On Thursday, at 8 p.m. in
Rome, Benedict will become the first retired pontiff in 600 years. And
with no modern guides, everything he does will be pioneering for a 21st
century papal retiree.
The leader of 1.2 billion
Catholics around the globe will leave his seat at the ornate Apostolic
Palace and retire to a former gardener's house at the Vatican to lead a
life of prayer, likely removed entirely from public life.
The Vatican said Tuesday
he will keep the name Benedict XVI and still be addressed as "his
holiness." He will also be known as pope emeritus, emeritus pope or
Roman pontifex emeritus. He will forego his ornate papal wardrobe and
elbow-length cape, called a mozzetta, for a simple white cassock. He
also will retire his red shoes in favor of a brown pair picked up on his
trip to Mexico last year.
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The final days of Benedict's papacy
The 85-year-old will
first leave Rome to go to the papal seaside retreat, Castle Gandolfo,
until a successor is named. Then he will head to the Mater Ecclesiae
(Mother of the Church) building, which formerly housed a cloistered
convent in the Vatican gardens.
While "convent" or
"monastery," as officials have been calling it, may be the right name
for the former home of a group of cloistered nuns tasked with prayer for
the pope, the space does not have the long stone-arched hallways and
massive common areas evoked by such terms.
The pope's new home
"It used to be the
gardener's house," Sister Ancilla Armijo said. "It's just a small house.
What they added was just a library for the sisters and a new chapel."
Armijo is a nun in the
Benedictine Order at the Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado, not far from
the Wyoming border. From October 7, 2004, to October 7, 2009, she and
six other Benedictine sisters from around the world lived in Mater
Ecclesiae praying for the pope, first for an ailing Pope John Paul II
and then all the way through to the election and papacy of Pope Benedict
XVI.
Armijo joined the order
in 1972 at the age of 16. She said joining a cloistered group of
international nuns on the Vatican grounds was unique.
While the house has a
sense of being removed from the Vatican, she said it provides views of
the papal apartment, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica.
"We felt connected to
the Vatican itself," she said, although "it's not like there's any
access to the Vatican itself, the main buildings or anything like that."
The Mater Ecclesiae is
"very small" and "very hot," she said. "There's no trees shading it. I
think it'll work for him if they have air conditioning for him. They'll
have to remodel the kitchen and things like that because it was so
simple."
While she lived there,
bars adorned the windows and separated the nuns from their visitors in
the meeting room, in keeping with a cloistered, set-apart lifestyle.
When Benedict arrives he
can stroll the private courtyard and take in the perfumed aroma from
the 15 or so John Paul II rose bushes, a white-petaled flower cultivated
in honor of his predecessor. Armijo said a group donated the rose
bushes to the Vatican in honor of the late pontiff. Benedict gave them
to the sisters to grow. Every two weeks they sent a bouquet up to the
papal residence.
In the gardens, Armijo
said, Benedict can also find lemon and orange trees in addition to a
small vegetable garden used by the house for meals.
The monastery, when
Armijo lived there, had a few bedrooms, a kitchen, a living area, a
library and a chapel. The walls were plain and whitewashed. It does not
bear the artistic treasures other parts of the Vatican hold, like
Michelangelo's masterworks the Pieta sculpture in St. Peter's, the
Sistine Chapel ceiling, or the massive Last Judgment painting above the
altar in the Sistine Chapel.
"The only real piece of art is in the chapel. It has a beautiful bronzed life-sized crucifix," Armijo said.
A life of prayer
In the chapel the pope
might say Mass every day for his small household, said Monsignor Rick
Hilgartner, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops' Secretariat of Divine Worship.
Benedict has said he
will devote his life to prayer. There is no playbook for the life of
prayer for a retired pope, Hilgartner said. "Nothing beyond the normal
routine" for a monk or a priest.
He said that would
include "prayer throughout the day and the liturgy of the hours, morning
prayer, evening prayer, Mass every day."
Benedict is likely to
keep a small staff at the house to tend to his needs. "He has some
German sisters" -- nuns -- "who cared for him in his domestic needs at
the Apostolic Palace and they're apparently moving with him to this
monastery. So he'll provide for their spiritual needs, saying Mass every
day," Hilgartner said.
There may be a stipend
for the retired pope. Italian news outlets have reported retired clerics
receive up to €2,500 a month. Hilgartner said Benedict won't need much
money if any at all. The Vatican will take care of his lodging and his
health care.
"He didn't have a
pension because the presumption was he would be in office until he
died," Hilgartner said. "His needs will be cared for. Because of the way
he'll be living, those needs will be somewhat limited."
Back to the books
Benedict, a theologian by training, is likely to switch from universal pastor back to scholar.
"My sense is that he
will lay low out of deference to the new pope, that he will stay out of
the way and under the radar," Hilgartner said. He expects the pope to
behave mostly like a retired scholar, doing lots of reading and maybe a
little writing.
Benedict was rumored to
be working on his fourth encyclical before he announced he would resign,
Hilgartner said. Encyclicals are papal letters to the church, often on
pressing matters that carry the weight of the office the pope with them.
"He had written the
encyclical on hope, the encyclical on love, and another one on social
justice and charity," Hilgartner said, adding that the rumored fourth
may be on faith. As a retired pope, Benedict's final encyclical would
not carry the weight of the office.
That is something Benedict had not imposed on his previous scholarly works while in office.
"He was careful not to bless his own writings with the papacy," said Pia de Solenni, a moral theologian from Seattle.
When he published books as the pope his byline was "Joseph Ratzinger -- Pope Benedict XVI," de Solenni noted.
"I think he was willing
to engage with others." She said his books are "a sharing of ideas and
he's putting his ideas out on paper. To me it's an incredible mark of
his humility."
One thing is fairly
certain: He won't be tweeting any longer. The Vatican said his official
Twitter handle @pontifex will be retired along with Benedict.
Life beyond the walls of the Vatican
Benedict said he no
longer had the strength to go on. After he announced his retirement, the
Vatican said he had begun thinking about leaving the office after a
strenuous papal visit barnstorming across Mexico and Cuba.
When he leaves the
office he will give up his Fisherman's Ring, which takes its name from
St. Peter's occupation. It will be destroyed along with "the lead seal
of the pontificate," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said.
He will also be giving
up his personal security detail, the 100 to 120 members of the Swiss
Guard who are responsible for round-the-clock protection of the pope.
"He received security like any other head of state," former Swiss guard member Andreas Widmer said.
While best known for
their Renaissance-era dress uniforms -- brightly striped puffy-sleeved
shirts and pants -- along with their ceremonial battle axes, they are a
formidable modern security detail, according to Widmer, who now runs the
entrepreneurship program at the School of Business and Economics at the
Catholic University of America.
Widmer had a kinship
with Benedict in the late 1980s while he was a young German-speaking
member of the guard and Benedict, whose native tongue is German, was a
top cardinal serving John Paul II.
He described Benedict as
an "unbelievable introvert." He said Benedict was always friendly with
people at the Vatican one on one, even beggars on the streets, but large
crowds sapped his energy.
The task of protecting
two popes would have meant doubling the Swiss Guard force, a group
unaffiliated with other Swiss security forces, as the guard predates the
Swiss state.
But Widmer suspects that would not have been an issue anyway. His hunch is that Benedict will retire and remain cloistered.
"My guess is Benedict is
not going to leave the Vatican," Widmer said. "It's not like he's going
to make these huge moves. My guess is anything he's going to write and
say will only come out after he dies."
A turbulent time
Before he became pope at the age of 78 Benedict had talked at length about retiring.
Speculation has swirled
over what finally pushed him to step aside -- Vatileaks, the sexual
abuse crisis, or the growing tide of secularism.
The "Vatileaks" scandal
began with his butler leaking documents showing disarray and
mismanagement and led to an internal review that was reported to contain
details of gay sex scandals -- reports that the Vatican calls baseless
-- and money woes. Three cardinals reported their findings to the
pontiff this week.
The Vatican spokesman said the matter was concluded and the pope would reveal the contents of the report only to his successor.
The sexual abuse scandal
continues to haunt the church as reforms have slowly taken hold across
the American church and other cases have surfaced around the globe.
While the vast majority
of the abuse cases happened in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, the recent
revelation of more case and the failings of the church in dealing with
many of them have left fresh scars that have been slow to heal, victims'
advocates say.
Cases are still in the
process of being litigated. Two top American cardinals were deposed
shortly before they were to leave for Rome for the pope's farewell.
Benedict was unable to stop the tide of growing secularism in Europe and the United States, though he often railed against it.
All of it likely took
its toll on the pope who walks with a cane, has a pacemaker and has
looked frailer and frailer in recent months. But in the end it was his
strength that failed him.
In retirement he will have none of those global problems to sort out anymore. Those responsibilities will fall to the next pope.
Instead, Benedict has said his task will be prayer and reflection.
Sister Armijo cried when
she found out the pope was resigning. But now that she has had time to
process the idea, she said her feelings have shifted from sadness to
gratitude.
"He's a person of great
courage to do something like this. To dedicate his life to prayer. I
think it will help people to see there's a value to dedicating your life
to prayer," she said.
"Prayer is something worth dedicating your life to."
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