This isn’t a conclusion I came to quickly or easily, and I’m fully aware of its audacity. I certainly mean no disrespect. I make this plea as a Roman Catholic, as someone with very close family ties to Poland and, most of all, as an admirer of this pope. I observed him up close when I covered the Vatican in the early 1980s, and I have no doubt that he will go down in history as one of the greatest popes of all time. But I’m equally convinced that a decision to step down before he is totally incapacitated or dies would only enhance his stature and strengthen the church he loves so much.
Can he resign? No pope has abdicated since Gregory XII in 1415. But Canon 332 of church law clearly envisages this pos-sibility, requiring only that “the resigna-tion be freely made and duly manifested.” Vatican gossip includes speculation that the pope may have already written a letter with instructions on what to do if he is no longer able to function. But the pope’s response is that the decision about his tenure is in the Lord’s hands. Just as Jesus had the power to spare himself the agony of the cross but didn’t use it, he maintains, he must carry on with his mission whatever the suffering involved.
That’s an imperfect analogy at best. The pope is human, and he has the tremendous responsibility of providing direction and leadership for an earthly institution that claims the allegiance of 1 billion people. Throughout his papacy John Paul has done so by displaying a potent mix of spirituality, intellectual brilliance and sheer physical stamina. When I accompanied the pope on his trips in the early 1980s, what I found most impressive were his walkabouts in the back of the plane, where the press sat. We were each given the chance to ask one question, and the pope would reply in whatever language the journalist used.
It’s no secret that the pope cannot focus nearly as long as before and that his illnesses are taking their toll, which forces him to leave more tasks to others. The only beneficiary of the pope’s dwindling strength is the Vatican Curia, or bureaucracy. “For them it’s good, since they rule,” a Polish cleric who knows John Paul well notes bitterly. Combine that with the natural loss of momentum at the end of a long papacy (nearly 24 years), and you have a case of lame-duck politics in extremis. No one expects any initiatives to deal with pressing problems, and everyone is already speculating about what course the next pope will chart.
The church needs a strong leader because it faces major decisions. Prompted by the sexual-abuse scandals in the United States, it faces pressure to open the discussion on priestly celibacy and the ordination of women. While John Paul has done a remarkable job extending the church’s reach into the Third World, its traditional base–Western Europe and the United States–is suffering from a growing shortage of priests. And there’s the most fun-damental question: will the church be best served by the kind of centralization of power that John Paul accelerated, or by a decentralized system with more autonomous bishops and a more influential laity? The election of a new pope offers the opportunity for a fresh look at such issues. The pope’s greatest final act would be to let that process begin.
