The Papal Office is just that, an office. We give great honor to the man who holds the Keys of the Kingdom, but it is really the Keys that we are honoring.
The Pope himself does not receive an indelible mark on his soul; he is not ordained to the position of Pope. Papal Infallibility comes not from the man, but instead from the invocation and utilization of the Keys and the Office.
In other words, the Papacy runs not with the man but with the office.
This means that when the Pope abdicates, he's not really giving anything up. It just means that he no longer has "access" to the Keys with which he can proclaim infallible dogma.
This is further evidenced by the fact that each Pope is the successor of St. Peter, not of the previous Pope. In other words, each one succeeds to the Chair of St. Peter after Peter. So it is the Papal Office that extends through time. Each Pope comes into the Papal Office, handed from St. Peter to that Pope. As a result, there can be more than one person who has had access to the Keys and the Chair.
Ratzinger is Ratzinger. He is Pope, which means he can utilize the Keys of the Kingdom and speak from the Chair of St. Peter. He is infallible not as a result of him being something, it is a result of him being something which entitles him to the Keys. He is not infallible, it is (in a sense) his Chair and the Keys.
This has a lot of implications. For example, the Papal Office can be separated from the office of bishop of Rome. St. Peter was not always bishop of Rome, but he was always Pope (when Christ gave him the Keys of the Kingdom).
P.S. In case you were wondering, the above photo is of the Pope praying at the relics of Pope Celestine V, a Pope similar to Pope Benedict XVI's own temperament, and one who abdicated as well. Pope Benedict visited the Pope's relics twice, and laid his pallium, the symbol of his episcopal authority as Bishop of Rome, on the tomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment