Dr. Mazza: Pope Benedict's Resignation according his Personal Secretary Ganswein produced “[an] 'Outlaw Papacy'... Benedict was trying to give us a Hint"
In a PCM interview transcribed by The Catholic Monitor, Catholic historian Dr. Edmund Mazza explains why Pope Benedict XVI's resignation appeared to produce an “outlaw papacy”:
He could have chosen the 4th of July or August 23rd, whatever. He chose February 28th in the year of our Lord 2013. Well, guess what that is an anniversary of? That is actually the 80th anniversary of the Reichstag Fire Decree for the German people. Now let’s remember Joseph Razinger is a German. And what’s the significance of that? Well, back in the 1930’s the Nazi’s were competing with the communists to see who would take over. You know and turn Germany into a police state. Well the Reichstag, the equivalent of our congress, Capitol Hill, was set on fire. And to this day we don’t know exactly whether it was the communists or the Nazi’s. You know making it look like the communists did it, but either way, whether it was the national socialists or the international socialists. On February 28th 1933, President Hindenburg of Germany issued what’s called the Reichstag Fire Decree where he basically suspended the constitution and constitutional rights and privileges. And this was how the Nazi’s really; this was the catalyst that allowed them to come into power.
Now what’s interesting is that when [the personal secretary to Pope Benedict XVI] Georg Ganswein, again, another German in his speech at the Gregorianum in May, 2016, when he’s talking about what Benedict did, he says, “As of February, 2013, the papal ministry is no longer what it was before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church, and nonetheless, it is a foundation that Benedict has profoundly and lastingly transformed in his pontificate of exception.” Now, he didn’t use English in his speech. What he said in German is [German language] which apparently in German means, well in English, we could translate it as “Pontificate of exception,” but, really what it means strictly in German is “outlaw papacy,” or again a suspension of the constitution or the suspension of ordinary laws. There are various, various ways we could interpret this, but there’s a canonist by the name of Guido Ferro Canale from Genoa and he pointed this out in Sandro Magister’s blog back in, I guess it was 2014.
Anyway, he connects… There’s a whole scholarly literature on the declaration of martial law or the outlaw situation. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is this strikes me as odd. And if you’re looking for breadcrumbs, maybe that’s in there somewhere, that Benedict was trying to give us a hint.[https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/10/part-3-of-exclusive-transcription-is.html]