.

Benedict apparently would like them to knock it off. In private letters published Thursday by the German newspaper Bild, Benedict, who in retirement has remained studiously quiet through the controversies over Francis’ fitness to lead the church, says that the “anger” expressed by some of his staunchest defenders risks tarnishing his own pontificate.

“I can well understand the deep-seated pain that the end of my pontificate caused you and many others. But for some — and it seems to me for you as well — the pain has turned to anger, which no longer just affects the abdication but my person and the entirety of my pontificate,” Benedict wrote in a Nov. 23, 2017, letter to Cardinal Walter Brandmüller of Germany. “In this way the pontificate itself is being devalued and conflated with the sadness about the situation of the church today.”

Requests to representatives of Benedict and Brandmüller for comment and authentication were not returned early Thursday. Bild provided the letters in their entirety to The Times.

Brandmüller is one of the few cardinals who signed a 2016 letter of “dubia” — from the Latin for “doubts” — demanding clarification from Francis about his apparent willingness to open the door for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, which the signatories argue is against church law.

The dubia letter received worldwide attention and served as a de facto declaration of independence from Francis, and its signatories, first among them American cardinal Raymond Burke, have enthusiastically embraced the letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, which called on Francis to step down.

Viganò claimed that Benedict had imposed sanctions on Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, for sexual misconduct, but that Francis had lifted those penalties. Francis’ defenders say there is no evidence that sanctions were placed on McCarrick, who resigned in July, and point to ample evidence that he did not behave as if he were under such limitations. Neither the current pope nor his predecessor has commented.

Part of Viganò’s motivation in publishing his letter was to come to the rescue of Benedict, who he felt was unfairly maligned by Italian journalists friendly to Francis, according to Marco Tosatti, the Italian journalist who helped the archbishop draft the letter.

For years, dissenting cardinals and supporters have sought to align their cause to Benedict, who vowed to remain “hidden to the world” after his 2013 resignation, which he attributed to waning health and energy. Francis, 81, has made congenial visits to see Benedict, 91, creating white-robed photo opportunities that give the impression of a total lack of tension.

But Benedict, the first pope to resign in almost 600 years, refused to fully renounce the papacy, taking the title “pope emeritus” and continuing to live in the Vatican. “The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ — there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this,” he said during his last general audience.

But in private, even Benedict’s most adamant supporters express frustration with him for quitting and allowing the election of Francis, a more pastoral, less doctrinaire pontiff who they think is ruining the church.