Let’s start with obvious, observable facts which establish that there is something noteworthy here.
Did Benedict XVI use his name “Joseph Ratzinger” again after resigning? No, he kept his papal name.
Did he call himself “Cardinal” again? No, he made up the title “Pope Emeritus”.
Did he renounce the papal title “His Holiness”? No.
Did he dress in a black cassock again? No, he kept his papal dress (albeit without the mozetta).
Did he leave the Vatican? No, he stayed in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery inside the Vatican.
In addition, he also imparted the apostolic blessing (that is, the papal blessing) in his own name, as the author writing these lines has already written about here. Only a pope can do that.
Benedict’s last General Audience
Before analyzing his “Declaratio”, in which he “resigned”, let’s take a look at his last general audience on February 27, 2013. In it, he stated the following:
“Here, allow me to go back once again to 19 April 2005. The real gravity of the decision was also due to the fact that from that moment on I was engaged always and forever by the Lord. Always – anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church. In a manner of speaking, the private dimension of his life is completely eliminated. […]
The ‘always’ is also a ‘for ever’ – 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. I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord. I no longer bear the power of office for the governance of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, in the enclosure of Saint Peter. Saint Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will be a great example for me in this. He showed us the way for a life which, whether active or passive, is completely given over to the work of God.”
Why does he use the words “always” and “for ever”? Why does he keep constantly adding qualifiers to the thing he is resigning from? He says he resigns the “active exercise of the ministry” and mentions that he no longer bears “the power of office for the governance of the Church”. Also, keep the active-passive distinction in mind.
Church law
Before we jump on analyzing his “Declaratio” with which he “resigned”, we should take a look at the official rule-book of the Catholic Church, the Code of Canon Law. There are two paragraphs that are very relevant to the topic at hand: canon 188 and canon 332.2.
Canon 188: “A resignation made out of grave fear that is inflicted unjustly or out of malice, substantial error, or simony is invalid by the law itself.” (source)
“Substantial error” is a key phrase here. It means an error about the resignation or its consequences. We’ll get back to this later.
Canon 332.2: “If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.” (source)
Office is “munus” in the Latin original, which is another key point.
Also notice the expressions at the end: “by the law itself” and “not that it is accepted by anyone”. They express that the validity or invalidity of a papal resignation does not depend on what the bishops or cardinals think.
Benedict’s “Declaratio”
Let’s now take a look at Benedict’s “Declaratio”. The two words “ministerium” (ministry) and “munus” (office) in the Latin original are both translated with the same word here. I will put the Latin term in brackets.
“I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry [munus Petrinum].”
So, he uses the exact term here.
“I am well aware that this ministry [munus], due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.”
Why this distinction? Why divide up the papacy into an “active” and a “passive” component?
“However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry [ministerium] entrusted to me.”
Here, he suddenly switches from “munus” to “ministerium”, which is the active part of the “munus”. He is saying that he is weak and cannot fulfill the “ministerium” anymore.
“For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome [ministerio Episcopi Romae], Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”
He did not resign the “munus” he needed to resign, the “munus” he mentioned at the beginning of his speech!
“Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”
This was the conclusion of Benedict’s speech.
Objections
Let’s just answer a few objections.
All the bishops and cardinals say that Francis is pope, therefore he is pope.
This is what is sometimes referred to as “universal peaceful acceptance”. However, if the resignation was invalid and there was a valid pope, no amount of acceptance on part of the bishops and cardinals or the priests and faithful can make another man pope. If it could happen, than that would mean that God would strip the pope of a papacy if enough people start recognizing as pope someone else. Also, if the someone is a public, manifest, formal heretic, no amount of acceptance can make him pope. Why? Because someone has to be Catholic in order to be a pope.
Besides, there are three bishops who said publicly that they do not believe Bergoglio to be the pope. The first is René Henry Gracida, the bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi in Texas. On his website, he published this article entitled “I Believe”, explaining that he believes that Benedict was forced to resign and that he only “resigned the Power of Jurisdiction but did not resign the Power of Orders”, although he believes that Bergoglio shares in the power of jurisdiction with Pope Benedict (the article was written when Benedict was alive).
The second is the well-known Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former nuncio to the United States. Here is one of his many speeches and articles explaining why he doesn’t believe Bergoglio is pope.
The third one is the Pole Jan Paweł Lenga, Archbishop emeritus of Karaganda in Kazakhstan. He stated in one of his videos that he recognized Benedict XVI as the pope and called Bergoglio a “usurper and heretic”. He also refused to mention “Francis” when saying Mass.
Lenga regularly uploads videos to his Youtube channel. While his videos are in Polish, a few have English subtitles. He also published a book in 2021 called “Sekta Bergoglio – Potrzebna kontrrewolucja katolicka” (“The Bergoglio cult – Catholic counterrevolution needed”)
But everybody thinks Francis is pope! Protestants, Hindus, Atheists, everyone!
That’s completely irrelevant. Only the facts matter in this discussion.
But Benedict is dead.
Yes, and the papal chair is vacant since his death.
This is sedevacantism!
Sedevacantism is the belief that Pius XII (died 1958) was the last valid pope, so there has been a period of sede vacante (empty chair) for 65 years at the writing of this article. Believing that the papacy is vacant for a short period of time does not make one a sedevacantist. 65 years is not the same as a year (at the writing of this article)! There have been long interregnums (time between two popes) in the past, the longest one being four years between Saint Marcellinus (died 304) and Saint Marcellus (elected 308).
People who claim that Benedict was pope until he died are just making this up to find excuses for Francis’ actions. But there is nothing special about him, we’ve had bad popes before.
The “bad popes” are called like this because they led immoral lives. This is not the case with Bergoglio: he is a heretic and an idolater (Pachamama), that is, he is against the faith he supposedly represents.
Yes, for many of us, Bergoglio’s heresies were the thing that motivated us to look into this theory. But there were people for example two canon law experts (Arroba and Violi), who raised objections regarding Benedict’s resignation very early, as evidenced by this article by the Vatican expert Sandro Magister from 2014.
Even if this is true, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. We should just wait until Francis dies.
No, the bishops and the cardinals are in a position to fix the situation. They should acknowledge the obvious and call for a conclave. Also, Bergoglio has an immortal soul, too: he should be called to repentance.
If this is true, wouldn’t Benedict himself have been a heretic because of his beliefs about the papacy and lost his office?
Let’s compare Benedict XVI and Bergoglio in this regard. Bergoglio published heresy in Amoris laetitia; was warned in open letters and dubia, but he pertinaciously stood by his heresies. Benedict on the other hand, was never confronted with his errors, as far as we know. If any bishop or cardinal would have talked him through the situation, he probably would have reconsidered.
It is not up to us laypeople to decide whether or not Francis is an antipope. The next pope or a future council will resolve this issue.
One of the dogmas of the Catholic Church is that the church is a visible entity: her earthly head is also visible. Lay people can and should use their God-given ability of reason to discern that there is something very, very wrong with a pope that resigns but keeps his papal name, title and dress while the next so-called “pope” is a heretic.
What is the problem with the title “Pope Emeritus”? Canon 402.1 states that “[a] bishop whose resignation from office has been accepted retains the title of emeritus of his diocese […]” (link) The title “Pope Emeritus” is just like “bishop emeritus”.
It is clear from the wording of canon 402.1, that it doesn’t apply to the pope, since the pope is not a bishop whose resignation needs to be accepted, as canon 332.2 quoted above states. A “bishop emeritus” cannot be compared to the made-up title “Pope Emeritus”, because a “bishop emeritus” remains a bishop. So a “Pope Emeritus” would still be a pope…?
Hours before Benedict’s resignation took effect, he stood on the balcony of the Castel Gandolfo residence, and told the crowd: “I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, or I will be until 8:00 this evening and then no longer.” (link)
When seen in context with his “Declaratio”, his last audience, his behavior after “resigning” and so on, the meaning of this sentence is clear: he is no longer the “active pope”.
The last papal document Benedict issued was called Normas nonnullas. In it, Benedict changed the rules for conclaves. Why would he have done this if he didn’t resign?
Benedict was in substantial error and wanted to regulate how the next “active pope” is elected. Neither this nor the above statement of Benedict disprove the theory that Benedict’s resignation is invalid.
Why not conclude that Benedict resigned validly, but that he was wrong about what he can retain of the papacy?
Because canon 188 invalidates a resignation where the bishop holding the office is in “substantial error” about the resignation.
Blessed Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us!
Saint Robert Bellarmine, Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Alphonsus Ligouri, pray for us!
Saint Henry Morse, true Jesuit priest, pray for us!
Holy Martyrs of Uganda, pray for us!
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us!