Benedict XVI’s resignation may have been the first papal resignation in hundreds of years, but it didn’t come completely out of the blue.
He’d already indicated that he had been thinking about the subject of resignation.
What is less well known is that other recent popes had been thinking about it, too.
A lot of recent popes.
Here’s the story . . .
An Increasingly Heavy Cross
For some time, I had been aware that several recent popes, including Pius XII, Paul VI, and John Paul II had thought about resignation–or even made contingency plans for it.
But recently I was reading Andrea Tornielli’s fascinating new book Francis: Pope of a New World
He reports:
The topic of resignation came to light again in the past century.
Advances in medicine have considerably extended life, and from Pius IX on, the job itself of the successor of Peter has been burdened with responsibilities and functions to the point of making it more and more difficult to carry out for a person who is not fully in possession of physical and intellectual strength.
He then lists the particular popes and what is known about their thoughts on resignation . . .
Interesting. I had heard about Pope John Paul II, but not the others. I find the reasoning at the start of the passage very sound. Both my grandfathers are in pretty bad shape. They recently have both rapidly deteriorated both physically and mentally. One of them has been that way for a few years now. He can barely hear and is quiet and withdrawn, which is very uncharacteristic of him. Anyways, seeing this first hand I realize that there could easily come a point when a Pope can no longer fulfill the role. I’ve seen it with parish priests who eventually must move into a care facility. I’ve also seen priests who become monks for the rest of their time here on earth. So, it’s not anything too surprising and it will be interesting to see if that is going to be more often the way we lose a pope.