Sede
Vacante - The Vacant Seat
3rd
Sunday of Lent- March 3, 2013
Pope Benedict’s
stunning announcement
On Monday, Feb.
11, 2013, Pope Benedict made the stunning announcement to the Church and the
world that he would resign as pope on 28 February, 2013. He disclosed (what
many were thinking for some time) that he no longer had the mental and physical
strength to carry on. In a solemn statement in Latin to
the Cardinals 85-year-old Pope Benedict announced:
Brothers, 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. I am well aware that this ministry,
due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words
and deeds, but no less with prayer and
suffering.
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 bark 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 entrusted to me.
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, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April
2005. Therefore, as from 28 February 2013 at 20:00 hours (8 p.m.), 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.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all
the love and effort 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.
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013 BENEDICTUS PP XVI.
Staying on or
resigning?
Last
Thursday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m. Benedict XVI was no longer pope, and the Vatican went into a "sede vacante" mode. Benedict is the first pope to resign in 700 years; the
last pope to step down before his death was Gregory XII in 1415.
Alessandra
Mussolini (granddaughter of former dictator Benito Mussolini) said of
Benedict’s resigning: “This is disconcerting. Pope Benedict is leaving his
flock. The Pope is not any man; he is the Vicar of Christ. He should stay on
and bear his cross to the end.” That’s exactly what Pope John Paul II did;
he stayed on for the last decade of his life, despite his terribly failing
health. JP II believed that "you may not come down from the cross."
His example of staying on and bearing his cross to the end edified many in the
Church.
But there’s another way at looking at this matter. In resigning, Pope
Benedict was brave
and bold; he did the unexpected for the good of the Church. And when the
College of Cardinals in conclave undertakes the task of electing a new pope in
mid-March, the Cardinals also should
be equally brave and bold, and do the unexpected for the good of the Church.
A conclave in mid-March
Last
Thursday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m. the Chair
of Peter was vacated not by a pope dying but by a pope resigning. A conclave of
Cardinals will be held in mid-March, a
new pope will be elected, and white smoke (instead of black) will appear from a
small chimney on the Sistine Chapel to inform the world outside that a new pope
has been elected. Then the senior Cardinal
Deacon will appear on the great central
loggia of St. Peter’s, and will proclaim: “Annuntio
vobis gaudium magnum: habemus papam!”(“I announce to you a great joy: we
have a pope!”)
Capuchin Cardinal Sean O'Malley
His remarkable resume
American Capuchin Cardinal Sean O’Malley has a remarkable resume. He earned a master’s
degree in religious education and a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese literature
from the Catholic University of America. But the best part of his
resume is not academic; it is especially pastoral. In the 1970’s O’Malley was director of the Spanish
Catholic Center in Washington D. C. To show his solidarity with Hispanics, he
moved into their dilapidated and rodent infested housing project. There he
engineered the rehabilitation of the building and its purchase by the tenants.
In
1984 he was appointed Bishop of St. Thomas of the Virgin Islands, in 1992 Bishop of Fall River, Mass., and in 2002 Bishop
of Palm Beach, Fla. In Palm Beach he didn’t move into the
bishop’s residence; instead he chose a modest house to live in. In 2003 John Paul II appointed him Archbishop
of Boston, and in 2006 Benedict XVI named him a Cardinal. Instead of moving
into the Cardinal’s mansion on Commonwealth Avenue, he looked for a modest
apartment.
O’Malley – highly `papabilis’
At this moment the Catholic faithful (and many others not of the
Catholic fold) are wondering who of the 117 Cardinals (who are eligible to
participate in the upcoming papal conclave) are the most `papabilis’ (the most
`pope-able’). There is a lot of buzz in Rome that sandal-footed Capuchin Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston is highly `pope-able,’ even though
Vatican watchers maintain that an American pope is a `long shot.’Paolo Rodari, a well-regarded Vatican writer, also thinks O’Malley is highly `pope-able.’ Rodari speaks glowingly of him at great length in a blog: "There are many who ask themselves if the next pope will be a Capuchin," Rodari writes. "The Capuchins are close to the people, they don't have a 'clerical' mentality, they emphasize collaboration with the laity, and they have an attractively simple way of living. O'Malley is a humble prelate. Though he is a `Prince of the Church,’ he prefers his simple brown Capuchin habit to the sartorial splendor to which his office entitles him. He's a cardinal who loves to dialogue with his faithful through Twitter, and he uses his personal blog as an important instrument not only of communication but for meeting everybody - the faithful and non-believers alike."
Thomas
Groome, a theology professor at Boston College, feels the same way about Cardinal
O'Malley. He says that of all the American bishops who have had to deal with
the abuse crisis, O'Malley "has come closest to satisfying the
victims." He sold the archdiocese's palatial headquarters and used the
money for victim settlements. Groome also says that O'Malley is a low-key personality who prizes
simplicity, and “isn't a hardened ideologue." He says O’Malley would bring
a starkly different style to the papacy: "We'd go from red `Prada booties’
(!) to Capuchin sandals and no socks. He wouldn't be a blustering public personality
like John Paul II. You'd have to go back to John XXIII to find someone analogous."
Conclusion
Pope John XXIV!
When
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the Patriarch of Venice, was elected pope on October 28, 1958, the presiding Cardinal Dean following an
ancient custom approached the pope-elect and asked, "Quo nomine
vocaberis?"(“By
what name shall you be called?”) Cardinal Roncalli answered: "My name
shall be John.” He chose to be named after that great precursor who pointed to
Jesus and exclaimed, "There He is! There is the Lamb of God!” (Jn. 1:29) Then
like his new namesake, Pope John XXIII went forth to point to Jesus. He pointed
to Jesus in such a remarkable way that when he lay dying on June 3, 1963 the whole world was prayerfully at his bedside.
Perhaps
it is time now to elect a pope who doesn’t wear `Prada booties.’ Perhaps it’s
time now to elect a pope who wears sandals! Perhaps it’s time now to elect a `Pope
John XXIV’ who will walk in the footsteps of Pope John XXIII. And Cardinal Sean O’Malley might just be that man.
