This gives us a different picture of Benedict's pontificate and his retirement. And maybe Benedict's relationship with his personal secretary.
Biographer reveals the reason for Pope Benedict’s resignation: insomnia
Ever since Benedict XVI announced his resignation on Feb. 11, 2013, cardinals and others have speculated on the main reason for his decision to resign. Today, his German biographer, Peter Seewald, confirmed that nine weeks before he died, Benedict, in his last letter to him, revealed that insomnia was the “central motive” for his resignation.
In the letter on Oct. 28, Benedict mentioned “the insomnia that has accompanied me uninterruptedly since World Youth Day in Cologne.
World Youth Day took place in Cologne in August 2005. Benedict was elected pope on April 19, 2005.
In the letter, Benedict wrote that the “strong remedies” prescribed to him by his personal physician at the time had initially worked and guaranteed his “availability” as pope. However, he said the medicines soon “reached their limits” and were “less and less able to ensure” his continued service as pope.
Finally, the pope recalled that during his trip to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012, there was a serious incident. The morning after the first night of the visit in Mexico, Benedict revealed that he had reached for his handkerchief to find that it was “totally soaked with blood. I must have bumped into something in the bathroom and fallen.” He said a surgeon “thankfully” managed to treat the matter in such a way that the injuries were not visible.
After this incident, Benedict wrote that his new personal physician had urged a reduction in sleeping pills and insisted that he only be allowed to appear in public on mornings during future trips abroad. According to Benedict, it was clear to him that these medically justified restrictions “could only apply for a short time.”
Mr. Seewald told KNA today that “Benedict XVI did not want to make a fuss during his lifetime about the intimate circumstances of his resignation, which was justified by his exhaustion.”
The German biographer noted that unfortunately, even after his death, speculation continues about possible other reasons for the move.
Mr. Seewald is the author of Benedict’s Legacy, which will be published soon in Germany by Hoffmann und Campe, but he said the letter of Oct. 28 from Benedict could not be included “for reasons of time and production.”
Since his insomnia could not be controlled by medication, one wonders just how well Benedict functioned during his whole papacy.
ReplyDeleteIf there was some sort of protocol such as the 25th amendment for Popes, would his collaborators have invoked it? We knew that JP2 was impaired. What about more subtle impairments such as insomnia?
The people who surround a Pope have a great deal invested in the Pope's (or their) ability to continue on despite any impairments.
Then the retirement period. Why did we not hear about this problem during the retirement period. Did it abate? Benedict did appear to be in better shape after he retired.
What was his secretary's role in managing all this before and after the pontificate? Seems it would have put him in a very powerful position.
Interesting that his comes out after the biography has gone to the printer. Seems like any future biographer should be spending a lot of time trying to piece together how this affected his papacy.
ReplyDeleteIs it a coincidence that the problem seems to have appeared in 2005, which was the year he was elected pope? Maybe not. Perhaps the papacy seemed such a burden that it kept him awake nights. Sleeping pills aren't a very good long term solution, they have many unwanted side effects. That episode with the blood soaked handkerchief would have been scary.
ReplyDeleteAfter Benedict's resignation it appeared that it was mainly because he thought he could not handle the upcoming world youth day.
ReplyDeleteHowever, his doctor's recommendation to limit his schedule on trips to mornings, probably appeared to Benedict the beginning of a slippery slope toward having the people around him take over the management of the papacy as had happened under JP2.
I think his personal experience of papal government under the last few years of JP2 had convinced him that he had to resign rather than follow the JP2 example.
The fact that Benedict's resignation involved more than the travel issue should alter our thinking about Pope Francis and travel. I don't think that Francis thinks that he needs to be a world traveler, "an airport pope." He has said that he needs his brain not his feet to govern. Clearly for all Benedict's reputation of mental lucidity, he was actually exhausted mentally as well as physically by the papacy.
It rather kills all the gymnastic theorizing that could be generated from his resignation.
ReplyDeleteSleep medicine can be nasty. Years ago, my friend John was taking stuff for his insomnia. He later told me he woke up as his car ran into a curb on a main thoroughfare a mile from his apartment. He had been sleep driving. Thinking it was some time around 3 AM, I asked him when it happened. He told me 10 AM, during busy traffic. So the driver next to you might be asleep.
Pope Benedict probably had a similar problem.
I don't know. In the six centuries preceding Benedict XVI, with the state of medicine the way it was until very recently, for all that time, was insomnia the most debilitating condition a pope ever had to deal with? It's my personal opinion that anybody (including popes) has a perfect right to resign from a position if they feel their health is either being harmed or is getting in the way of doing an adequate job. So it didn't bother me when he resigned.
ReplyDeleteI don't want anyone to suffer needlessly. On the other hand, how much needless suffering was "God's Rottweiler" responsible for bringing down on the heads heterosexual couples who needed to limit the number of children they conceived, not to mention gay people? And then there was (is) the abuse crisis.
We know Pius XII had a stroke and was disabled during the last years of his papacy. Which meant other people were running the show during that time. I read a book once called La Popessa which theorized that the person doing most of the running was a nun who was basically his housekeeper. I don't know how much that was true, but bottom line was that the actual pope was incapable of doing his job.
DeleteThe interview with Ganswein that I read indicated that he thought popes shouldn't resign, that Benedict shouldn't have resigned. The thought that comes to mind is that people who don't want a pope to resign when he is incapable want to be the ones pulling the strings and running things behind the scene. A new papacy meant that the old one's friends and influencers were out of luck, and they were mad about it.
Oh, I forgot to mention, he keeps his own calendar, Comes in handy when he uses a phone. Often his closest associates don't know everything that is going on.
DeleteThe idea behind most of these types of meds is to take them for a limited time until you get some other type of therapy to solve or control the problem. Sounds like he was either zonked from lack of sleep or zonked from the sleeping pills.
ReplyDeleteIf this is the straight story, I feel sorry for the poor old guy. Sleep deprivation can lead to anxiety, depression, and mood swings. All that would make it hard to be Pope, much less the Pope who follows JP2, and to deal with worldwide scrutiny about sexual abuse in the clergy.
The insomnia and meds may explain some of the unusual happenings of the pontificate: his speech which upset Moslems so much, and his lifting of the excommunication of the bishop who denied the holocaust.
DeleteWhy didn’t his subordinates warn him? Perhaps his subordinates were just doing their best to get him through each complex and challenging papal day.
Benedict did a fair amount of writing during his papacy, including his three volume Life of Christ. I suspect that may have been much easier to manage than his life as an administrator. He had in fact warned the cardinals who elected him that he did not consider himself a good administrator. He and his collaborators probably found it much easier to polish his thinking and writing than to engage with others in complexity of political life.
I don't honestly think that anybody knows what all goes on in the Vatican.
DeleteChristianity needs a central bureaucracy that preserves holy traditions, oversees the preservation of art and relics, and fosters biblical and historical scholarship--all with an eye to holding the line on "freelance" theologians and bishops who want to exploit believers by preaching lies, forming schisms, and dunning people for $$ that just lines the pickets of a few.
But the main aim of all bureaucracies is self-perpetuation. They become opaque, silo'ed, byzantine, and remote from (sometimes even at odds with) those they supposedly serve.
I am sure the Holy Spirit blows around in the Vatican, urging transparency and faithfulness to the Prime Directive. But there is also collusion with evil through things done, left undone, covered up and left to rot.
I used to think the Vatican specifically and Catholicism generally were best suited to holding Christianity together. I just don't know any more. I try to find what is spiritually nourishing in the Church, to see beyond the parts of it that keep me from the Table.
But I confess I also find as much Jesus in Anglicanism and the televised sermons from the local Congregational minister.
I don't consider myself "spiritual but not religious." It's just making up rules to suit your own ideas and throwing out whatever challenges them. But I also think that centralized religious authority can be corrosive and corrupt.
All a long-winded way of saying "that's people for ya," I guess.
Well, I don’t think straight when I’m missing a lot of sleep. So a good thing for several reasons that Benedict stepped down. The sleeplessness and meds just made everything worse than it already was.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to declutter and simplify - my house, my day to day life, and my spiritual life. I am trying to focus on what is important in each area of my life. In the spiritual realm I have chosen three scripture passages to guide me. The Bible is too long to read, and absorb. The Catholic catechism is even longer I think, and most of the footnotes explaining the teachings are so self- referential as to be pretty unreliable - “this is so because in 567 someone said it was”.
So, clearing away the excess verbiage I’ve settled on these passages. If I can even begin to more closely align my life more closely to these passages I may be ok.
Micah 6-8
With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Matthew 25:31-46
New International Version
The Sheep and the Goats
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 22:36-40
New International Version
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I guess I'm not disposed to consider Benedict's "camp" to be trustworthy sources. His papacy and post-papacy strike me as a string of episodes which were, by turns, awkward and embarrassing, and I think there is plenty of blame for his aides and counselors to share. I think these "friends" served neither him nor the church very well.
ReplyDeleteIt may be true that insomnia was the bane of Benedict's existence. Or it might not be true. Until reliable historians have access to the medical records and can sort through the probabilities, I'll just keep an open mind that it's possible.
Your scepticism is fully justified.
DeleteBeing surrounded by "friends" who aren't friends would cause me to lose sleep.
DeleteStanley, I think you're right!
DeleteI think it's one of the harder aspects of friendship to be able to tell your friend things they don't wish to hear. And when there is an unequal power relationship, and especially when the friend is your boss, it's even harder.
Jack noted somewhere that Benedict was sufficiently self-aware that he warned the cardinals that he was not a good administrator. I am sure they all chuckled appreciatively, but in a way, it's kind of a damning admission, unless it's followed by something along the lines of, "...and therefore, because of that gap, I remove myself from being considered a candidate for the Chair of Peter." To be sure, it might be argued that, had he been surrounded by able, trustworthy and virtuous subordinates, they might have done the business of running the church and allowed him to do whatever his conception of the job was.
DeleteThe job is a potent symbol, but it can't be an empty symbol - popes need to be competent executives. (So do presidents, by the way. That's why the more recent trend of senators rather than governors ascending to the Oval Office doesn't strike me as a step in the right direction.)
Pope Benedict was expected to push the Church along the path given her by John Paul II. However, the polish Pope had a strong dominating personality and Benedict did not, probably exacerbated by spending years deferring to the pope's commands. It's tough going from follower to leader. Perhaps a lot of Benedict's papacy's missteps can be attributed to the "palace guard". Just speculation on my part. Jim is correct that it'll take years to sort out the truth of the matter.
DeleteSecrecy, misinformation, denial, and stasis become ingrained habits in long-standing institutions. "The Crown," for all its pretense at having the inside dope, illustrates that larger truth quite nicely.
DeleteSeewald, of course, has his own agenda, i.e., his forthcoming book. This disclosure was aimed at tamping down conspiracy theories of the resignation. It was also a reminder that he as biographer rather than the Pope's secretary may have better insider information.
DeleteSeewald, of course, is an authorized biographer, and therefore we can presume that his view may be closer to Benedict's view of himself that the view of Benedict's subordinates..
What was Benedict's motivation in writing the letter to Seewald? Was he also interested in tamping down conspiracy theories? Did Benedict's personal secretary know about the letter?
While the disclosure has the potential of presenting us with a more sympathetic view of Benedict, it could also lead many to question his papal administration. But maybe Benedict and Seewald both regard Benedict's writings as more important than anything he did as pope.
"maybe Benedict and Seewald both regard Benedict's writings as more important than anything he did as pope."
DeleteAt the risk of tangenting: I was thinking earlier today about the not-quite-a-brouhaha Francis stirred up a few days ago by musing out loud to a reporter that homosexual sex (or was it homosexuality? Apparently not, as he clarified a few days later) is a sin but not a crime. It seems to me that, whereas Francis has written some substantial and important documents, it's not his writings but his verbal comments to the media that have largely shaped how he is popularly perceived. Perhaps that is as it should be: Christianity is meant to be preached.
I didn't quite know what to make of Francis's comments on homosexuality, even though they were clearly well meaning. They were vague enough to be misinterpreted as meaning homosexuality (being a "homosexual person," as the Catechism puts it) was a sin, when it is clearly Church teaching that a homosexual orientation, in and of itself, is not sinful.
DeleteAlthough it is my strongly held personal opinion that homosexual sex (and much other sexual behavior involving consenting adults) should not be criminalized, I had two thoughts: First, who is Pope Francis to say—even when I wholeheartedly agree with him—what is a crime and what is not? And if he is trying to be helpful by saying homosexual behavior is not (or shouldn't be) considered a crime, why did he have to add that it was a sin? One could take the meaning to be, "It's only a sin, not a crime." He's supposed to be against sin.
One might say, "Oh come on, we know what he meant," but when you are the pope, it's important to say exactly what you mean (and even then, there will be nitpicking and misinterpretation).
David,
DeleteI suppose the Pope's statement levels the sin vs. criminality playing field for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
According to the Church, heterosexual extramarital sex and adultery are sins. In most countries, they are not illegal.
The Church also defines homosexual sex as sinful. In some countries, it is still illegal. There are legislators in this country and others who would re-criminalize homosexual activity. If some sexual acts are defined as sinful, yet legal, why shouldn't all of them be legal?
Hopefully, Pope Francis' statement might help in reducing state persecution of homosexuals. However, in the end, he again states the official Church position which is not a surprise.