Dr. Mazza: Pope Benedict's "Resignation" is "leaving Breadcrumbs or Easter Eggs... [on] the Declaration of Martial Law or the Outlaw Situation"
In a PCM interview transcribed by The Catholic Monitor, Catholic historian Edmund Mazza explains why Pope Benedict XVI in his "resignation" appeared to be "leaving breadcrumbs or Easter eggs":
Patrick Coffin:
“The wolves,” seems to be an open secret was a reference to the St. Gallen mafia and the financial improprieties and crimes that were going on. He couldn’t even write to other dicastery prefects, because his mail was intercepted. He was kind of a Vatican prisoner. Who was compromised in several different ways. I don’t mean that in the ordinary sense of compromise, but he was bound up in all kinds of red tape, that he couldn’t snippet himself out of and…
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Well, I’ll tell you another interesting thing Patrick, real quick here. If we think that when he said, “Pray for me that I don’t flee for fear of the wolves,” if we think that he’s leaving breadcrumbs or Easter eggs, I got another Easter egg for you. He could have chosen to resign on any day of the year...
... Well, I’ll tell you another interesting thing Patrick, real quick here. He was the Pope. 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 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.
Patrick Coffin:
That his renunciation would inaugurate a kind of lawless papacy? How do you understand that?
Dr. Edmund Mazza:
Not lawless like the old West, but lawless in the sense of something beyond the normal situation. In other words, the chief executive, when he invokes something like this, he’s destroying the constitution to save the constitution. It’s one of those things where you cannot in advance stipulate something. It’s a situation in place that the state, in order to continue existing, you’ve got to do something that on the face of it, seems to go against the constitution. I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it.
In my early research on the subject, this phrase and other things led me to believe that perhaps Benedict had separated Vicar of Christ from Bishop of Rome, and maybe that’s why he still wears white and still gives apostolic blessings. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/10/part-3-of-exclusive-transcription-is.html]