Pope Francis presides over funeral for ‘taboo-breaking’ predecessor

Under a foggy sky and the gaze of tens of thousands of Catholic worshippers, Pope Francis on Thursday presided over the funeral mass of his retired predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, ending an unprecedented experiment in co-existence between a reigning and a retired pope.

Benedict, who died on New Year’s Eve aged 95, had shocked the world’s estimated 1.3bn Catholics when he abdicated in 2013, after less than eight years in power. His resignation — the first by a pope since the Middle Ages — created a potentially fraught situation of two men wearing the distinctive white papal robes living in Holy See, the spiritual and administrative heart of the Roman Catholic Church.

But as tens of thousands of mourners paid respects to Benedict at St Peter’s Basilica this week, scholars said the German theologian’s groundbreaking precedent had opened a new path for the Vatican, now grappling with the need for competent leadership in an era of ever-longer lifespans.

With Benedict’s passing, speculation in Church circles is growing over the potential future retirement of Francis, now 86, who suffers from chronic knee problems and relies on a wheelchair to get around, including during the funeral ceremonies.

“Pope Benedict has broken a taboo,” said Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. “His decision to retire set a precedent likely to be repeated because . . . the gap between the age when you are really active and able to manage a massive organisation and natural death has become much longer.”

John McGreevy, author of the book Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis, called Benedict’s abdication a “healthy step” away from the Church’s traditional “renaissance prince model of governance”.

It was, he said, part of the “long slow evolution of the papacy towards a modern institution with a greater sense of transparency and collective governance”.

During the funeral, Francis didn’t examine Benedict’s life, but instead delivered a meditation about Jesus’s willingness to entrust himself to God’s will.

“Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom [Jesus], may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever,” he concluded.

Many see Benedict’s defining legacy as the example set by his “courageous” abdication — a seemingly improbable decision given his own doctrinal conservatism. “It was a real break with precedent and very unlike a pope that took the Church’s tradition very seriously,” said McGreevy, who is also provost at the University of Notre Dame. “It was one of the great things he did.”

Not all Catholics are as enthusiastic. Geraldina Boni, professor of canon and ecclesiastical law at the University of Bologna, said that the idea that an ageing pope should resign “risks conveying a bureaucratic and efficiency-oriented idea” of a spiritual leader seen by devout Catholics as God’s representative on earth.  

Elected by the College of Cardinals, popes historically reigned for life, like other absolute monarchs. But debate on potential abdication began during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, whose infirmities from Parkinson’s disease in his latter years led to drift in the Curia, the Vatican’s powerful administrative machinery.

John Paul had rejected the idea of resignation, likening the pope to Jesus, who he argued could not step down from the cross. But analysts say Benedict’s observation of his predecessor’s decline probably informed his own abdication.

His resignation came amid an outcry over the Vatican’s longstanding failure to confront paedophile priests, concerns about misgovernance and financial mismanagement and the devastating theft of sensitive Church documents by a trusted Vatican butler.

Having struggled to manage the Curia, Benedict improvised his own post-retirement protocol, adopting the title Pope Emeritus, wearing white papal robes, and remaining in the Vatican, albeit sequestered from the spotlight. “Benedict made a conscious choice to bury himself alive in the monastery,” said Faggioli.

Though he pledged not to interfere in current Church affairs, analysts said members of his inner circle were not so scrupulous, and texts published under Benedict’s name appeared to oppose Francis’s direction on sensitive issues, such as priestly celibacy and sexual abuse.

“Some factions have tried to divide the Church into two opposing factions, even over the matter of who was the authentic holder of the papal tiara,” Boni said.

Though Boni said the “profound understanding” between the two popes prevented any schism, many Catholics believe clearer legal guidelines for retired pontiffs are needed to prevent confusion over whether true spiritual authority lies. Since 2021, experts in canonical law and religious professors have debated a potential draft code for retired popes, and popes who become incapacitated during their reign.

As for Francis, he has never excluded potential retirement, though he said the idea of resigning “never entered his mind” during some of his health problems in the past year. But he said he would do so if he saw he was unable to manage the Church.

While Benedict’s passing now gives him greater leeway to consider his options without concerns about three popes, Faggioli said Francis — with his high level of social engagement — was unlikely to embrace the isolation of his reclusive, scholarly predecessor.

“The difficulty of thinking about Pope Francis resigning is what kind of post-papal life could there be for Jorge Mario Bergoglio,” said Faggioli. “I don’t see him being able to keep his mouth shut and live in a secluded monastic setting.”

In St Peter’s Square this week, mourners were themselves considering the results of the Church’s first experiment in living with two popes.

“It is as if the Church had breathed in these past few years with two lungs: one lung, Benedict’s, dedicated to prayer, and the other lung Pope Francis’s leading the Church,” said Don Antonio, 43, a parish priest from Salerno.

But the priest said only God knew whether a similar chapter in Church history would be written soon. “To every pope, his choice.”

Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome