The initial
shockwaves that followed Pope Benedict’s resignation announcement this week were
followed surprisingly quickly by expressions of approval and optimism.
Benedict XVI, 85,
is the first Pope to resign in six centuries, but the feeling is that he has
done the right thing, bearing in mind not only his age, but the parlous state
of the Catholic Church. The feeling in Portugal and elsewhere is that a
younger and more energetic pontiff is now needed.
Among the first senior
members of the Church in Portugal
to comment publicly was the Bishop of Fátima, Monsignor António Marto. He said
the resignation would present an opportunity to pick a new pope from a country
in the developing world.
“Europe today is going through a period of cultural
tiredness, exhaustion, which is reflected in the way Christianity is lived,”
Bishop Marto told reporters. “You don't see that in Africa or Latin
America where there is freshness, an enthusiasm about living the
faith.
“Perhaps we need
a pope who can look beyond Europe and bring to
the entire church a certain vitality that is seen on other continents.”
The “cultural
tiredness” of which Bishop Marto spoke is reflected in the fact that although
nearly 90% of people in Portugal
profess to be Catholic, fewer than 20% regularly attend Mass. The figure could be much lower than
that, especially among the young.
In 2000, Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, as Benedict was known under his predecessor Pope John Paul
II, gave the official interpretation of the long suppressed “Third Secret” of Fátima
that stemmed from the reported appearances of the Virgin Mary at Fátima on six
consecutive months in 1917. They have been described by the Vatican as “undoubtedly the most
prophetic of modern apparitions.”
Ratzinger
dismissed notions that the third secret was the Virgin Mary’s warning of doom,
either for the Church or the whole world. In a lengthy theological commentary,
he spoke of such things as “private revelation” as opposed to “public
revelation.” His explanation of the contents and meaning of the third secret was
widely criticised as a 'cover-up.'
Since then, growing
secularism, opposition from dissident Catholic traditionalists and child sex
abuse scandals have drawn a great many people away from the Church in Europe
and North America . Meanwhile, Church
attendance is growing in Africa and almost half the world’s Catholics live in Latin America .
While on his way to visit Portugal in May 2010, Benedict XVI declared
that the widespread abuse of children by members of the clergy showed that the
greatest threat to the Catholic Church came from “sin within.”
“Today we see in
a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not
come from outside enemies, but is born of sin within the Church,” the pontiff
told reporters on a plane bound for Portugal to mark the 93rd
anniversary of the reported apparitions.
A turnout of some
half a million people for an open-air Mass celebrated by Benedict at the Fátima
shrine was seen as clear support for him personally.
“As far as the
crisis and scandals are concerned, I think that the people wanted to show that
they can distinguish between exceptions and the vast majority of their
priests,” Portuguese episcopal spokesman Manuel Morujão told reporters.
But the pontiff
continued to court controversy after Portugal had already decriminalised
abortion and at a time when the country was about to legalise gay marriage. He
told Catholic social workers at Fátima that abortion and gay marriage were “insidious
and dangerous threats to the common good.”
All that is in
the past now, of course. Catholics are looking to the future. Benedict has
emphasised that he is retiring “for the good of the Church.” The conclave of
cardinals will begin the process of finding a new pope on March 15.
The Cardinal
Patriarch of Lisbon ,
D. José Policarpo, took part in the election process in 2005 and was
himself described as “a dark horse” candidate to replace John Paul II. He said this
week that Benedict’s eight year pontificate had been a very difficult one and
hoped his resignation would result in a younger pontiff with the ability to
lead the church into a new era.