Two Popes

I Digress

5 Feb

Today we digress from The Vatican Archives to talk about the intrigue of having two living popes.

Benedict XVI resigns

Despite being voted into office, the Pope is more a monarch than a politician, and as we know from recent events, monarchs tend to stay in office until they die. And in one of the world’s oldest institutions, where tradition is everything, change is not looked upon too kindly. And that is exactly what we have in the Roman Catholic Church and a pope who resigned.

Here's what a theological expert said in a Washington Post article on Popes resigning:

Most modern popes have felt that resignation is unacceptable except in cases of an incurable or debilitating disease – that paternity, in the words of Paul IV, cannot be resigned.

Our most recent Pope to resign was the recently late Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected pope in 2005 and offered his resignation in 2013.

Born in Germany 1927, Benedict, whose name was originally Joseph Ratzinger before changing it to Benedict when he became pope, was unfortunately caught up in the Nazi side of the Second World War. At 14 he was even forced to join the Hitler Youth. Right about now you might be wondering how does a Nazi end up becoming Pope? Stranger things have happened. But I think we can assume that Benedict, or Joseph as he went by back then, had been opposed to the whole situation and forced to play his part.

After the war he went to Munich University to study philosophy and theology, theology being his main focus and the subject he would later get his doctorate in. When 1951 came along, Joseph was ordained as a priest, and would spend his time teaching dogma and theology, even becoming a university professor. He even served as an expert assistant at the Second Vatican Council. I couldn’t tell you much more about this Second Vatican Council, but it certainly does sound impressive.

As he started rising up through the ranks of the Catholic Church, Joseph found himself an archbishop, then cardinal, before his predecessor John Paul II passed away in 2005, leaving a space for Joseph to be elected by the papal conclave as Pope. Which recent history will tell us did in fact happen. He chose a different name than the one he was born with, as popes are wont to do, and was then known as Pope Benedict XVI.

But Benedict wasn’t finished with marking his place in history. He wanted his name mentioned in the history books just a little bit more often than your average pope.

It was in 2013 that Benedict would again make world headlines. Less than 8 years as Pope, Benedict XVI announced his resignation. He claimed it was because of his age and failing health, he was 78 after all when he first took up the position, that caused him to realise he could not fulfil the role of Pope to his best ability.

But the real shock came in the fact that there hadn’t been a pope resign since the 15thcentury.

But Benedict wasn’t exactly leaving the Catholic Church in a better state than when he started. At his final Mass as pope he said this in relation to the church being in a state of internal division:

We can reveal the face of the church and how this face is, at times, disfigured. I am thinking in particular of the signs against the unity of the church, of the divisions in the body of the church.

But could the new incoming pope turn things around? There was only one way to find out. The current pope, Francis I, or originally Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as pope by the papal conclave in 2013.

Starting out as a Jesuit priest in Argentina, Francis came up through the Catholic Church relatively quickly where he didn’t exactly make a lot of friends. Here’s a snippet of his first interview as pope:

[My] authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultra-conservative.

But as we age we often change our way of viewing the world, and Jorge was no different. By the time he became pope he had a much more liberal way of going about things.

Even though Benedict had resigned, he was still technically a pope, even with the title of ‘pope emeritus’, and there’s more than a handful in the church that just don’t agree with having two living popes. Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, another Jesuit theologian made his point clear when he said:

Having two people with the title of ‘pope’, even if one added ‘emeritus’, it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion… [More than one pope at a time] dangerously mixes up the precise meaning of unity of the church.

But the new Pope Emeritus has some who understood his need to step down. Here’s Francesco Mores, a research fellow at the University of Milan and expert on the history of Christianity telling us that there’s more than just one man’s want to consider:

There used to be a whirlwind change in the bishops of the Church of Rome, the average life expectancy was much shorter and people died much easier than they do now. There was no need for popes to resign.

Francesco isn’t wrong there. There certainly is a biological aspect to keep in mind. But he then does go on to acknowledge that when you’re elected Pope you go into the position knowing full well what is expected of you.

Much like a monarch believes they have been ‘chosen by God’, so too do Popes. And while its common for bishops to retire when they get to 75, popes do not get that same choice because:

The Pope is chosen in some way by God, as Jesus Christ’s vicar.

Regardless of any of this, Benedict did resign and has spent his retired years in a monastery, although he did keep his papal name, rather than reverting to his original name, he preferred to go by ‘Father Benedict’.

Who else has resigned being Pope?

So if Benedict was the first pope to resign in 600 years, who are the other popes who have resigned? Well, there’s actually more than you might think.

Back in the 3rd century, the first pope believed to have abdicated as Pope was Pontian. Things weren’t too great for ex-popes back then because some sources say he was beaten to death about a month later. But there is one big thing we need to consider when talking about popes this far back. And that is the scarcity of historical evidence. Back in the early days of the popes, their history wasn’t exactly clearly and precisely chronicled, and even if it was, not much, meaning almost nothing, has survived. So let’s take Pontian and other popes in and around this time resigning with a big tablespoon of salt.

But let’s fast forward a bit to the 11th century, where historical records are a little bit more reliable.

It’s in 1045, that Benedict IX is recorded as stepping down as Pope, supposedly so that he could get married. Benedict had quite the career as Pope, coming into the office early, possibly early 20s, thanks to his father. Benedict clearly wasn’t suited for a clergy lifestyle, he was quite the philanderer. Originally, the Roman citizens of the day weren’t too happy with this pope that didn’t abide by the rules and so they forced him to leave Rome and replaced him with a new Pope, Sylvester III, who was himself run out of Rome so that Benedict could return. But by this time, Benedict had decided for himself that he didn’t want to be pope, and maybe he wanted to see what being married was like. So he left the papacy once again with his godfather, Giovanni Graziano, offering some monetary incentive to leave.

Giovanni then decided that he would be the next pope and the next year installed himself into the role taking the name of Gregory VI. For about a year Gregory tried his best to sort out the mess Benedict had left behind. But paying for his godson to leave ended up being his undoing.

Benedict, who supposedly wasn’t granted his wish to marry the woman he wanted, decided to return to Rome and be the Pope once more. So we have Benedict IX claiming to be the true pope, and we have Gregory VI claiming to be the true pope. Well this headache of two true popes went on for a couple of months, causing all sorts of chaos, before high-ranking members of the clergy decided to get Henry III, the Holy Roman Emperor, involved to sort it all out.

When Henry arrived he declared that Gregory VI was after all the rightful pope but urged him to stand before a council to sort it all out. The council decided that even though Gregory was the true pope, the way he got there just wasn’t exactly the right way to go about things.

And even though Gregory argued that he had bribed Benedict to leave so that he could help the church, he acknowledged that it wasn’t the way things were done, so he agreed to step down as pope in order to save the reputation of the papacy.

So with everything now sorted out, the council chose a new pope, Clement II and everything was how it should be once more. Unfortunately Clement didn’t exactly live very long, dying in 1047, and with this new pope out of the way, Benedict saw his chance to return to Rome and once more install himself as pope.

Good grief, Benedict really couldn’t see the writing on the wall, and it was down to Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor, to once more drive Benedict out and replace him with another pope.

We’re not 100% sure what happened to Benedict after that, although many believe he lived for another decade or so in an Italian monastery, but that he never lost hope of returning as Pope.

What a saga that turned out to be. But unsurprisingly, our other pope resignations aren’t any less dramatic.

In 1294, Celestine V was only Pope for five months before stepping down. Already an old man when elected, Celestine was 80, all he longed for was solitude and some peace and quiet. As a devout monk, Celestine is considered to be quite saintly, but he just didn’t excel as an administrator and things were just going from bad to worse.

After consulting with the Cardinals, Celestine resigned and the cardinals elected Boniface VIII to be the next pope.

Unfortunately Celestine only got to live two years as the hermit he desired, before Boniface, scared that those who disliked him would rally around Celestine and install him as an antipope, had Celestine imprisoned in Fumone Castle where he died not long after in 1296.

While our resignations up until this point have been nothing short of dramatic, the big drama is still yet to come.

The Western Schism, is a period in the history of the Roman Catholic Church when there were two, and then three, rival popes. Each with their own supporters, their own College of Cardinals who had elected them, and their own admin offices.

As we know from our Vatican Archives episode, the Pope didn’t always live in the Vatican. At one point the head of the Church lived in a palace in Avignon, France. When the papal residence returned to Rome after about 70 years, the people felt they needed a pope who was Roman, or at the very least Italian. And so Urban VI was elected.

But Urban wasn’t exactly the kindest pope and it turned out he was so hostile towards the cardinals, that a group of them got together and decided to elect themselves a new pope, with the claim that Urban wasn’t the real pope because they had been forced, under fear, to vote for him. And so the Western Schism began in 1378 with the election of Clement VII by the Avignon cardinals.

And so with Clement in Avignon and Urban in Rome, it turned out both were rightfully elected as legitimate popes.

But this double election turned out to be nothing but a proper headache. Each side denounced the other, and so naturally confusion reigned and nothing much at all got done.

Clement decided there was only one way to settle this. He would gather an army and remove his rival once and for all. But his army failed and we were right back to where we started with two popes. And it seemed the whole of Europe got involved. Even though everyone kinda wanted the whole thing to be sorted out so they could get back to one pope, everyone wanted their guy to be the one to prevail. And clear lines were certainly drawn, if you leaned toward the French, you were all for Clement. If you weren’t exactly a fan of the French then Urban was your guy.

Then in 1394, the theologians at the University of Paris got together and decided to end this ridiculous situation once and for all. They put forward three possible solutions for the nonsensical situation they all found themselves in.

Either both popes would resign and one singular pope would be elected; a moderator would conduct negotiations to return to one pope; or a general council would be called and whatever they decided would be the decision.

The majority of people seemed to lean towards the general council option but both popes refused any of the options.

With nothing changing, the years with two popes just continued, and before we know it it’s been 31 years, and Clement and Urban have long since died and been replaced. It wouldn’t be until 1409 that the general council was finally called, the Council of Pisa.

The council came to the decision that both popes, now Benedict XIII representing Avignon, and Gregory XII representing Rome, would resign and a new pope would be elected, which they promptly did in Alexander V.

But they forgot to force Benedict and Gregory to resign first, and with both of them refusing to do so, there were now three popes. A trio of popes, who would have thought.

And it gets better, our third pope, Alexander, died only after a couple of months and was replaced by John XXIII, who was forced to flee.

Then in 1414, Emperor Sigismund of Germany, sick and tired of this whole fiasco, called the Council of Constance to sort it all out once and for all. The council set to work, deposing John, accepting Gregory’s resignation and dismissing Benedict.

Now with all three popes out, the Cardinals were finally free to elect just the one pope which they did in Martin V.

What a crazy time that must have been to be alive. But now with the schism ended what happened to our three popes? Well, John went into hiding and then was imprisoned. And Benedict shut himself up in a fortress where he stayed still claiming to be the rightful pope, though by that stage I think everyone had had enough of him, so he was largely ignored. Gregory actually accepted the council’s decision and resigned peacefully, making him the last pope to resign until we come to our most recent resignation in Benedict XVI.

Back to one Pope?

As those of us who keep half an eye on the news know, at the end of 2022, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI died. Almost 95, his death came about a decade after his resignation as Pope.

But now that we’re back to just the one pope, will it be for very long?

Francis himself isn’t in the best of health, and it was even revealed that shortly after being elected Pope, Francis wrote a resignation letter just in case he is unable to carry out his papal duties.

Paul Collins, a historian, believed that Francis may resign at some point, but not before Benedict died:

I mean, three popes is two popes too many. It would be a unique situation in church history, and I am not sure if it is a situation that the church needs. I don’t think he will do anything like resigning, certainly until Benedict dies.

And we know from history that three popes is two popes too many. But now that Benedict has passed on, and Francis is battling his own health issues, could we once again see a papal resignation in our near future?

It became clear that Francis himself is thinking about his options when he said this to journalists:

I think at my age and with these limitations, I have to save [my energy] to be able to serve the church, or … think about the possibility of stepping aside… It’s not strange. It’s not a catastrophe. You can change the pope. The door [to retiring] is open – it is a normal option.

With it seeming that Francis does indeed see retirement as a definite option to consider, Collins thinks Francis still has things he wants to do as pope:

I think he suffers a lot of pain from sciatica… But there are certainly no signs of any mental decline, certainly nothing like what we saw with John Paul II. I think he is quite determined to try to carry through the policies that he’s begun.

But perhaps Francis has already started getting ready for his own resignation. As he created 20 new cardinals in August 2022, and with 16 of those 20 not yet 80 years old and therefore a possible papal replacement, it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

And Francis himself has said