Thursday, February 03, 2005
PAPAL RETIREMENT
is the subject on the cardinals' minds as the pope's health continues to be a subject of discussion. A UPI story at an African website, MENAFN indicates:
"Although the pope by his suffering has given witness, everyone knows that in terms of hands-on operation, he has not been hands-on for quite a bit now, for 18 months to two years," a senior Vatican official said. "There is a large body of opinion among the cardinals that there should be a retirement age of 80 for the next pope."
The Harold Sun chimes in with similar sentiments:
FUTURE popes will have to retire at a fixed age, under secret plans being discussed by Catholic cardinals, ending a tradition of service until death that has lasted 2000 years.
According to senior church sources, cardinals have discussed among themselves the need to choose a future pontiff who is open to a retirement age, probably 80.
They do not want a repeat of the past few years, when the ill-health of Pope John Paul II, now 84, has forced him to take an increasingly light role in directing the church, responsible for the spiritual welfare of 1.1 billion believers.
The church has in effect been run by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the ultra-conservative head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But Cardinal Ratzinger, whose nickname is John Paul III, is considered too old, at 77, to succeed him.
Also at the heart of every decision is Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the celibate Opus Dei member and qualified doctor who is the Pope's media officer and most trusted adviser.
The article also sheds some light on the Pontiff's current difficulties:
They confirmed that the pontiff's Parkinson's disease, an illness that inexorably leads to paralysis of the throat muscles, was causing repeated restrictions of his throat, creating breathing difficulties that were being exacerbated by flu.
The article indicates he is doing better and will be out of the hospital in a few days. But that is not the same as saying he is getting well.
Nearly every day we have a statement of some sort given by the Pope in audience or on other occasions. One tends to wonder if he has written them? Approved them, but not written them? Knows what they say? Cares what they say? Then there are the books that have been published recently in his name--one on his poetry, for instance. Did he write them? When we are living with what appears to be schism in our midst, and what in fact Jason Berry reported Cardinal Gagnon called a schism, the source of statements attributed to the Pope is important.
Essentially it would appear that we have a visible symbol of the Bishop of Rome, and possibly little else, while someone is running the Church from under cover. Speculation is all well and good about who that "someone" might be, but there is nothing official regarding who that could be. Under present circumstances, with schism in our midst, and with a clerical scandal that is still breaking over our heads in the press on a daily basis, this is a disturbing situation.
