New Book On Benedict's Resignation

The visitor who follows the Italian press sent me a link to this review of Il Segreto Di Benedetto XVI, by Antonio Socci, on Marco Tosatti's blog. Even via Google translate, the Italian is somewhat murky, but it gives an interesting interpretation of the context for Benedict's papacy (I've tried to clean up the Google as best I can):

The resignation of Benedict remains for many a great question mark, a question with multiple concomitant answers. Socci offers here the thesis of the analyst Germano Dottori: "Although I have no proof, I have always thought that Benedict XVI was induced to abdication by a complex machination, ordered by those who had an interest in blocking reconciliation with Russian Orthodoxy, a religious pillar of a project of progressive convergence between continental Europe and Moscow. For similar reasons, I believe the succession of Cardinal Scola, who had been conducting negotiations with Moscow, was also stopped by the Patriarch of Venice ".

[Benedict said], "Nobody tried to blackmail me. I would not even allow it. If they tried to do it I would not have left because we do not have to leave when we are under pressure ". But the analysis by Germano Dottori is interesting. However, we are faced with a project of a unipolar world with American hegemony - which therefore has to bend a Russia that is independent and independent again - it is the last ideological folly born of totalitarianism since the twentieth century. . . It is an imperialistic project suicidal for the United States and very dangerous for the world, but so deeply impregnates the American establishment (both in the neocon and liberal factions) that even Donald Trump - who won against them and against this ideology - must now come to terms and is heavily influenced by this block of power,

It is important to remember, and it is good for Socci to do so, the maneuvers of the Obama-Clinton administration to organize a "revolution" in the Church. A revolution, in fact, there was, as we have seen, and as we see. And it is not few who link it to the strong financial and ideological powers that the Church of Benedict gave annoyance, and which bothered the American bishops, deployed in a cultural battle, which makes them define "cultural warriors" in a derogatory tone by the press priced - and this is not a way of saying - of the current regime.

I would say that more than a few American analysts would refer not to a Clinton-Obama administration, but to a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign policy, but even that has been fairly consistent across all administrations in the post-World War II period. And from what we can tell, the corrupt Vatican financial dealings have thrived in that consensus environment.

I would also submit that if we put any tentative plans for reconciliation with Orthodoxy in the context of Anglicanorum coetibus, we must assume they would have been as feckless as the overtures to Anglicans. Beyond that, the Anglican program was undertaken at the instigation of what I think can be correctly called the Law-Bernardin wing of AmChurch. The view of Law that's emerged here with the help of a visitor who knew him is not of a cardinal opposed in any serious way to the Bernardin agenda.

Indeed, Law, as the principal figure behind Anglican outreach -- his protégé Jeffrey Steenson was groomed for his role from the late 1980s onward; he advocated for Anglicanorum coetibus with Ratzinger in a 1993 meeting set up by Law; and before Anglicanorum coetibus was promulgated, Law brought him to Rome, ordained him, and set him up for the eventual role of ordinary. With disastrous results. I'm not aware of any equivalent history of concrete steps toward Orthodox reconciliation, and certainly not at the initiative of AmChurch.

In fact, if anything, Anglicanorum coetibus amounts to a parallel effort to Eastern Rite jurisdictions, and in many contexts, an Orthodox outreach like it would be redundant. I think to take Socci's thesis here more seriously, we'd have to see concrete evidence of plans for new steps toward Orthodox reconciliation undertaken during the runup to Benedict's papacy equivalent to the Ratzinger meeting with Steenson and the subsequent draft of Anglicanorum coetibus.

I'll go one step farther. Earlier this year, I had a chance to conduct my experiment of mentioning Anglicanorum coetibus with a diocesan priest, a then-associate at our parish. It confirmed the result I'd predicted, he gave me a quizzical expression. Several weeks ago, I had a chance to repeat the same experiment with our pastor. I think I said, "I mentioned Anglicanorum coetibus to Fr _____, but he hadn't heard of it. You may know of Benedict's . . . "

Fr Jim, a Type A, immediately answered, "Oh, yes, I'm thoroughly familiar with it," but I'm not so sure -- he was hitting us up for the building fund, after all. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he must be one of very few busy and successful diocesan pastors who is.

But consider that of Benedict's two main initiatives, Anglicanorum coetibus and Summorum Pontificum, the first is unknown, and from someone who saw its implementation at close range, a failure. The second has had only mild success and is certainly subject to the whims of any bishop at any time.

Without a stronger argument, I can't sign on to any thesis that Benedict was on the verge of great things but was forced out by the Bushes, the Clintons, and Obama in concert with AmChurch. One of his two initiatives was at the behest of AmChurch -- and beyond that, it was Benedict who demoted Viganò to Washington, not Francis. On the whole, I'm coming to think Benedict is part of the problem, not a potential solution.