SORRY POPE BENEDICT - I WISH YOU HAD DIED IN PETER'S CHAIR

By Tim Rohr

As expected, the mainstream side of conservative Catholic media is rushing to canonize the late Pope Benedict XVI. A recent article by the EWTN-owned National Catholic Register echoed most of what that media is saying in its article "Benedict's Prophetic Voice." 

One thing for sure is that Benedict was indeed a saintly man, and the Church's saint-making process (canonization) pretty much looks only at the saintly qualities of its subject and not necessarily at what he or she said or did while occupying a particular ecclesial office, not even the Chair of Peter. 

So, in that regard, Benedict will most probably follow his predecessor, John Paul II, into sainthood -  though probably not while Francis is pope. 

According to some sources that dare to speak up about this, Francis has done his best to downplay the death of his predecessor:

— Neither in Vatican City, nor in its extraterritorial dependencies, nor in its nunciatures, was official mourning declared. The bells did not ring for death, nor did the flags fly at half mast. This last detail was surprising. Any country has this measure of mourning when a relatively important person dies. For the Vatican and for the court of Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI was not. Curiously, the Italian state and Great Britain ordered their flags to be flown at half mast on December 31. - Caminante Wanderer (translated)

It's quite possible, given his "real" humility, that Benedict wanted it this way. But we don't know. What we do know - or at least intelligently conjecture - is that Benedict was run out of town by a red-robed mafia who replaced him with Francis. We know this because certain members of said Mafia have bragged about how they did it. 

How much Francis had to do with this coup, we don't know. But what we do know is that Francis has spent almost his entire pontificate undoing much of what Benedict did, i.e. the Vatican Mafia's agenda - in particular Francis' functional abortion of Benedict's restoration of the right of every priest to celebrate the Traditional Mass. 

In my opinion (not that it matters), the blame - if I can call it that - for much of the current mess the Church is now in lies with Benedict. Whether or not he was told by God to step down is something we can't know for sure. But what we do know for sure is that Benedict's abdication - and that is what it was - opened the door for what walked in...or seeped in.

Sorry Pope Benedict, but I personally wish you would have died in Peter's Chair, like everyone of your predecessors save one.