Pope Francis turns eighty-five this week. His pontificate has seen him emerge from obscurity in Argentine Church politics to become, late in life, a global cultural icon and one of the most popular popes in living memory. Over the past nine years he has invigorated the Church and, according to papal biographer Austen Ivereigh, has made the papacy ‘much more human, much more accessible, much less remote’.
Francis has garnered global admiration for his denial of the luxuries associated with the papal office: for living in the simple Casa Santa Marta rather than the apostolic palace, for his hands-on work with homeless communities, and for his participation in the annual tradition of washing prisoners’ feet on Holy Thursday.
And yet now that Francis is eighty-five a particular question must be present in the minds of his advisors and his ecclesiastical adversaries. Eighty-five is the age at which his predecessor, Benedict XVI, announced his resignation on that dramatic day in February 2013.
Francis is far less frail than his predecessor was at the same age and no one doubts the acuity of his mental faculties. And despite having his share of critics, opinion polls suggest he is one of the most popular world leaders. At present, during one of the more difficult times in Church history, he enjoys the support of the vast majority of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics. As it is, very few would want Francis to ever resign. But Benedict’s resignation laid down a marker for future bishops of Rome.
Seventy-five for bishops, eighty for cardinals, eighty-five for the pontiff: there is a certain logic to this scheme of superannuation which Benedict and his predecessors have precipitated.
So what will Francis do? Will he follow Benedict in resigning and thus set a yet more powerful precedent for his successor and his successor’s successors? Or will he continue on, as is his right as pope to do so, leaving ultimate responsibility for closing out his pontificate in the hands of God?
Benedict XVI’s resignation came as a shock because papal resignations are rare. As Paul VI said, ‘paternity cannot be resigned’. Only a handful of other popes in history have resigned and in few of those cases has their renunciation of power been entirely voluntary.
'Francis has already hinted that he may also take on ‘emeritus’ in the future, which means he is certainly considering the issues at stake for his, and the Church’s, future.'
Take the previous ‘last pope to resign’, Gregory XII, who gave up the role in 1415. Gregory was one of three contemporaneous popes at the time of the Western Schism. Had he not resigned, the Council of Constance (1414-18), convened to resolve the Schism, would likely have deposed him anyway. His renunciation and Benedict’s are thus not analogous.
Or take Benedict’s eponymous predecessor, Benedict IX, who may have resigned the papacy three times in the 1040s alone as part of manoeuvres amongst Rome’s noble factions to share out the proceeds of ecclesiastical office. That is hardly a precedent for what happened in 2013, or what may eventuate in coming years either. Neither of these cases, nor the case of any of other historical papal resignation, provides more than an adumbral basis for what could happen next.
The canon law on renouncing the papacy was for many centuries quite nebulous, in part because of the theological implications of each possible legal position. Indeed, the 1917 Code of Canon Law was perhaps the first papal document to anticipate unambiguously that the pope could indeed resign. Before that, the canonists would sometimes concede must be able to do anything, including renounce his pontifical authority, because he exercises a ‘plenitude of power’.
Yet at other times canonists would say that a pope who renounced his office erroneously repudiated God’s decision to choose him. By what authority could he, a mere mortal, claim the right to set aside the divine judgement his election embodied? ‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called’, as Paul writes in in 1 Corinthians (7:20).
Benedict’s resignation, activating provisions in the 1917 Code’s 1983 successor, has clearly changed all that in the minds of senior Catholics. No one in the Church hierarchy doubts the legitimacy of Benedict’s act (at least not openly). And despite the tremors felt throughout the Church, the advantages of Benedict’s resignation are, in hindsight, clear. His resignation allowed for the cardinals to be convened at a moment of relative tranquillity when they were well placed to engage in mature and sober reflection about the Church’s challenges. It also avoided that long ‘winter’ of stasis and inertia within the Vatican bureaucracy which became a hallmark of John Paul II’s declining years.
And yet, unquestionably, another papal resignation would change the Church at a fundamental level, which not all Catholics will find desirable. Benedict XVI’s decision can always be explained as an anomaly, so long as it remains one-off. But two resignations begins to look like a pattern. And such a pattern matters because a pope who serves a de facto ‘term’ would no longer look like a regal monarch in whom a personal covenant with God is made manifest.
If the pope picks the timing of his own departure — or if he lets Benedict XVI pick it for him through the precedent of his example — then he could be seen to be admitting, implicitly, the human, not divine, ordering of ecclesiastical governance. It is a potentially more momentous admission of change than when Paul VI symbolically set the papal tiara aside after 1963.
If Francis ever did resign, it would have implications for concepts like papal infallibility, and also for practical issues arising from papal teachings and judgments. Tensions have already arisen between Francis and Benedict. What if a pope regnant finds himself at odds with more than just one pope emeritus? Can he still project unity when faced with that occurrence?
Francis has already hinted that he may also take on ‘emeritus’ in the future, which means he is certainly considering the issues at stake for his, and the Church’s, future.
Facing the issue of failing health, Popes John Paul II and Benedict discerned different answers as to what might be best for the Church. At present, Francis’ health would not compel him towards those same deliberations. But it is hard to see how he will be able to maintain his vigorous schedule, or to exercise the same level of oversight over his subordinates indefinitely.
Any decision by Francis to resign would cause shockwaves in the Church. On the one hand, the sooner he starts planning for a transition the more control he ought to be able to exercise over its future. A planned vacancy could be an opportunity to set out a vision for the successor he would like to see and to shape the electorate of cardinals through new promotions. Yet even considering these things is likely to be difficult, soul-searching, and perhaps lonely for the man who is the Church’s most visible symbol and figure of Christian Unity.
Whatever happens, a resignation from Pope Francis would leave a leaderless, divided Church facing innumerable challenges within and without. The move would have a destabilizing effect on the papacy, on the wider community of global Catholics, and on the faith of many. But it would also likely shift the focus of the faithful away from the person of the pope and on to the Church, which may be exactly as Pope Francis wants it.
Dr Miles Pattenden is Senior Research Fellow in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Australian Catholic University. His books include Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford University Press, 2017) and he is and Co-Editor of The Journal of Religious History (2022–).
Main image: Pope Francis. (Lisa Maree Williams / Stringer)