Pope Francis faces a pontificate alone and enters a complicated phase

A little over a week has passed since the death of pope emeritus Joseph Ratzinger and already voices are stirring from within the Church and from the world of information. Everyone announces it the new phase of the pontificate of Francisco, without the dualism with Ratzinger, has a problematic beginning.

The death of Benedict XVI removed the moderator’s plug exercised by Joseph Ratzinger, whom conservatives and traditionalists wanted to celebrate as the number one opponent to the reform projects of the Argentine pope.

Thursday 12 will be lived the first shock: the book will be presented to the public “Nothing but the Truth” by the German archbishop Georg Gaenswein, personal secretary and senior Vatican official.

Gaenswein he could not perform other tasksaccording to the will of the Pope, who take care of Benedict XVI, secluded in his refuge in the Monastery in the Vatican gardens where he lived almost ten years of his life as Pope Emeritus.

The second tenant of the Monastery opened fire on the Pope in the days of the funeral chapel commenting and anticipating the revelations of his book, published by a publishing house (Piemme) owned by former four-time Italian prime minister and centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi.

Without a doubt, Gaenswein’s book will hit bookstores well spread. Joseph Ratzinger’s secretary first accused Francisco of having “broken my heart” of the German Pope who reigned from January 2005 to February 2013, when he resigned.

The cause of that pain: the publication of a motu proprio by Bergoglio annulment the very large reintroduction of the traditional mass approved by Benedict after having been partially abolished with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent management of Paul VI.

Gaenswein only waited two days accuse once again in statements the Argentine Pope of turning him into a “half prefect”.

In the struggles that took place during Ratzinger’s decade as emeritus, the most resonant was the appearance of a book against the proposals in the Amazon Synod, in 2019 in experience a partial abolition of celibacy for priests and to sponsor openings to the state that prevents women access to any function that can bring them closer to the exercise of the priesthood.

Gaenswein was accused of mishandling the book case that appeared to be signed by Joseph Ratzinger and Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Pope’s “minister” and one of the Church’s most prestigious conservative leaders. Cardinal Sareh is no longer prefect of divine worship.

Ratzinger’s secretary said other things, but these two are enough. He denounced that Pope Francis called him to tell him not to return to work even though he would continue to appear as Prefect of the Papal Household. His mission was to take care of the Pope Emeritus. Nor could he use the apostolic apartment of the Prefecture, he had to live in the Monastery.

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Another text already promises even more jerky. It is the book-interview of Cardinal Gerhard Mueller “In good faith”. Mueller has been for five years the Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith.

The guardian of Catholic orthodoxy has clashed several times with Pope Francis and after completing his five-year He did not renew his appointment. Since then Mueller, who hasn’t been sent anywhere else in the Vatican, has become a a severe critic of the Argentine pontiff, even if he refuses to openly join the conservatives who host him conspire against the reigning Pope.

Cardinal Mueller, also German like Ratzinger and Gaenswein, is in charge of ordering and disseminating the work of the pope emeritus. He attacked Francis’ advisers and defined the Monastery where Benedict XVI resided “the place where people wounded by Francis go to heal. And there are many.”

With these editorial premises, the climate can only exaggerate. Conservative circles respond to different orientations, but conspire to prevent the Argentine pope from going ahead with hisour goals for change and above all to give continuity to the reforms beyond the pontificate of Bergoglio.

A three year phase

Seen from the Casa de Santa Marta, the internal hotel of the Vatican where Jorge Bergoglio resides, the perspective of the beginning of the new phase has several central moments and a period of three years. Francisco turned 86 in December, is in good health but has a serious problem of arthrosis in his knee which prevents him, for example, from celebrating mass standing.

With massages and infiltrations, he can now walk a little leaning on a cane and use a wheelchair to get around. People have assimilated his condition well.

This year and next Bergoglio’s work plan is dominated by a Synod of Synods which will take place over two meetings in Rome.

In 2025 there will be a Holy Year. This is the second Jubilee of the Argentine pontiff after that of 2015 and the Church is experiencing the beginning of mobilization.

Francis’ resignation

The Pope has already spoken several times of his hypothetical resignation which “is in no hurry”. Undoubtedly, the question will become central in the next three years. There is no doubt that Joseph Ratzinger made a revolution in the Church, in a modernizing sense, with his decision to resign.

In the future the spontaneous resignation of a Pope it won’t be a trauma, seemed impossible until Ratzinger’s resignation. Seven centuries have passed since the gesture of his predecessor Celestine V, who resigned without external pressure in L’Aquila in 1294.

Francisco prepares to resign when you have your reforms well tied and can lead your succession with a dependent conclave. He already said it if he resigns will be bishop emeritus of Rome and who would like to live in lodgings in the Roman vicariate, in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. Confess and also dialogue with the faithful of a nearby parish.

The process that must culminate in eventual resignation is for Francisco the guarantee of the continuity of its programmes. If the conservatives want to ruin them, they have to defend themselves. First, continuing the process of consolidating the absolute majority in the Conclave of Cardinals who will choose his successor.

Of the 132 cardinal electors under the age of 80, 83 were nominated by the current Pope and this year it will create at least another dozen.

While the power to appoint new cardinals considerably increases the Argentine pope’s control of the progressive area, the possibilities of having a single candidacy to counter them are complicated for the conservatives.

Fight the battle in the Conclave It is for now the strategy that prevails among Bergoglio’s opponents. The archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, is the real leader of the conservative opposition to the Buenos Aires pope.

Dolan was one of Bergoglio’s electors in the March 13, 2013 election, along with the other North American cardinals. they wanted put an end to the hegemony of the Italians in the Roman Curia, where the scandals had contributed to creating the climate that had led Ratzinger to resign, together with his health problems.

Dolan caused a sensation by deciding to ship two books with the same title: “The Next Pope” (The new Pope) to all the cardinals of the Sacred College. In the books, two North American specialists who are highly critical of Bergoglio give the circumstances and names of the situation which culminates in the secret meeting in the Sistine Chapel of the cardinal electors who elect the pontiff.

Bergoglio’s possible successors

clarion You have already explained that in Jorge Bergoglio’s preparations for what will come to the Church when he is no longer Pope, there are two characters who represent the favorites to be the successor who must carry forward the reformist programs of Francis.

The first is the former archbishop of Manila, in the Philippines, Luis “Chito” Tagle, whom the pontiff brought to Rome to be anointed as one of its most important “ministers”that of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

“Chito” (Luis’ nickname in his country) is a perfect candidate but his elevation to the papal throne represents a giant step for change. A non-European pontiff. an Asian on the continent, which together with Africa will be the driving force of Catholicism in the years to come, but which today represent a small percentage of the population. It’s a traumatic situation for European Catholicism in decline.

The option of Cardinal Tagle has not been excluded, even if a candidate has appeared on the horizon who presents clearer contours for Bergoglian purposes.

This is Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna and new President of the Italian Episcopal Conferenceswhose natural head is the Pope Bishop of Rome.

Zuppi is not only European, it is Roman. He comes from the Community of Sant’Egidio, has been a parish priest for years and has a bright glossy intellectual resume with graduates from the La Sapienza University of Rome and prestigious Catholic universities.

Totally in tune with Pope Bergoglio’s reform programs, Zuppi has a moderate disposition in his way of being and in the presentation of his ideas. In an interview with “Il Messaggero” of Rome, he said he does not believe that there is “dualism in the Church”.

“The families discuss and Ratzinger will go down in history”.

“It’s hard not to appreciate the way Ratzinger has addressed the great themes of faith or the problems that we measure ourselves against,” he said.

An admirer of the theological genius of Benedict XVI, Zuppi affirmed that “the reform of the Church is an itinerary, a journey”.

“The transmission of the patrimony of faith does not mean throwing away the old, but transform it so that everything is not reduced to mere conservatism without a future. Transformation is something that blows together with the Spirit of the word, without neglecting our roots and our tradition. Francisco is advancing on the same road.

Vatican correspondent

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