Two popes turned into flags of a cultural war in the Church

When the white helicopter in which Joseph Ratzinger was sitting - and which he himself had flown on other occasions - began to beat the propeller in the Vatican gardens and flew to the papal palace of Castel Gandolfo through all of Rome, no one could imagine how that would end. adventure.

Benedict XVI had renounced the papacy a few days before and was temporarily withdrawing from the Holy See to release a conclave that would proclaim a new monarch.

On March 13, 2013, the one chosen by the Holy Spirit - and five votes - turned out to be an Argentine who had to turn the universal Church upside down and sweep away everything that Benedict XVI had not managed to clean up.

When he returned, he locked himself in the convent of Mater Ecclesiae,

a three-minute drive from the iconic Santa Ana entrance and only several hundred meters from Francisco's residence.

He kept his promise to keep quiet.

But the cultural and political war that began to be waged in the Church with the arrival of Francisco made him, despite him, the flag of the traditionalists.

His death now reopens an entirely new old scenario.

The movie

, fiction released in 2019 and directed by the Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, had little to do with reality.

There never existed that great previous relationship between the two popes.

And not one of them sang the Beatles when they met, nor did the other let himself be taught to dance tango.

It is crazy to think that Ratzinger believed that Francisco could be his successor before going through an unpredictable conclave.

The truth indicates that both pontiffs maintained an exquisite communication in the forms during these years and that Jorge Mario Bergoglio did push with his support so that Ratzinger was named Pope in 2005.

And it is also a fact that opponents of Francis have tried to use Benedict XVI since he retired as a symbol of theological rectitude in the face of what they consider a betrayal of the Church (the current pontiff has been accused of heresy when proposing communion for married men).

And although recently the tone has been more diplomatic, it has happened until the last day of the life of the German pontiff.

The maximum point of tension came almost three years ago with the publication of a book that, theoretically, the pope emeritus signed together with the ultra-conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah and in which he was directly opposed to optional celibacy and, above all, to the ordination of men. married (

Word, 2020).

A subject on which Francis had to pronounce in the synod on the Amazon and that turned the publication into an inevitable interference.

The figure of the personal secretary and right-hand man of the deceased, Georg Gänswein, was already irreparably damaged in the eyes of Francisco's entourage, who considered him responsible for that book bearing the signature of Benedict XVI, when in reality he had only written an accompanying text .

More taking into account that he was already very fragile at that time and that, apparently, he did not know the final use that was going to be made of his reflections.

Ratzinger repeated several times during his retreat that "there is only one Pope."

But the conservative sector of the Church, galloping on the back of the culture wars that were being waged in the United States with the arrival of Donald Trump, turned Ratzinger into its reference (The leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, used to wear a T-shirt that said: "My Pope is Benedict XVI").

The most curious thing, however, is that within the volcanic political situation of recent years and the crisis on the left, he also served as ideological comfort for a certain disenchanted progressive sector that embraced the conservative world as a reaction.

It happened inside the Vatican with a part of the curia willing at the beginning to tune in with the apparently progressive revolution of Francis,

Pope Francis meets with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo for lunch on March 23, 2013.L'Osservatore Romano

Ratzinger's death now opens a radically different scenario.

His successor assured upon his arrival that he took good note of his resignation, underlining this gesture as a way that all popes should take into account forever.

And that door, once the uncomfortable perspective of two emeritus popes living together in the Vatican gardens has been overcome, is wide open.

In fact, in August, Bergoglio starred in a highly symbolic act visiting the tomb of Celestine V in L'Aquila, the first pope to voluntarily resign, in 1294. His trip, added to his mobility problems, unleashed all the rumours.

But he himself assured later that he had not thought of resigning.

And that is the thesis of many, who think that the death of Benedict XVI could have the opposite effect.

Without the silent gaze of the emeritus pontiff from the top of the Mater Ecclesiae (Mother Church) monastery, Francis will be able to govern the Church from the Santa Marta house with greater freedom and express himself in a more personal way.

"He governs himself with his head, not with his knee," Francisco responded in an interview with

two weeks ago regarding a possible impediment to moving forward.

Francis has already implemented the main reforms that he wanted to undertake in his pontificate.

The new Apostolic Constitution, a kind of remodeling of the Holy See and the curia, has already begun after years of design.

The problem, he has always explained himself, is that the economic mess he found himself in forced him to delay many of the plans he had underway to try to put his finances in order.

That section, as seen with the recent resignation of the Vatican's financial manager, the Spanish Jesuit Juan Antonio Guerrero (for health reasons, but also somewhat tired of the resistance encountered), is still pending.

But Francisco's agenda remains incomplete and there are no reasons to see a resignation horizon.

Follow all the international information on

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber