TRADCAST EXPRESS
TRADCAST EXPRESS, it's Thursday, September 20th, 2018.
Herr Ratzinger is not amused.
The German tabloid Bild and the New York Times published excerpts today from two leaked letters
allegedly written by Benedict XVI last year to Novus Ordo Cardinal Walter Braunmuller,
one of the two last surviving Dubia Cardinals, if you remember that whole circus.
In October of last year, Braunmuller had given an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
in which he criticized the notion of a Pope Emeritus,
saying it was a novel idea and contrary to 2,000 years of tradition.
So then Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Braunmuller dated November 9th, 2017,
and then Braunmuller responded and then Benedict followed up with another letter on November 23rd.
It's the letter of November 9th that is really the more explosive of the two
because it shows a Benedict XVI who is quite angry over the criticism Braunmuller expressed in the German newspaper.
Here's what Ratzinger wrote.
It was presented by Bild and the New York Times, and I'm using their translations.
Quote,
You said that with Pope Emeritus I had created a figure that had not existed in the whole history of the Church.
You know very well, of course, that Popes have abdicated, albeit very rarely.
What were they afterward? Pope Emeritus? Or what else?
As you know, Pius XII had prepared a declaration in case the Nazis were to arrest him.
That from the moment of the arrest he would no longer be Pope, but once again Cardinal.
In my case, it would certainly not have been sensible to simply claim a return to being Cardinal.
I would then have been constantly as exposed to the media as a Cardinal is,
even more so because people would have seen in me the former Pope.
Whether on purpose or not, this could have had difficult consequences,
especially in the context of the current situation.
With Pope Emeritus, I tried to create a situation,
in which I am absolutely not accessible to the media,
and in which it is completely clear that there is only one Pope.
If you know of a better way, and believe that you can judge the one I chose,
please tell me. Unquote.
Whoa.
Now, honestly, I'm not so sure that I can even believe that Ratzinger really wrote this,
because this is just stupid, okay?
And though the anti-Pope Americans,
Emeritus is a lot of things,
stupid isn't one of them.
First, in the interview Brandtmuller had given in October 2017,
he didn't say that no Pope had ever resigned,
but that specifically the figure of a Pope Emeritus,
the way Ratzinger, let's face it, invented it,
was unknown in all of Catholic history.
So when Ratzinger here asks,
what were Popes after they resigned, if not Popes Emeritus,
well, he knows very well that they were simply Cardinals,
which is what they had been before their election to the papacy.
There was no Pope Emeritus.
Now then, of course, he says that in his case,
it would not have been reasonable to return to being a Cardinal.
Really?
Oh, because the media.
Yeah, like he couldn't have simply exited the scene just as well as a Cardinal who used to be Pope,
the way he has done now with this,
Emeritus character.
And even if he couldn't,
that doesn't mean he can just create his own theological fantasy figure
just because he wants to escape media attention.
The Catholic Church isn't his private playground.
But then it gets better, right?
He says he wanted to create a situation in which it was absolutely clear
that there was only one Pope.
Yeah.
And what better way to do that
than to remain in the Church of Christ,
remain in Vatican City dressed in white
and retaining your name Benedict XVI
with just a little Emeritus added at the end.
And of course, having people address you as Your Holiness.
I mean, does he think we're completely stupid?
This reminds me of some other bizarre stuff
we've heard from Ratzinger about this before,
such as when it was reported that he said that
he resigned because he couldn't take the jet lag,
that he would have to suffer
when flying to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro
later that year in 2013.
Or remember his explanation for why he decided
to continue wearing the white cassock after his resignation.
Quote,
At the moment of my resignation,
there were no other clothes available.
In any case,
I wear the white cassock in a visibly different way
to how the Pope wears it.
This is another case of completely unfounded
speculations being made.
Unquote.
Right.
They couldn't find any black cassocks in the Vatican
between the time he announced his resignation
on February 11th and it taking effect
on February 28th.
Got it.
Let's also recall the hilarious nonsense
Benedict's private secretary said
about it when he told a conference
at the Pontifical Gregorian University
on May 20th, 2016,
that with Benedict's resignation
and the election of Francis,
the papacy had now been expanded
to a shared ministry,
having an active member
and a contemplative member.
I mean, they just make it up
as they go along.
So, this stuff is simply idiotic.
All right.
One final point,
and this,
this is quite hilarious.
If you were thinking
that Ratzinger's letters to Braunmuller
had to make it all the way
from Italy to Germany,
you're wrong.
Both Ratzinger and Braunmuller
live in Vatican City,
and the physical distance between them
is approximately 400 meters.
That's 1,300 feet.
In other news,
Francis wouldn't be Francis
if he didn't have something
to complain about.
And today,
he used the opportunity
to once again rip into those few
who are left in his church
who still believe
in the indissolubility of marriage,
castigating them
as hypocritical doctors of the law
who think they're saved
by their own merits.
Totally leaving out of account
the fact, of course,
that it was the Pharisees,
the doctors of the law,
who opposed the indissolubility
of marriage.
And believed in divorce and remarriage
and were contradicted for it
by Christ.
Francis ended by saying
that hypocrites destroy the people,
destroy society,
and destroy the church.
And he would know.
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