Pope Benedict's resignation: Is 'dual papacy' a threat?

Dr. Ronan McCrea of London’s Global University talks on some complications that Pope Benedict XVI's resignation may bring about in the Catholic Church.

It is certainly a very interesting situation for the Catholic Church because in history there’ve been rival Popes at certain times and they have a great fear of having more than one Pope at a time. 

And generally, for the last 600 years Popes have served until they died. We are now in a very interesting situation where there will be a new Pope and his predecessor will still be living.

So, certainly, I’m sure many people would be interested to know whether the current Pope Benedict agrees with the actions of the successor or he doesn’t. For the Catholic Church it is a very-very new situation and one that could potentially be complicated. I suspect that the current Pope Benedict is likely to refrain from public comment. 

But if, as has happened in the past, a new Pope brings about a significant change of direction, certainly it will be very interesting if the new Pope did something that the current Pope disagreed fundamentally with.

Professor, I have just realized that we have not explained the role of the Pope in the Catholic Church and in the global politics? Do you think we could do that?

Certainly! The Pope is the supreme governor of the Catholic Church. And actually since the 19th century in certain matters of doctrine the Pope is considered infallible when he speaks it is called “ex cathedra”. 

When he chooses to identify himself as speaking definitively on a particular matter of doctrine, the Pope defines the belief of the Church, he has the power of appointment overall posts within the Church.

The Pope is essentially the supreme governor of the Catholic Church. Many Protestant churches have synods or groups, the kind of parliament almost, that governs the church and the Catholic Church is not like that. 

The Catholic Church is also different from many Orthodox churches where there is a close link to a particular state. The Catholic Church is entirely independent and therefore the Pope has the authority to govern every aspect of the Church’s life and teaching.

Does Pope play a political role in the world politics?

Oh, certainly! This has been one of the great controversies. The Catholic Church has a long history of rejecting liberal democracy and liberal-democratic states. 

Then over the course of the 20th century it reconciled itself to the independence of political power from religious power. But the Church continues to intervene on many issues. 

It talks a lot about poverty, about tolerance, immigrants’ rights. 

But its main controversies are policies related to questions of gender, sex, equality laws. 

So, the Church has been kind of generally against laws that permit people to choose to die, it’s been against abortion laws and has been against laws that provide protection from discrimination for homosexuals.

But doesn’t it indicate that perhaps the Vatican is now giving in to the outside pressure?

I don’t think so. I mean it is essentially the Vatican which was taken take by surprise by the Pope’s decision. It seems to have been a personal decision and not one that was kind of a result of any political pressure or social pressure, or a scandal. As far as we know, it seems to have been that the Pope just felt he was too old. 

That is a very exceptional element in the Church’s history but Pope Benedict may have been influenced by the very long and protracted illness and death of his predecessor and he may have felt that having two Popes who are very infirm for quite a long period of time would not be helpful to the Church. 

Some of his advisors have mentioned that he can’t fly across the Atlantic anymore and the world congress, a very big event for catholic people is meant to happen in Brazil next year and the Pope wouldn’t have been able to attend that.

If you remember it, he’s continued the very conservative trend that was carried out by Pope John Paul II. The second Vatican Council appeared to indicate a kind of liberalization on the part of the Church and Pope John Paul II certainly didn’t continue that and reversed it. Pope Benedict continued on in that role, he did not continue with liberalization of the Church, he’s been quite hardline on matters of doctrine and social policy.

His own papacy may also be remembered, I’m sure solely from his perspective, for the very large number of sexual abuse scandals that the Church has suffered during these times. The very large-scale, very serious wrongdoing by the catholic clergy has been uncovered during his papacy. 

And Pope Benedict has been criticized by many victims’ groups as being part of a very deficient response by the Vatican which fought largely to protect the abusers and cover up the abuse rather than to protect many children and women who were abused by catholic clergy. I’m afraid that that may well be what he is most remembered for.

Do you think that the Catholic Church would retain its authority if it continues to follow its current strict position?

I think there is a divergence in different areas of the world. In Europe the Catholic Church in the countries where it has traditionally been strong, like Ireland and Spain, France, it has become associated with a very strict approach to sexual behavior and things like that. And most people don’t believe in that anymore and I think that really hurts the Church. The Church has become seen as outdated and cruel in its approach to issues like the right to die and gay rights. And I think in Europe the Church’s very strong approach is going to hurt and to cause it to lose supporters.

But in many other areas of the world, such as Africa, I think that’s not the case. I don’t think there is very much pressure within the African Church for a greater liberal approach on the issue of homosexuality. Latin America where 40% of Catholics now live is probably eventually following the European approach where greater strictness may hurt the Church.

But globally Europe has a declining demographic presence, so the Church may follow the path of people and the countries of the third world. In fact the person whom many pundits are tipping to be the next Pope is a Ghanaian Cardinal who will be the first black or African Pope in Church’s history.

And I think the Church has difficulty certainly in Western European society in realizing and internalizing the reality that it is just now one voice amongst many, it doesn’t have the right to decide questions of morality. In Western European countries many people don’t believe in any religion, there are other religions, the Church is no longer seen as the definitive decider of moral issues and I think the Church has difficulty with that. 

They find it hard to understand that while their religion and their beliefs are extremely important to them, other people don’t like those beliefs. Now, I think the Church really has a struggle with that.

Remember the Church only really reconciled itself to liberal democracy in the mid 20th century. So, its record of pluralism and accepting difference and other opinions isn’t perfect. 

And I think that sometimes when the Church is treated just like every other organization that has beliefs, when it is criticized or when they realize that people have different views or the law reflects a different view from the Church’s view – the Church feels persecuted. 

I think this is really a reaction to the fact that in the past the Church had the power to decide these issues and now it doesn’t and it feels persecuted.

There certainly is persecution of Christians in the world, but it is not in Europe and it is not in secular Western democracies. There are very serious issues of the free rights of Christians in the Muslim world where we see harassment of Pakistani Christians using blasphemy laws, the laws that prevent people from leaving Islam to join Christianity in many Muslim countries – that is persecution. 

But the Church has called persecution questions like when antidiscrimination laws require Catholics to serve gay people in shops or got civil servants to register gay marriages.

That’s not persecution – that is applying to the Catholic Church the same principles that are applied to everybody else. I mean of course Catholics have the right to respect their beliefs but no more respect than anybody else. 

Everybody must follow the law and I think the Church sees that as a persecution but I don’t think it is reasonable for them to see it in that way. It is simply applying the same laws to the religious people that are applied to everybody else.