ROME (AP) – Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI celebrated the eighth anniversary of his historic resignation by insisting in an interview published on Monday that he has resigned knowingly and that ‘there is only one pope’ – Francis.
Benedict spoke to the leading daily Corriere della Sera to reiterate the allegations of some of his conservative admirers that Francis’ election in 2013 was somehow illegal and that Benedict remains pope.
Benedict, who turns 94 next month, called ‘some of me’ more ‘fanatical’ friends’ who remain angry about his resignation, paving the way for a very different kind of pontificate under Francis: less doctrinal and more focused on church as a field hospital for the poor and marginalized.
“It was a difficult decision. “But I did it quite consciously and I think I did the right thing,” Benedict was quoted as saying.
In his comments, which according to Corriere were articulated in some parts by Benedict’s longtime secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, Benedict mentions some of the “conspiracy theories” that his supporters mistakenly believe after his retirement: that he resigned due to the Vatileaks of 2012 ‘scandal over the leak of his private articles; the scandal over gay priests in the Vatican; or the scandal over his rehabilitation of a bishop denied by the Holocaust.
“They do not want to believe in a choice made knowingly,” Benedict is quoted as saying. “But my conscience is clear.”
Benedict, a German theologian who was pope for eight years, shocked the world when he announced that he would retire on February 28, 2013 and become the first pope in 600 years to retire. Benedict said at the time that he simply did not have the strength to fulfill the global running steps of the work. He spent most of his retirement in seclusion, living in a converted convent in the Vatican Gardens.
Some conservatives and traditionalists who are nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrinal papacy have put forward a number of arguments to call into question Francis ‘legitimacy, by questioning the Latin phrase Benedict used to announce his resignation and by Francis’ allies. manipulating to get him elected and claiming to be a heretic. , among other theories.