NEWS STORY: In Break From Tradition, Vatican Official Addresses Papal Retirement

c. 2005 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ In a startling break with Vatican protocol, a high Vatican official has addressed the issue of whether the ailing Pope John Paul II should retire. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the secretary of state who ranks No. 2 behind the pope in the Vatican hierarchy, did not take a […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ In a startling break with Vatican protocol, a high Vatican official has addressed the issue of whether the ailing Pope John Paul II should retire.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the secretary of state who ranks No. 2 behind the pope in the Vatican hierarchy, did not take a position on the question, but he implied that retirement was a possibility.


Asked by reporters Monday (Feb. 7) if the frail 84-year-old Roman Catholic pontiff, who is hospitalized with respiratory problems complicated by Parkinson’s disease, had considered stepping down as leader of the world’s more than 1 billion Catholics, Sodano said:

“We leave this to the conscience of the pope. If there is a man of the Church who is guided by the Holy Spirit, if there is a man who loves the Church more than everything, if there is a man who has marvelous wisdom, it is the pope. We must have enormous faith in him. He knows what he must do.”

Vatican officials rarely if ever discuss the possibility of a reigning pope’s retirement or death and his eventual successor.

It was all the more surprising that Sodano would entertain the idea of retirement because he is in charge of day-to-day operations of the Vatican in the pope’s absence and is thus the voice of the Vatican. He spoke to reporters at the opening of the new headquarters of the Vatican Publishing House, Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Sodano went on, however, to say that he hoped that John Paul would not only recover but would live to surpass the 32-year-long papacy of Pius IX, making him history’s longest serving pope after St. Peter for whom no exact records exist.

But the cardinal’s implicit acknowledgment that retirement was a possibility indicated the extent of Vatican concern over the pope’s worsening health. Although John Paul is reported to be recovering from his respiratory problems, his ability to move and to speak are seriously impaired by Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder.

Italian Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda, who heads the Vatican’s supreme court, said in an interview published Tuesday by the Italian newspaper La Stampa that John Paul can remain in office even if he loses the ability to speak.


“Certainly,” the prelate said. “It is necessary to make a distinction between sacrament and the exercise of the power of government.”

Pompedda said that to administer the sacraments, the priest must have a voice, but the exercise of the power of ministry “is an exercise of jurisdiction. The Word is not necessary. It is sufficient that the will be expressed and be expressed in a clear way.”

“This can be done in writing or with a gesture or an expression,” he said.

Church law provides for the resignation of the pope as long as he resigns voluntarily, and at least four popes have abdicated although not always voluntarily. The last was Gregory XII in 1415.

In the past, John Paul has made it clear that he did not intend to resign. “There is no place for a pope emeritus,” he said in 1994. On a visit to his native Poland in 2002 he prayed at the Sanctuary of Kalwaria for “the force of body and spirit to be able to carry out until the end the mission assigned to me by the Risen.”

German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the powerful prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in 2002 that if only physical suffering is involved, the pope will remain at his post.


But, Ratzinger added with unusual candor, “if he were to see that he absolutely could not do it anymore, then definitely he would resign.”

MO/PH END RNS

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