Farewell, Holy Father.
As you should already be aware, today marks the resignation and retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. I would ask for the prayers of everyone that he may grow closer to Christ in his remaining years and that the college of cardinals be supple to the movements of the Holy Spirit in choosing his successor.
Many news outlets are justifiably interested in the process of the resignation of Pope Benedict, as they were in the last days of Pope John Paul the Great. This news coverage is both flattering to those of us who deeply love our Catholic faith and the source of endless amusement. Time Magazine has provided one such example of amusing speculation about how this whole situation will work out. Apparently, Time believes that, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, retirement from the office of the papacy will make Pope Benedict more powerful than you can possibly imagine. The term "uber-Pope" was invoked.
The obvious silliness of this scenario aside, the Time story represents a deep and near-complete misunderstanding of not only the papacy itself, but also of Joseph Ratzinger as a person. The impetus for presuming this retirement to be some masterful power-play stems from the reputation that Pope Benedict has acquired in the media of being overly "conservative," and therefore desirous of absolute power and authority. This reminds me of a story I read long ago, reprinted from somewhere in the Indianapolis Star, expressing how exasperated American Catholics were with Pope John Paul II. According to the story, liberals loved the pope for his unfailing commitment to the poor; conservatives loved him for his hard line on pro-life issues. On the other hand, liberals were supposed to hate him for his antiquated view of homosexual "marriage" and misogyny as to the question of women priests; conservatives were presumed to be disgusted with his message of generosity to the less fortunate and his preoccupation with the third world.
Both of the stories just mentioned are gross distortions of reality. The problem is not merely that the authors are looking at the whole world through the lens of specifically American politics (although this is certainly at play). It is a matter of artful--almost deliberate, if it were not in some ways sub-conscious--misunderstanding of what orthodox Catholicism means. It is the same Holy Spirit that inspired John Paul II to reach out to those in heart-rending poverty and to defend the rights of the unborn child. The same Holy Spirit inspired Benedict XVI to express Christianity as applying to all peoples regardless of their ethnicity and to call the Catholic Church the one certain foundation laid by Christ.
The Catholic Church represents a moderation that the World views as an extreme. We are called to search for the unity behind the apparent contradictions. If we want to understand the Church, and those heroes and living saints who best exemplify it, we must humble ourselves enough to remember that we are still children at the feet of our master Jesus Christ, who was even more a sign of contradiction in his time than Pope Benedict is in ours.
