The Mysterious Necessity of the Mystery of Iniquity

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Benedict XVI Resigns and Lightning strikes, Feb. 11, 2013.

It would seem that we have not yet exhausted the implications of Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication. Sandro Magister has picked up on an aspect that has tended to be overlooked.  In Tuesday’s article (here) he notes the significance of Archbishop Gänswein’s comments of May 20.

 

Gänswein – with the weight of one who is in the most intimate contact with the “pope emeritus” in that he is his secretary – had said that Joseph Ratzinger “has by no means abandoned the office of Peter,” but on the contrary has made it “an expanded ministry, with an active member and a contemplative member,” in “a collegial and synodal dimension, almost a shared ministry.” …
“As of February 11, 2013, the papal ministry is no longer what it was before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and nonetheless it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and lastingly transformed in his pontificate of exception (Ausnahmepontifikat).”
 The formula, emphasized by Gänswein with the use of the German word, is not accidental. It contains a transparent reference to the “state of exception” theorized by one of the greatest and most talked-about political philosophers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitt (1888-1985).
According to this theory, a “state of exception” is the dramatic hour of history in which the ordinary rules are suspended and the sovereign imposes new rules on his own. …
A word to the wise. Where Gänswein, citing the book by Regoli, refers to the “group of St. Gallen” and its role in the conclaves of 2005 and 2013, the reference is to the cardinals who used to gather periodically in the Swiss city of St. Gallen and who first opposed to the election of Ratzinger and then supported the election of Bergoglio.
The group included the cardinals Carlo Maria Martini, Basil Hume, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Achille Silvestrini, Karl Lehmann, Walter Kasper, and Godfried Danneels, the last two of these being particularly dear to Pope Francis, in spite of the fact that Danneels was proven to have attempted in 2010 a cover-up of the sexual offenses of the then-bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, against his young nephew. (end quote Magister)

The above remarks are merely a preface to introduce an analysis by Guido Ferro Canale, which Magister then offered.
Excerpts below; for entire article, please see Chiesa.
Canale’s analysis of Ganswein’s talk reveals that Abp. Ganswein, when speaking of Pope Benedict’s resignation makes use of a very specific word “Ausnahmepontifikat”.

“As of February 2013, the papal ministry is no longer what it was before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and nonetheless it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and lastingly transformed in his pontificate of exception (Ausnahmepontifikat), with respect to which the sober Cardinal Sodano, reacting with immediacy and simplicity right after the surprising declaration of resignation, profoundly moved and almost in the grip of dismay, had exclaimed that the news had resounded among the gathered cardinals ‘like lightning from a clear blue sky’.”

Canale then asks,
But why does Gänswein present the expression – in a speech he gave in Italian – also in German, as “Ausnahmepontifikat”?
In Italian, “pontificate of exception” simply sounds like “out of the ordinary.” But the reference to his mother tongue makes it clear that Gänswein has no such banality in mind, but rather the category of “state of exception” (Ausnahmezustand). A category that any German with an average education immediately associates with the figure and thought of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985).

“The sovereign is the one who decides on the state of exception. [. . .] Here by state of exception must be understood a general concept of the doctrine of the state, and not any sort of emergency ordinance or state of siege. [. . .] In fact, not every unusual exercise of authority, not every emergency measure or police ordinance is in itself a situation of exception: to this there pertains instead an authority that is unlimited in line of principle, meaning the suspension of the entire established order. If such a situation is in place, then it is clear that the state continues to exist while the rule of law declines” (C. Schmitt, “Teologia politica”, in Id., “Le categorie del politico”, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1972, pp. 34 and 38-9).

Canale explains, “Aus-nahme” literally means ‘out-law.’ A state of things that cannot be regulated a priori and therefore, if it comes about, requires the suspension of the entire juridical order. An “Ausnahmepontifikat,” therefore, would be a pontificate that suspends in some way the ordinary rules of functioning of the Petrine ministry, or, as Gänswein says, “renews” the office itself. And, if the analogy fits, this suspension would be justified, or rather imposed, by an emergency impossible to address otherwise.
In order to understand the gravity of Gänswein”s analysis of Benedict’s resignation, Canale refers to his remarks about the “dramatic struggle” over Benedict’s election:

“It was certainly the result even of a clash, the key to which had been furnished by Ratzinger himself as cardinal dean, in the historic homily of April 18, 2005 at Saint Peter’s; and precisely there where to ‘a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires’ he had opposed another measure: ‘the Son of God, the true man. as ‘the measure of true humanism’.”
A clash where, if not in conclave, in the heart of the Church?
Gänswein also indicates the protagonists of the clash, in the wake of the book by Roberto Regoli, professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University, on the pontificate of Benedict XVI. And it is not a mystery for anyone, by now, that the cardinals of the “group of St. Gallen” went back into action in 2013.
How many of the difficulties of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, in fact, can be explained precisely with this clash, perhaps underground but incessant, between those who remain faithful to the evangelical image of the “salt of the earth” and those who would like to prostitute the Bride of the Lamb to the dictatorship of relativism? This clash, which is not just a power struggle, but if anything a supernatural struggle for souls, is the main reason why those on the one side have loved Benedict XVI and those on the other have hated him.
And we continue with the analysis made by Gänswein:
“In the Sistine Chapel I witnessed that Ratzinger experienced the election as pope as a ‘true shock’ and felt ‘uneasiness,’ and that he felt ‘as if dizzy spells were coming on’ as soon as he understood that ‘the axe’ of the election would fall upon him. I am not unveiling any secrets here, because it was Benedict XVI himself who confessed all of this publicly on the occasion of the first audience granted to pilgrims from Germany. And so it comes as no surprise that Benedict XVI was the first pope who immediately after his election asked the faithful to pray for him, another fact of which the book by Roberto Regoli reminds us.”
But more than the “above all I entrust myself to your prayers” pronounced immediately after the election, do we not perhaps recall the dramatic invitation at the Mass for the beginning of the Petrine ministry: “Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves”? In the parable of the Gospel the bad shepherd does not run away out of fear. He runs away because “he is a hireling, and the sheep do not matter to him.”
I believe, therefore, that Benedict XVI was confessing a concrete fear. And that he was thinking of very concrete wolves. I also think that this explains the shock, uneasiness, and dizziness.
… When the wolves are disguised as lambs, or as shepherds, … how can one know whom to trust, and to whom to entrust part of the authority over the flock of the Lord? Because of this, it seems to me that even the phrase “Benedict XVI was aware that he was losing the strength necessary for the most burdensome office” takes on a meaning that is less neutral and, perhaps, more sinister. The office would be most burdensome not because of the multiplicity of external obligations, which are certainly tiring, but because of the exhausting internal combat. So exhausting that, no longer feeling oneself capable of enduring it.  …
I do not believe it is possible to free the resignation from the shadow cast on it by that expression as heavy as a boulder: “Ausnahme.” I am not the one who has evoked the shadow of Carl Schmitt: I have limited myself to indicating the point at which Gänswein has made it visible, I would even dare to say palpable.
One question remains open, however: in what way, in what terms would the resignation, with the introduction of the “pope emeritus,” constitute an adequate reaction to the emergency?
Perhaps one hint could emerge from Gänswein’s statement that Benedict XVI has ‘enriched’ the papacy “with the ‘headquarters’ of his prayer and compassion set up in the Vatican gardens.”
Compassion – in this day and age it bears repeating – is not mercy. In ascetical or mystical theology, it is uniting oneself with the sufferings of Christ crucified, offering oneself for the sanctification of one’s neighbor.
A service of compassion on the part of the pope is made necessary – in my judgment – only when the Church appears to be experiencing Good Friday in the first person. When there must reecho the most bitter words of Luke 22:53:

“This is your hour, and the power of darkness.”

Correctly understood, with this I am not denouncing conspiracies or formulating accusations: the state of exception could very well be “intended by Heaven,” since the darkness would have no power at all without divine permission. And we know that there also exists a mysterious necessity of the “mystery of iniquity”: “It is necessary that he be taken out of the way who restrains it until now” (2 Thes 2:7). For all the more reason, therefore, does the plan of God include the lesser Antichrists and the hours of darkness.
I do not possess nor can I offer sure answers on the concrete causes of Benedict XVI’s resignation, nor on the theological or personal reasons that may have induced him to call himself “pope emeritus,” even less on the supernatural plans of Providence. But that today the Antichrists have been unleashed – above all those who should feed the flock of the Lord – seems to me incontestable.
So, however we may have arrived here, this is certainly a time of compassion.
It is a time to offer Christian hope in opposition to the “religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth,” to the “pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).
It is a time to hasten with Christian suffering, the most potent spiritual weapon that has been given us to use: the moment in which God will intervene, in the way known to Him “ab aeterno,” to reestablish truth, law, and justice.” (end quote Canale)

So much to ponder….