As folks guessed, I’ve been counting up the number of days Benedict XVI has been pope until they pass 33, the number that John Paul I served.
The reason is that I’ve been concerned about how traumatic it would be for the Church if Benedict XVI had an ultra-short reign.
After the cardinals elected such a wonderful pope, I really, really hope that he gets to shepherd the Church for a long time, though since he is 78, one must be realistic about how long "a long time" is for a person of his maturity.
The new pope himself, apparently, made reference in the conclave to the fact that his reign would be short, and I read in his interview book The Salt of the Earth where he referred to his health having been poor years ago when he first came to work at the Vatican (if I recall correctly).
Then when Benedict skipped the beatification ceremony of a couple of folks, it made me extra nervous, though he didn’t seem to be sick. It may simply be that he wants to devote his time to pressing things (like his first encyclical, for example) without delaying things like beatifications. (I presume he’ll still personally celebrate canonizations, though not necessarily.)
While Pope Benedict has passed an important milestone–the 33 day mark–he still could (God forbid) die in an abnormally short amount of time, and that would also put the Church through a huge convulsion, perhaps ven making the cardinals question whether they had elected the right kind of candidate. (Hopefully they’d focus on Cardinal Ratzinger’s age rather than his orthodoxy as where they went wrong.)
But let’s hope that Benedict XVI still will have a lot of time to shepherd the Church, to consolidate the gains of his predecessor, and to make his own unique contributions.
God bless Benedict XVI!
