Pope Retires but Keeps Perks? Hmm

Pope Benedict XVI

I know almost nothing about the papacy, but the resemblance of Pope Benedict’s surprising retirement to an equally surprising Shakespearean retirement should raise a red flag. Once you hear the details, I’m sure you’ll recognize the play.

Popes almost never retire—this is the first retirement in almost 600 years—and initially Benedict was praised for his decision. After all, if an aging pontiff feels that he is no longer up for the job, shouldn’t he stand down?

Then the details of the retirement came out. An Associated Press story summarized them in a way that highlights the areas of concern:

Two pontiffs, both wearing white, both called “pope” and living a few yards from one another, with the same key aide serving them.

Apparently Benedict has decided that he will still be called “Your Holiness Benedict XVI.” Although he could choose to dress in black, he has decided instead to continue to wear a white cassock. And instead of choosing to retire elsewhere, he will stay in the Vatican.

The aide is Archbishop Georg Ganswein, popularly known as Gorgeous George, Benedict’s longtime confidant and personal secretary. The Washington Post reports that some of worried that, retaining his “day job as the new head of the household for the incoming pope,” Ganswein poses conflict of interest possibilities.

The AP story mentions some Vatican-based cardinals who “have privately grumbled that it will make it more difficult for the next pope with Benedict still around.” Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, a “one-time colleague-turned-critic,” is open about his disapproval, telling Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, “With Benedict XVI, there is a risk of a shadow pope who has abdicated but can still indirectly exert influence.”

The Shakespeare play I have in mind is, of course, King Lear. Lear chooses to resign—as  unusual for a king as it is for a pope—and as a result he sets the stage for civil war amongst his daughters. Although he no longer has responsibilities, he insists on being treated as a king and essentially moves into his daughter’s basement with 100 knights. (At least Benedict is insisting on only a single aide.) Lear expects Goneril and Regan to maintain him in the style to which he is accustomed. He demands that they continue to listen to him.

One reason why popes have not resigned in the past is fear of schism, which occurs in King Lear. It does not appear that a schism is likely in today’s Catholic Church. So perhaps any concern is overblown.

Still, it will be interesting to see whether Benedict, as he writes the books that he has planned, is careful not to disagree with his successor, even if there are measures with which he doesn’t agree. And can the new pope be confident that discontented bishops will not go and grumble to Benedict. Regan is so paranoid when Gloucester befriends his old king that she pokes his eyes out.

Paranoia finds different outlets today. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a factor.