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Abdication anxiety
Vatican commentator Sandro Magister reported on two eminent critics of Benedict XVI’s decision to take the title pope emeritus.
The first was Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, “who spoke out in tough critical terms not only against the figure of the ‘pope emeritus’ but also against the goodness of Ratzinger’s abdication itself” in an article headed ‘The resignation of the pope is possible, but may it never happen again’.”
The other, he said, was Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, “a luminary of canon law and secretary of the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signature” who “is bound to Ratzinger by a longstanding and solid friendship”. In an interview with Vatican Insider, Sandro Magister wrote, Bishop Sciacca “ripped to pieces the juridical and theological sustainability of the title ‘pope emeritus’ being applied to one who has abdicated”.
