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Mazza responds to O'Reilly: What Benedict meant by ‘Pope Emeritus’.."[mind-reader] O’Reilly also alleges that munus & ministerium mean the same thing—at least in Benedict’s mind. (Who’s doing the mind-reading now, I wonder?)

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Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary Georg Ganswein looks at the Pontiff during his weekly audience on February 13, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican.Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

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(LifeSiteNews) — In his article “Why Pope Benedict’s Resignation Was Valid,” Steven O’Reilly accused me of “a vain attempt at mind-reading” because I maintain that Pope Benedict believed in a sacramental munus attached to the Papacy. Let’s let Benedict speak for himself:

I think we should be honest enough to admit the temptation of mammon in the history of the Church and to recognize to what extent it was a real power that worked to the distortion and corruption of both Church and theology, even to their inmost core. The separation of office as jurisdiction from office as rite was continued for reasons of prestige and financial benefits.[1]

No mind reading required: Ratzinger was on record as saying there is no such thing in the Catholic Church as an office of jurisdiction separated from an office as rite: “We have no right to speak of a quasi-profane ruling powerneatly separated from the sacramental ministry.”[2]

This is ultimately why Benedict chose to become “Pope” Emeritus instead of “Bishop” Emeritus.

As Dr. Roberto de Mattei asserts, if the pope who resigns nevertheless takes the title of “emeritus, that means that to some extent he remains pope. It is clear, in fact, that in the definition the noun [pope] prevails over the adjective [emeritus].” And de Mattei concludes that this can only be due to an indelible character received at election and not lost at resignation:

The abdication would presuppose in this case the cessation of the exercise of power, but not the disappearance of the pontifical character. This indelible character attributed to the pope could be explained in its turn only by an ecclesiological vision that would subordinate the juridical dimension [potestas iurisdictionis] of the pontificate to the sacramental [potestas ordinis].[3]

No less a witness than Pope Francis himself testifies:

For some theologians, the papacy is a sacrament. It’s a sacrament. The Germans are very creative with these kinds of things. I don’t believe that, but what I want to say is that there’s something special.[4]

O’Reilly also alleges that munus and ministerium mean the same thing—at least in Benedict’s mind. (Who’s doing the mind-reading now, I wonder?) Again, let’s let Benedict speak for himself for, fortunately, in addition to Benedict’s Declaratio, we do possess a document wherein he admits of a distinction between munus and ministerium: between the transcendent gift and the functional use of it. In the early 1980s, Ratzinger expresses his approval of the reform of the rite of ordination carried out in 1947:..

What Benedict meant by ‘Pope Emeritus’: a response to Mr. O’Reilly

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