Pope's resignation reshapes traditions!!!
Benedict's decision to step down unnerves the usually plodding church leadership; cardinals have shown an unusual feistiness in the more open atmosphere.
VATICAN
CITY — Eight years ago, many of the men with red caps and red cloaks
who walked into the Sistine Chapel to choose a pope seemed to be in a
state of grief-shaped numbness.
The only pope most had known for
their professional lives as cardinals had died. The funeral had been an
ornate, somber affair, replete with the evocation of the saints and the
attendance of heads of state from the world over, not to mention
millions of pilgrims.
he cardinals were eager for guidance. And that guidance, that
leadership, swiftly showed itself in the person of Joseph Ratzinger,
officially the dean of cardinals, who calmly, expertly led the prayer
services, conversed with cardinals in their native languages and
outlined what they needed to do.
No
wonder Ratzinger was elected to replace Pope John Paul II, who had
reigned for 26 years, in less than 24 hours. It was one of the shortest
conclaves in history.
Today is very different, a cascade of events
triggered by the first resignation of a pope in six centuries.
Benedict's decision to step down at age 85 has turned the usual
calculation about success and process on its head. It completely
unnerved the usually plodding, meticulously choreographed church
leadership. Precedents have been shattered; and while one cannot say
that anything can happen, there certainly is a much wider range of
possibilities.
Not weighed down by the force of grief and
mourning, the 115 cardinals gathered here to pick Benedict's replacement
have shown an unusual feistiness, an inquisitiveness that was not seen
the last time around and that has drawn out proceedings and scrambled
candidacies for the successor. Surely there is much to discuss, from
scandals involving sexual abuse to allegations of money laundering by
the Vatican bank.
Cardinals delivered more than 150 speeches in 10
pre-conclave meetings, known as congregations. When the final session
concluded Monday, there were still several prelates who had signed up to
speak but were cut off because time had run out, Vatican spokesman
Father Federico Lombardi said.
That glimpse inside the
congregations offered further evidence that the cardinals have been
thrown for a loop by Benedict's stunning resignation. They also
apparently feel more free to speak their mind: The solemnity that the
2005 funeral and attendant Masses infused in the atmosphere is absent in
2013.
Where
Ratzinger had a leading role in the conclave, this year's dean of
cardinals, Angelo Sodano, led the final Mass before the conclave but, at
age 85, is too old to participate in the voting itself.
And
though cardinals in 2005 were in mourning, most had known for quite a
while that the day they would be gathering to select a new pope was
imminent. Perhaps some had settled on their candidate well before filing
into the Sistine Chapel.
"John Paul's illness was very long and
we had already prepared psychologically to elect a successor," the
well-respected Cardinal Paul Poupard of France, now 82, was quoted as
saying in Tuesday's La Stampa newspaper. "This time the difference is
abyssal. The resignation of Benedict has really been a bolt of
lightning, out of the blue, for everyone."
