Pope Benedict XVI has surprised the world by announcing he will stand down at the end of this month because he is too old and frail to cope with the demands of his ministry.
The 85-year-old German-born pontiff, who was elected in 2005 but saw the Catholic Church rocked by a series of child abuse scandals during his reign, will become the first pope to stand down since the Middle Ages.
He announced that his advanced age and the pace of change in the modern world had left him unable to "adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted" to him.
Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge said he was surprised that the announcement was kept so quiet.
"When I got the news of it this morning, it was a bit of a bombshell.
"I'd been in Rome all week at meetings. I actually met the Pope on Thursday morning and he looked fine," he said
"There was no whisper in Rome of resignation. Rome is a City that is very prone to whispers, but I didn't hear any hint."
He said never before has the Church lived through a pontiff retiring as Benedict XVI has elected to.
"We are in new territory; we've never been here before. Even if you look back to Pope's that resigned hundreds of years ago, they did so in very different circumstances.
"But I think he will retire with the utmost discretion to a Monastery and a library and will return to his academic life, and will no way seek to intervene in the day to day affairs of the Church."
Archbishop Coleridge defended the way Pope Benedict XVI handled the child abuse scandals during his reign, and his decision to remove Bishop William M. Morris from the pastoral care of the diocese of Toowoomba in 2011 after a long history of tension between Bishop Morris and the Vatican.
"The Pope was extraordinarily patient, and almost to a point indulgent where he sat down one-to-one with Bishop Morris and ask for his resignation. It's very unusual that a Pope would do that.
"To cast him in the role of someone who wasn't prepared to listen or consider questions of justice I think is a crude account of what went on," he said.
Archbishop Coleridge paid his respects to Benedict XVI as a strong leader who he believes will be remembered as one of the great teaching Pope's of the Roman Catholic Church.
"He'd be a leading contender for the finest theological mind that has ever been Pope.
"The three great tasks of a Pope and a Bishop is to teach, sanctify and govern. Benedict XVI has been quite luminous as a teacher and he's been very strong as sanctifier.
"I have a great sense of gratitude for his generosity and for the wisdom he's shown and I wish him every peace, happiness and joy in the years that are given to him now.
"I hope he can retire to his beloved books and read and write and continue to produce the kind of luminous texts he's produced through a lifetime," he said.
Who is next in line?
The job of picking Pope Benedict's successor now lies in the hands of a select group of cardinals who will be summoned to Rome in the coming days.
British and Irish bookmakers have ranked Nigeria's Cardinal Francis Arinze, Peter Turkson of Ghana and Canadian Marc Ouellet as favourites to lead the Roman Catholic Church; however Archbishop Coleridge said he doesn't believe an African will be next in line.
"I think it's too early yet for Africa to produce a Pope. It took Poland 1000 years.
"There has to be a process of maturation in a local church before someone emerges to become the Pope.
"I don't think it will be an African, although I have the highest regard for Cardinal Turkson, as I do for some of the other African Cardinals."
Archbishop Coleridge said he feels Benedict XVI may be the last European Pope for some time.
"I don't know that, but I instinctively have the sense that the Cardinals may well look beyond the shores of Europe. If they did that the most likely place they would look for maturation of the Church in a place would be Latin America or Central America," he said.
Mark Coleridge Archbishop of Brisbane spoke to Kelly Higgins-Devine.
No comments:
Post a Comment