Yesterday marked eleven years since Pope Benedict announced his resignation of the papacy. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal as Madeleine Kearns writes about the problem of our aging monarchs. Queen Elizabeth served until her son was nearly too old to reign energetically or in good health. Less than a year after his coronation, it is announced he has cancer. Of course, then there is the problem of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, two other men who want to serve in America’s top job well into their 80s. It’s just a new thing in life, where a great many people now survive the heart attacks and organ failures of their 60s and live into many years of senility, Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s disease.
On a superficial level, Benedict’s departure makes the least sense. He was obviously a “steady hand.” His mental acuity was such that he continued to write and revise scholarly works in his years of retirement. And, there is in the Catholic Church a stronger preference for staying in until death. Although a previous pope had resigned, Benedict’s pioneering of a Pope Emeritus title and role was an exercise in novelty. I still have a hard time believing he made the right decision and at the right time. Five more years, at least.
And yet, Benedict’s standout role as the man who relinquished power also makes the most sense. It is precisely Benedict’s faith in the power of his Church’s tradition and the Holy Spirit guiding that Church that would allow him to surrender power with some equanimity, even if the immediate result looked like a triumph for his ideological foes — many of whom have spent the past decade glorying in their destruction of his legacy.
It is lesser men who think that they alone can fix what ails their nation or institution. And it is they who hang on too long and bring about unpredictable disasters. There were many who, in the first decades of the American Constitution, regretted Washington’s decision to step out after two terms. And yet, that proved one of the most salutary examples of republican behavior in our nation’s history. There is a long list of political leaders who missed their chance to make a graceful exit, and to humble themselves before humiliations were inflicted upon them: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Pope Francis, Bibi Netanyahu, Jarosław Kaczyński, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping. Before them, a woman: Angela Merkel, whose last gambits to stay in power changed European and German politics for decades to come. All of these have seen their accomplishments and reputations diminished by staying in power longer than anyone reasonably anticipated. Soon to be added to the list: Recep Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán.