The pope in retirement: What to expect

Don’t expect a lot of shuffleboard games for the soon-to-be former Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter, Head of the College of Bishops, Vicar of Christ, and Pastor of the Universal Church: Pope Benedict XVI. On Thursday, at 8 p.m. in Rome, Benedict will become the first retired pontiff in 600 years. And with no modern guides, everything he does will be pioneering for a 21st century papal retiree. Interactive: Where does the pope live? The leader of 1.2 billion Catholics around the globe will leave his seat at the ornate Apostolic Palace and retire to a former gardener’s house at the Vatican to lead a life of prayer, likely removed entirely from public life. The Vatican said Tuesday he will keep the name Benedict XVI and still be addressed as “his holiness.” He will also be known as pope emeritus, emeritus pope or Roman pontifex emeritus. He will forego his ornate papal wardrobe and elbow-length cape, called a mozzetta, for a simple white cassock. He also will retire his red shoes in favor of a brown pair picked up on his trip to Mexico last year. The 85-year-old will first leave Rome to go to the papal seaside retreat, Castle Gandolfo, until a successor is named. Then he will head to the Mater Ecclesiae (Mother of the Church) building, which formerly housed a cloistered convent in the Vatican gardens. While “convent” or “monastery,” as officials have been calling it, may be the right name for the former home of a group of cloistered nuns tasked with prayer for the pope, the space does not have the long stone-arched hallways and massive common areas evoked by such terms. Vatican reveals Pope Benedict’s new title The pope’s new home “It used to be the gardener’s house,” Sister Ancilla Armijo said. “It’s just a small house. What they added was just a library for the sisters and a new chapel.” Armijo is a nun in the Benedictine Order at the Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado, not far from the Wyoming border. From October 7, 2004, to October 7, 2009, she and six other Benedictine sisters from around the world lived in Mater Ecclesiae praying for the pope, first for an ailing Pope John Paul II and then all the way through to the election and papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Armijo joined the order in 1972 at the age of 16. She said joining a cloistered group of international nuns on the Vatican grounds was unique. While the house has a sense of being removed from the Vatican, she said it provides views of the papal apartment, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. “We felt connected to the Vatican itself,” she said, although “it’s not like there’s any access to the Vatican itself, the main buildings or anything like that.” Smoke signals: How is a new pope elected? The Mater Ecclesiae is “very small” and “very hot,” she said. “There’s no trees shading it. I think it’ll work for him if they have air conditioning for him. They’ll have to remodel the kitchen and things like that because it was so simple.” While she lived there, bars adorned the windows and separated the nuns from their visitors in the meeting room, in keeping with a cloistered, set-apart lifestyle. When Benedict arrives he can stroll the private courtyard and take in the perfumed aroma from the 15 or so John Paul II rose bushes, a white-petaled flower cultivated in honor of his predecessor. Armijo said a group donated the rose bushes to the Vatican in honor of the late pontiff. Benedict gave them to the sisters to grow. Every two weeks they sent a bouquet up to the papal residence. In the gardens, Armijo said, Benedict can also find lemon and orange trees in addition to a small vegetable garden used by the house for meals. The monastery, when Armijo lived there, had a few bedrooms, a kitchen, a living area, a library and a chapel. The walls were plain and whitewashed. It does not bear the artistic treasures other parts of the Vatican hold, like Michelangelo’s masterworks the Pieta sculpture in St. Peter’s, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, or the massive Last Judgment painting above the altar in the Sistine Chapel. “The only real piece of art is in the chapel. It has a beautiful bronzed life-sized crucifix,” Armijo said. Opinion: Benedict a pope aware of his flaws A life of prayer In the chapel the pope might say Mass every day for his small household, said Monsignor Rick Hilgartner, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship. Benedict has said he will devote his life to prayer. There is no playbook for the life of prayer for a retired pope, Hilgartner said. “Nothing beyond the normal routine” for a monk or a priest. He said that would include “prayer throughout the day and the liturgy of the hours, morning prayer, evening prayer, Mass every day.” Benedict is likely to keep a small staff at the house to tend to his needs. “He has some German sisters” – nuns – “who cared for him in his domestic needs at the Apostolic Palace and they’re apparently moving with him to this monastery. So he’ll provide for their spiritual needs, saying Mass every day,” Hilgartner said. There may be a stipend for the retired pope. Italian news outlets have reported retired clerics receive up to €2,500 a month. Hilgartner said Benedict won’t need much money if any at all. The Vatican will take care of his lodging and his health care. “He didn’t have a pension because the presumption was he would be in office until he died,” Hilgartner said. “His needs will be cared for. Because of the way he’ll be living, those needs will be somewhat limited.” Media buzzes over Pope Benedict’s final prayer Back to the books Benedict, a theologian by training, is likely to switch from universal pastor back to scholar. “My sense is that he will lay low out of deference to the new pope, that he will stay out of the way and under the radar,” Hilgartner said. He expects the pope to behave mostly like a retired scholar, doing lots of reading and maybe a little writing. Benedict was rumored to be working on his fourth encyclical before he announced he would resign, Hilgartner said. Encyclicals are papal letters to the church, often on pressing matters that carry the weight of the office the pope with them. “He had written the encyclical on hope, the encyclical on love, and another one on social justice and charity,” Hilgartner said, adding that the rumored fourth may be on faith. As a retired pope, Benedict’s final encyclical would not carry the weight of the office. That is something Benedict had not imposed on his previous scholarly works while in office. “He was careful not to bless his own writings with the papacy,” said Pia de Solenni, a moral theologian from Seattle. When he published books as the pope his byline was “Joseph Ratzinger – Pope Benedict XVI,” de Solenni noted. “I think he was willing to engage with others.” She said his books are “a sharing of ideas and he’s putting his ideas out on paper. To me it’s an incredible mark of his humility.” One thing is fairly certain: He won’t be tweeting any longer. The Vatican said his official Twitter handle @pontifex will be retired along with Benedict. Life beyond the walls of the Vatican Benedict said he no longer had the strength to go on. After he announced his retirement, the Vatican said he had begun thinking about leaving the office after a strenuous papal visit barnstorming across Mexico and Cuba. When he leaves the office he will give up his Fisherman’s Ring, which takes its name from St. Peter’s occupation. It will be destroyed along with “the lead seal of the pontificate,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said. He will also be giving up his personal security detail, the 100 to 120 members of the Swiss Guard who are responsible for round-the-clock protection of the pope. “He received security like any other head of state,” former Swiss guard member Andreas Widmer said. While best known for their Renaissance-era dress uniforms – brightly striped puffy-sleeved shirts and pants – along with their ceremonial battle axes, they are a formidable modern security detail, according to Widmer, who now runs the entrepreneurship program at the School of Business and Economics at the Catholic University of America. Widmer had a kinship with Benedict in the late 1980s while he was a young German-speaking member of the guard and Benedict, whose native tongue is German, was a top cardinal serving John Paul II. He described Benedict as an “unbelievable introvert.” He said Benedict was always friendly with people at the Vatican one on one, even beggars on the streets, but large crowds sapped his energy. The task of protecting two popes would have meant doubling the Swiss Guard force, a group unaffiliated with other Swiss security forces, as the guard predates the Swiss state. But Widmer suspects that would not have been an issue anyway. His hunch is that Benedict will retire and remain cloistered. “My guess is Benedict is not going to leave the Vatican,” Widmer said. “It’s not like he’s going to make these huge moves. My guess is anything he’s going to write and say will only come out after he dies.” Pope’s Twitter account to exit with him A turbulent time Before he became pope at the age of 78 Benedict had talked at length about retiring. Speculation has swirled over what finally pushed him to step aside – Vatileaks, the sexual abuse crisis, or the growing tide of secularism. The “Vatileaks” scandal began with his butler leaking documents showing disarray and mismanagement and led to an internal review that was reported to contain details of gay sex scandals – reports that the Vatican calls baseless – and money woes. Three cardinals reported their findings to the pontiff this week. The Vatican spokesman said the matter was concluded and the pope would reveal the contents of the report only to his successor. The sexual abuse scandal continues to haunt the church as reforms have slowly taken hold across the American church and other cases have surfaced around the globe. While the vast majority of the abuse cases happened in the 1960s, ’70s, and ‘80s, the recent revelation of more case and the failings of the church in dealing with many of them have left fresh scars that have been slow to heal, victims’ advocates say. Cases are still in the process of being litigated. Two top American cardinals were deposed shortly before they were to leave for Rome for the pope’s farewell. Benedict was unable to stop the tide of growing secularism in Europe and the United States, though he often railed against it. All of it likely took its toll on the pope who walks with a cane, has a pacemaker and has looked frailer and frailer in recent months. But in the end it was his strength that failed him. In retirement he will have none of those global problems to sort out anymore. Those responsibilities will fall to the next pope. Instead, Benedict has said his task will be prayer and reflection. Sister Armijo cried when she found out the pope was resigning. But now that she has had time to process the idea, she said her feelings have shifted from sadness to gratitude. “He’s a person of great courage to do something like this. To dedicate his life to prayer. I think it will help people to see there’s a value to dedicating your life to prayer,” she said. “Prayer is something worth dedicating your life to.” Read the full text of Pope Benedict XVI’s final Angelus blessing