The inevitable papal abdication conspiracy theory from the indefatigable Christopher Ferrara deserves to be quoted at length:

Consider: Benedict might have been wrestling with the propriety of raising John Paul to the altars of the universal Church and declaring Paul VI a beatus, thus placing his papal imprimatur on what he himself, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, described as a post-conciliar “process of decay”—a process only Pope Benedict has done anything to reverse since the Council. Yet, Benedict was also under tremendous pressure from “conciliarist” forces to perform both acts in order to shore up the collapsing credibility of the conciliar aggiornamento. At this very moment, the trickle of traditionalist critiques is becoming a torrent of criticism by respectable theologians of the mainstream, as the “spirit” of the Council wanes while its disastrous effects become too obvious to explain away any longer. (See, for example, the posthumously revealed commentary by the eminent non-traditionalist theologian Fr. Divo Barsotti, whose diary records this damning assessment: “I am perplexed with regard to the Council: the plethora of documents, their length, often their language, these frightened me. They are documents that bear witness to a purely human assurance more than to a simple firmness of faith.”) Continue reading →