BXVI

I felt it too. I dedicated my first paper as a budding theologian to Benedict XVI. “It was striking then, and it is even more striking now. There was a certain sense of foreboding, even before we knew what was about to happen, that something wicked was coming. It was in the air, electric, palpable, like the kind of change in air pressure that causes old aches to spring to life upon the arrival of a turbulent storm.”

6 Long years.

“Well, we know now. We can never forget. This one decision radically altered the course of Church history. Forever.

As the cardinal said, “this should never have happened. He never should have left his office.”

I think this is true. But had he not done so, the Mystical Body of Christ would not have been jolted to its senses in a way that it perhaps never has been before. Another thing my friend Hilary has often said is that the Church couldn’t survive another conservative pontificate, with all this trouble boiling beneath the surface and everyone acting like it was a new springtime instead. We needed to wake up from the dream. From the lie that all was well. We needed to open our eyes and see the Matrix.”https://onepeterfive.com/six-years-later-reflecting-on-the-papal-abdication-that-changed-the-church-forever/