The radical move by a traditionalist pope (Comment)

The world's oldest international organisation, the Holy See, situated inside the world's smallest sovereign state, Vatican City, was swept by a tsunami last Monday week. 


No less than the rest of the world, the Vatican was stunned by Pope Benedict XVI's surprise announcement, in Latin, that he will step down at the end of the month after only eight years in office.

Neither in living memory nor in modern times has anything remotely similar happened. There is to be no funeral, no period of mourning, for the Pope is not dead. He has simply become fully aware of his waning powers.

Giovanna Chirri, an Italian news agency reporter happened to be listening carefully to what the Pope was saying during what should have been a routine ceremony. She got a world scoop. She was so overcome with emotion that she burst into tears.

But Pope Benedict himself has shown little emotion during audiences and meetings in the days following his resignation. He genuinely feels washed out, tired and frustrated after years of presiding over Vatican meetings attended by curial cardinals – particularly Italians – more interested in preserving their own patch than in working harmoniously for the good of the Church.

He admits in private that most of his attempts to reform the Roman Curia have failed. So he is handing on the task to his successor.

The Pope has made no secret of the fact that he accepted election only reluctantly in 2005. 

At the end of a long and distinguished ecclesiastical and university career, he had looked forward to returning to his books, and one of his ambitions had always been to become the Vatican's chief librarian in his old age.

But he was kept on in his job as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II, who relied heavily on his advice and support. During the months before he died in 2005, John Paul made it clear that he regarded the German as his preferred successor.
 
The poisonous atmosphere festering in recent years inside the Apostolic Palace was revealed to the world during the 'Vatileaks' scandal of 2012. Former butler Paolo Gabriele was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment – subsequently pardoned by the Pope after seven months in detention – for having stolen from the Pope's desk and passed on extremely damaging information to an Italian investigative journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi.

In his bestselling book, His Holiness, Nuzzi then published facsimiles of letters revealing financial irregularities, corruption, nepotism and discord at the highest level in the church.

This is the shuddering end to a papacy that has been marked by a series of verbal and organisational gaffes, not to mention sexual scandal. Clerical sex abuse scandals have damaged the credibility of the Catholic Church not only in the US, but also in Ireland, Australia, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. 

The Pope has been forced to apologise to victims of sexual abuse by his priests in practically every country that he has visited.

The abrupt end to the pontificate poses more questions than the Vatican is able to answer. 

How will Pope Benedict be known and addressed after his retirement? "Pope Emeritus", as if he were a retired bishop, or university professor (which he is)? Could he go back to being called Cardinal Ratzinger? How will he dress? Will he return to the black clergyman suit and clerical collar he wore as cardinal?

At one of the briefings for Vatican journalists last week, Fr Federico Lombardi replied apologetically, "I don't know," about 20 times to questions that he was unable to answer.

There are also some unintended consequences of the resignation: the future role of Pope Benedict's private secretary Archbishop Georg Ganswein, recently promoted to be head of the papal household and staying as gatekeeper of the Pope's private office, has to be defined more clearly.

When Pope Benedict departs for the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo on February 28, the archbishop will accompany him and remain by his side until, at the end of the conclave, white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel, signifying that a successor has been elected. 

But as soon as a new pope is elected, Archbishop Ganswein will be responsible for setting up his household and overseeing the transition to a new administration. It's not immediately clear how he will be able, simultaneously, to serve two masters.

When a pope dies, everybody in the Vatican loses his job. 

The new pope has to confirm in office all the existing heads of department, or replace them.

This normally takes several months. 

Initially, the archbishop will spend his nights sleeping in the refurbished convent now being prepared to accommodate Benedict and himself, while also working for the new pontiff.

Providing adequate lifelong security for the former pope may be one reason why he has decided to remain within the secure walls of Vatican City. 

Had he opted to spend the rest of his days in a monastery elsewhere, such as at Monte Cassino, halfway between Rome and Naples, this might have involved huge expense to be borne by the Italian state.

Another reason why Pope Benedict is not retiring to his native Bavaria may be that his successor will be able to keep careful watch over who visits him and where he goes, if he ever decides to travel outside the walls of the Vatican. 

Fewer than 800 people actually live inside the walled city, which has 300 officers belonging to two separate police forces, the Swiss Guards and the Vatican gendarmerie, to provide protection and surveillance of its permanent residents. 

The concierges of Vatican apartment buildings also habitually keep careful watch over all comings and goings, which are reported to the authorities.

The final days, hours and minutes of the papacy are ticking away relentlessly. 

After giving his regular Sunday Angelus blessing last Sunday to crowds gathered in St Peter's Square, Pope Benedict disappeared from public view for the rest of the week. 

He has joined a select group of Vatican cardinals and bishops for their annual Lenten retreat. 

The preacher is Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, an Italian biblical scholar who has worked hard to re-establish the prominence that the Vatican used to hold in the world of high culture.

Benedict's last public appearance as pope will be at a general audience held in St Peter's Square on February 27, his last day before leaving office.

More than 100,000 pilgrims, tourists, and Romans are expected to flock across the Tiber to bid farewell to the first German pope to have led the church in centuries.

The day after he says goodbye to the heads of the various Vatican departments with whom he has worked for the past eight years, Pope Benedict will take off his papal uniform – the white cassock and white skull cap or zucchetto – for the last time.

The official papal tailor for the past 210 years, Annibale Gammarelli, will prepare three new white papal outfits which he will shortly display in the window of his shop of ecclesiastical outfitters just near the Pantheon; one for a small man, one for a medium-sized pope and one for a stouter, taller figure.

These garments will then be transferred to the Sistine Chapel on the day the conclave opens, so whoever is chosen to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics next month can immediately don his robes.

The job description for the next pope will be up to the 117 cardinal electors – as well as to the dozens of 80-year-olds and over who still have the right to join in the pre-conclave discussions, which begin inside the Vatican in great secrecy next month.

Although continuity is always the watchword inside the Vatican, it is already becoming clear that cardinals from countries outside Europe – where the flight from the pews has been less dramatic than in the traditionally Catholic countries of our own continent – will be pressing for the election of the first non-European pope. 

It is far too early yet to make any meaningful forecast of the result. 

But it is safe to say that the negotiations already taking place in Rome among Vatican movers and shakers will intensify during the coming days.

These will be critical to the future survival of this ancient institution – a mixture of the sacred and profane, the political and spiritual, the biblical and banal – which has managed to survive so many wars, crises and attempts at reform down the centuries.

* David Willey OBE is the BBC's Vatican Correspondent