UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph
Tim Stanley
Dr Tim Stanley is a historian of the United States. His biography of Pat Buchanan is out now. His personal website is www.timothystanley.co.uk and you can follow him on Twitter @timothy_stanley.
Are we headed towards an apocalypse? First an asteroid comes close to the Earth, then the British start eating horse and now … the Pope resigns. Resigning is something that Popes very rarely do. That last time it was done voluntarily was by Celestine V in 1294; Gregory XII stepped down under political pressure in 1415. By contrast, John Paul II remained in his position regardless of his declining health – a testament to the man’s extraordinary will power.
How wonderful it is to be part of a church that has a memory stretching back centuries. Alas, its prophesies don’t reach much further in to the future. According to Saint Malachy’s Prophecy of the Popes (published in 1595), Benedict is the penultimate Pope before the End of Times begin. The Prophecy has actually been eerily accurate in predicting the identity of each Pope in turn, which is why it makes for such troubling reading today. After Benedict will come Peter of Rome, under whose watch “the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people.” Given the terms of current EU equality law, the Prophecy might well be undone by the forced election of Cherie Blair. But if it does come true, if Peter is elected and Armageddon is upon us, I’m really going to have to get my house in order before the judgement begins. I’m clearing my internet history as I type…
I converted to Catholicism not long after Benedict took over, so he’s always been “my” Pope. And I’ve been lucky. He’s an uncommonly intelligent man who has embodied what’s best about post-Vatican II Catholicism. Contrary to his divisive image encouraged by some in the media (who understand Catholicism as well as they do Aramaic) he put reunifying the Church at the heart of his pontificate. That meant reaching out to the Eastern Orthodox and permitting a revival of traditional liturgy for homegrown conservatives. The latter has led to a revolution in the English Church. Back in 2005, to request a traditional Mass (Latin, pre-60s liturgy and absolutely no tambourines) was akin to requesting a sausage sandwich at a Green Party Vegan fundraiser. Traditionalists were treated like embarrassing relics and it’s not an exaggeration to write that some were persecuted for their beliefs. But Benedict brought a new reading of Vatican II that stressed living tradition and encouraging greater reverence and beauty in the Mass. That might mean more people receiving communion on the tongue or a more semantically precise liturgy, but the greatest innovation was to free traditionalists to explore the Old Rite. He was our Gorbachev.
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