The white cassock and “Pope Emeritus” raise eyebrows

At the in camera General Congregations in preparation for the conclave, according to I.MEDIA, some failed to conceal their astonishment at Benedict XVI’s decision to continue wearing a white cassock and to use the title “Pope Emeritus,” judging that his successor might take umbrage.

The American cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court of the Holy See, was reported to have expressed perplexity regarding the choice of a white cassock instead of a black one. Indeed, Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, announced on February 26, two days before the official abdication, that Benedict XVI would henceforth wear a “simple white cassock.”

Mgr Patrick Valdrini, canonist and pro-rector of the Lateran University, was quoted in Italian daily Avvenire and on KTO as saying that in abdicating his position, Benedict XVI became Bishop Emeritus of Rome, and renounced the See of Peter. Therefore, in his opinion, “Bishop Emeritus of Rome” would have been the most correct title. In the same way, the Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a canonist, explained in La Civiltà cattolica that “one who ends his Petrine ministry, (…) while remaining a bishop, of course, is no longer a pope.” (Sources: kipa-apic.ch – imedia – KTO – DICI no. 272 dated March 15, 2013)

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