Dr. Robert Moynihan stated:
In the midst of the apparent confusion of the present Bishops' Synod on the Family...would it not perhaps be prudent to do...to ask Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, who is still living in the Vatican Gardens, hidden from the world, and dedicated to daily prayer for the Church and for all souls in the world, at the end of those 24 hours, to offer his own words of guidance.
Letter #44, 2015: Benedict in Prayer
Dr. Robert Moynihan to youshow details
October 15, 2015, Thursday — Benedict in Prayer
“The Church has always been flawed and divided. Sinner and saints and surviving amongst them. Even Jesus knew it wouldn't be easy. It was never easy, even during His time. And having Pope Benedict spend his days praying for the Church consoles me. Everyday.” —email last night from a friend
“Halten Sie sich unbedingt an die Lehre!” ("Remain absolutely firm on doctrine!") —Words attributed to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI last week in an article by British Vaticanist Edward Pentin, revealing the response Pope Benedict is said to have given during the 2014 Synod to a German prelate who asked him what should be done faced with the storm raging in the Church...
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In the midst of the apparent confusion of the present Bishops' Synod on the Family, with priavte letters from cardinals being published, and tape-recorded conversations being mis-heard by journalists, then published, then (honorably) retracted, would it not perhaps be prudent to do two things:
(1) to take a sort of "time out" from the interminable conversations for a full day, a full 24 hours, dedicated only to silence and prayer, and to the invocation of the Holy Spirit for wisdom and guidance?
(2) to ask Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, who is still living in the Vatican Gardens, hidden from the world, and dedicated to daily prayer for the Church and for all souls in the world, at the end of those 24 hours, to offer his own words of guidance, on this one occasion, to the Church that he led from 2005 until 2013?
When he resigned, Pope Benedict said he felt he no longer had the strength to carry out the Petrine office to which he was elected.
He suggested that he would now carry out a slightly different office, a "Johannine" office. He would stay with St. John at the foot of the cross, beneath the crucified Christ -- in whose blood and water, issuing from his side, the Church was born -- and next to the Blessed Mother, Mary.
He would carry out the office of John, not of Peter.
Both ran side by side to the tomb on Easter morning to see whether the report of Mary Magdalene, that He was Risen, was true.
John ran faster, and reached the tomb first, then stepped aside, to allow Peter to enter before him.
And both of them saw, and believed, for the corpse of Jesus was not in the tomb.
Perhaps in an act of unprecedented humility, the present Peter, who rules the Church with full and unconditioned authority in order to preserve the deposit of the faith and to save souls (the highest law of the Church) by preaching the Gospel, teaching in harmony with the perennial tradtion, and governing the community of the faithful, could ask the former Peter, who lives in prayerful solitude, in imitation of the mystical closeness of the Apostle John to the Lord, described in the account of the Last Supper, just a few yards from where the Synod is meeting, on the hill behind St. Peter's Square, in the Vatican Gardens.
In obedience, the former Pope might very well agree.
It might then be that, with his Germanic capacity for clarity, with the charism of office which he experienced, and experiences -- both Petrine and Johannine -- and with his own humility toward his successor, his brother bishop, Francis, Emeritus Pope Benedict might help bring peace and the sweet reason of the Logos to bear on the proceedings of this Synod, before the gathering concludes.
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