When pope Benedict XVI decided to take a step to the side, in 2013 announced that it would do so in silence and would not interfere in the main issues of the Church. Things have changed somewhat in recent times. Joseph Ratzinger has just published a book with cardinal Robert Sarah, one of the main opponents of ideological Francisco -even though he has been declared not to be his “enemy” – where he defends celibacy and opposed to the ordination of married men. A measure that was approved at the last Synod of the Amazon for certain parts of the world and that the Pope could become law in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation that is writing.
The book, whose content has been pre-empted by Le Figaro to be published next January 15 and is titled Des profondeurs de nos coeurs (From the deep of our heart), as has been announced by the own cardinal Sarah on Twitter. “I think that the celibacy” of the priests “has great significance” and is “indispensable for our journey towards God remains the foundation of our life,” Benedict XVI writes. The book is not only an analysis on “priesthood, celibacy and the crisis of the church”, as reads the subtitle, and doesn’t hide the context posinodal in which it has been written. “In recent months, as the world has been reverberating with the uproar created by a foreign synod media that has prevailed on the synod to actual , we have seen, we have found”.
Ratzinger and cardinal of the Republic of Guinea and the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments -something as well as the head of the Pope’s liturgy – quote a phrase of St. Augustine, to refer to the need to make public a controversial opinion to generate controversy: “I Cannot be silent”. “We met and exchanged our ideas and our concerns”, written by Ratzinger and Sarah, who claim that “they do so with a spirit of love and unity in the Church”.
cardinal Sarah has often been critical of Pope Francis on doctrinal issues, but over all it is the visible head chosen by the sector in opposition to the current pontiff, for an underlying struggle that has already lasted for years. In fact, both The League of Matteo Salvini as Vox in Spain -Santiago Abascal visited him in the Vatican – we have cited on occasion to refer to the traditional Church which, supposedly, Francisco would be betraying with its opening, and in the defense of immigrants. This is why it is even more striking that Benedict XVI has written him a book for four hands which will be interpreted as a measure of pressure to Francisco.
beyond the topic in question, the time chosen is key to interpreting its scope. The book appears shortly before doing so the apostolic exhortation that the pope is argentine prepares on the Synod of the Amazon. In this document, it will be collected some proposals that were approved by the assembly of bishops and give them an official character. The most controversial and long-awaited, precisely, is the answer to the petition of the prelates to ordain married men to allow the faithful access to the sacraments to the more remote areas where there are no priests.
The measure, if approved, definitely, it would be very specific and would not open in any case officially the door to celibacy, but critics Francisco, among which is also his former prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Müller, considered that it would be the first step to “abolish celibacy”. A position that allows opponents of Francisco to open a new war, this time, as published by Le Figaro, would be supported ideological -and maybe unintended – of the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI.
The book reopens the debate of the limits and the behavior that must have a pope emeritus and the consequences that ensue what you say or what you type. In April of 2019, Benedict XVI published a document of 18 pages in which he reflected on the Church and sexual abuse, and re-ignited a debate over what should be the role from the retreat.
