Take the following comments with however many grains of salt you feel are necessary given that I’m not a theologian, philosopher, Church historian, or anything else marginally relevant to opining about the Pope’s resignation.
1. There is always some sadness when a Pope’s reign ends, at least in our modern era of having wonderful Popes. For the last couple of centuries, this sadness is usually because we are always sad at the death of someone important, but there is also the sadness at the end of an era, not unlike the end of a President’s term of office.
But our view of the end of a Pope’s reign is not unlike our view of the end of life. Our sadness is tempered because we realize that, God willing, we will see our beloved dead again in heaven. Life doesn’t end at death, and the life of the Church doesn’t end with the death or resignation of a Pope.
2. This is an important lesson to recall during this Year of Faith. So often our own faith is tied to particular people: we have faith in our spouses, our children, our teachers, our President, even our priests or Popes. And yet we all have examples where these people have let us down. But the secular or temporal “faith” we have in these people can’t compare to the Faith we have in Jesus, who has promised (and we have ample evidence that He has thus far lived up to it) that He will be with His Church for all time. Our faith isn’t genuine if it only holds up during good times; the end of a Pope’s reign reminds us that faith endures the bad times too.
3. Comparisons will obviously be made to the ends of the reigns of JPII and Benedict. John Paul II was seen as the “media Pope,” since he had such a warm personality that shone through on television. Benedict is clearly less so, and his major strength has been the written rather than the spoken word. After his profound teachings on the culture of life, JPII provided a living example of the dignity of the human person who accepts even great suffering at the end of life. For a culture more prone to throw away and replace broken things rather than to fix them, JPII reminded us that all life is sacred from conception to natural death.
I confess to being slightly concerned that Pope Benedict’s announcement will be twisted by enemies of the Church to downplay the dignity of the elderly or sick. “See, even the Pope realizes that there comes a point where you can’t do anything good for society anymore.” In a papacy characterized by media misinterpretation of his words (Regensburg, the Pope “approves” condoms for AIDS victims, etc.) this seems like a softball that the culture of death may try to hit out of the park. It falls to us (and Benedict too, to whatever extent he remains in the public eye in his retirement) to continue to promote the culture of life.
4. It didn’t take long for folks of a more dissenting disposition to celebrate the announcement. I’m not sure why they think the next Pope will be more in line with their way of thinking. Did Benedict go beyond proclaiming the Gospel and consistent Church teaching? Do people think the next Pope will magically uncover a Catechism paragraph that supports womyn priests and same-sex marriage? It is more likely that Bishops Fellay or T.D. Jakes will be pope than Bishop Gumbleton.
5. For a man mischaracterized as a stern authoritarian bent on enforcing orthodoxy, what public (i.e., not encyclicals, motu proprios, etc.) works will Benedict be remembered for? The calm, scholarly, and pastoral three-volume work on Jesus of Nazareth. Society has known the basic story about Jesus for two millenia, so what else could be learned? Likewise, before his election people thought they knew everything they needed to know about Joseph Ratzinger, the hard-headed German Rottweiler. This papacy, and these three books, remind us that we didn’t know as much as we thought we did about either man.