SecretAgentMan's Dossier

"Oh, He's Too Frail to Be Pope! He Should Resign!

Via St. Blog's Parish Hall, we read this story about our frail, hospitalized Pope. (Click the link once you get to St. Blog's).

Fr. Thomas Reese and the staff of America magazine, who've been beating the drums on the BBC, PBS, the Washington Post, and New York Newsday and elsewhere, for some procedure by which our Pope and his successors can be influenced to resign, ought to think again.

As I said before: "Every person is indispensable -- even the pope. Even this pope, no matter how much some folks would like him to be the pontifical equivalent of Terri Schiavo."

When contemplating this campaign, it should be understood that there is nothing in the constitution of the Church which prevents the Pope from having already taken steps to prevent the evils which papal-resignation enthusiasts trot out to justify their cause. There is not, however, a procedure in place which would routinely terminate a papacy whose policies have endured "too long" or provide a pope's opponents with an opportunity to challenge him on a new and more direct level.