COMMENTARY: Should the Pope or His Aides and Observers Retire?

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Pope John Paul II’s return to the hospital has set off all the alarms in the firehouse of speculation about how he really is, who might succeed him and, of course, whether he should resign from his office. Can a good case be made that Pope John Paul II, […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Pope John Paul II’s return to the hospital has set off all the alarms in the firehouse of speculation about how he really is, who might succeed him and, of course, whether he should resign from his office.

Can a good case be made that Pope John Paul II, who has never hidden his illness from the world, should step down before the vivid colors of his personality and accomplishments fade, much as his vigor has, before our very eyes?


A better case can be made for allowing the gallant pope to stay and for forcing the retirement of many of his aides, possible successors and those who report on and speculate about his every hitch, limp and hiccup and would inspect the array of tea leaves in his cup and the contents of his wastebasket if they could.

John Paul is not diminished by his brave endurance of illness, but he is diminished by all those who are ever ready to give an opinion about or observe him, often as awkwardly as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, to find clues about his well-being, his intentions, his handlers or his possible successor.

Indeed, the eager legions who track the pope’s progress are making low comedy out of what may be the high point of his validation of the sacredness of human life that he has championed throughout his years in office.

Some rush into print or onto Web sites to advertise their expertise on papal elections and the odds on possible successors with the enthusiasm of Las Vegas oddsmakers and with just possibly the hope that they will be quoted and that their name will be spelled right.

Perhaps the greatest danger to the pope’s health comes from the hysteria that fills St. Peter’s Square every time he appears at the window of his apartment.

This can lead even normally steady observers to report of John Paul’s first appearance after his recent hospitalization that although “his voice was weak and raspy, the body language seemed relatively good. … At a couple of points he straightened up and seemed in control of himself.” (The Word From Rome, Feb. 11, 2005, published by The National Catholic Reporter)

The report also informs us that “the most reassuring element … was that his doctors permitted him to sit for roughly 10 minutes in front of an open window on what was another chilly Roman morning.” We are also told that it was the pope’s “time in front of an open window … that … brought on his flu.”


Yes, and some tribes put their elderly out in the freezing weather to catch their last cold. Maybe the pope should call 911 the next time one of these doctors says, “Sit here, Holy Father, the fresh air will do you goodâÂ?¦”

The Who, Me Worry? Award goes to Archbishop John Foley, a Vatican spokesman, who replied when asked if the pope’s physical condition is having any impact on his work, “I personally have not experienced a slowdown or lack of direction.”

Then there was a “mini-tempest” when Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, after saying that he hoped John Paul would live through 2010 and so surpass Pius IX’s 32-year reign, answered a question about papal resignation in a phrase reminiscent of Vito Corleone’s pointed rhetoric: “He knows what to do.”

The pope is valiantly struggling to maintain his dignity while many around him, high on Roman gossip, ambition or career worries, are stripping it away from him. They should stop observing him and start observing themselves before the paranoid fizz on their heady brew reaches Oliver Stone and he makes a movie about it.

Most people, including Catholics, are too busy with their own lives to pay much attention to such fevered speculation. They have lives, the pope has one, and this crowd hovering around the holy father badly needs to get one.

(Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of “Cardinal Bernardin’s Stations of the Cross,” published by St. Martin’s Press.)


MK END KENNEDY

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