LifeSite also sat down with US Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Prefect of the Holy See’s Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican equivalent of the Supreme Court), to discuss his views on the juridical validity of Pope Benedict’s resignation in light of increasing concerns and Cardinal Brandmüller’s remarks.
Having considered various aspects of the issue, including the relevant canons, the Latin text of Benedict’s resignation and his final general audience, Cardinal Burke said: “I believe it would be difficult to say it’s not valid.”
Regarding Benedict’s Latin declaration, Cardinal Burke said “it seems clear he uses interchangeably ‘munus’ and ‘ministerium.’ It doesn’t seem that he’s making a distinction between the two.”
Concerning Benedict’s final Wednesday general audience, he said while he finds it “disturbing,” he doesn’t believe Benedict’s “always and forever” comments constitute substantial error (according to can. 188 and can. 126) with regard to his abdication “because it’s clear from the declaration that he was renouncing the munus.”
“We can say that these are mistaken notions,” he said, “but I don’t think you can say that they redound to a non-abdication of the Petrine office.”
“That’s where the dictum ‘de internis non iudicat praetor’ comes in,” he explained, echoing Cardinal Brandmüller. “The Church would become completely destabilized if we couldn’t depend upon certain juridical acts which carry effects.”
“Whatever he may have theoretically thought about the papacy, the reality is what is expressed in the Church’s discipline. He withdrew his will to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, and therefore he ceased to be the Vicar of Christ on earth,” the former head of the Vatican’s highest court explained.
“He abdicated all the responsibilities that define the papacy (cf. Pastor Aeternus) and therefore he abdicated the papacy.”
Cardinal Burke called the notion that the papacy could be bifurcated or expanded “fantasy.”
“The office has to inhere in one physical person,” he said.
“The munus and the ministerium are inseparable,” he also explained. “The munus is a grace that’s conferred, and only in virtue of that grace can one carry out the ministry.” Therefore, “if one no longer has that grace because he has withdrawn his will to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, then he can’t be exercising the Petrine ministry.”
The Cardinal noted further that “the papacy is not a sacrament in the sense that there’s an indelible character.”
“If you said you can no longer carry out the ministry of the priesthood, you could still be a priest offering your life in a priestly way. With the episcopal consecration, there is also an indelible mark imprinted upon the soul by which a man becomes the true shepherd of the flock, exercising the priesthood in its fullness.”
“The inauguration ceremony of the Petrine ministry is a symbolic rite but it does not confer anything new upon the person,” he explained. And so “with the papacy, when you renounce the office, you simply cease to be Pope.”
Cardinal Burke is convinced that the use of papal titles and of papal dress after a Pope has resigned is juridically and theologically problematic and does not help the faithful to understand the true sense what has happened — something he raised in the General Congregations just before the last Conclave. “Once you renounce the will to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, then you return to what you were before,” he said.
But regarding the abdication itself, His Eminence said: “It seems clear to me that Benedict had his full mind and that he intended to resign the Petrine office.”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/did-benedict-really-resign-gaenswein-burke-and-brandmueller-weigh-in