Popes in the News
Modern Medieval
by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele
With the news that Pope Francis is in critical condition (if improving slightly), we’re going to enter another news cycle in which suddenly a lot of people are going to say a lot of things about medieval religion. Some are even likely to be true.
My (David’s) media career, the whole reason I’m in a position where I’m one of the writers of this newsletter, is in large part due to the resignation of Pope Benedict in February 2013. I had written three op-eds over 6 years. I thought public writing was an important small part of what I might keep doing but found myself in a lull. My tenure file was turned in, and my book manuscript was turned in, but I wasn’t ready to start a new project. So, I was reading theory, prepping classes, waiting to hear back from my potential publisher. Waiting.
Benedict’s resignation was a specific kind of news event - undeniably important, totally unexpected. When something expected happens, major media outlets are ready for it. Right now, for example, most major outlets already have people working not just on papal obituaries, but commentary on opinion pages, on TV and radio, and it’s very hard for an outsider to be heard at such times. But when it’s unexpected and inside your research niche, and if you move fast, you can get into the conversation. And I, as it turns out, am pretty good at 13th century Italy.
So when Benedict retired, it was a surprise. CNN and NPR quickly turned to Wikipedia (I assume) and reported that the last papal retirement was in 1415 when Gregory XII resigned as part of a settlement to end the Avignon schism. But that, I shouted at the computer, wasn’t the right historical precedent! In 1295 Pope St. Celestine V retired because he was an old man who wanted to go back to his hermitage. Thirteenth century! not Fifteenth century! Friend on social media suggested pitching an op-ed, which I thought nonsense as it wasn’t important. It isn’t important! But it is true, so I sent in an email and three minutes later an editor had taken the pitch.
Then when the conclave started, I wrote for The Atlantic about one of my favorite topics: medieval democracy (medieval people loved democracy! Voting conveyed legitimacy! Democracies are always composed of smaller or larger but distinct electorates!). When the new pope chose the name Francis, he named himself after, you guessed it, a 13th century Italian, Francis of Assisi. The new pope then performed what I call “charismatic humility,” a very normal kind of celebrity for a medieval holy person especially in imitation of St. Francis, but one that our media wasn’t ready to parse, so I kept writing for a few more months about how we might read the new pope’s words and actions. When you’re trying to become a writer, you need clips (examples of previous work), but to get those clips, you need to be hired as a writer. The transition from Benedict to Francis enabled me to break that Catch-22. I also learned that I liked to write fast, that it broke through some of my anxiety, that I could use new (at the time) simple voice-to-text tools to dodge my dyslexia, and I was hooked.
Any time the media starts talking popes, we get good and bad medieval history. The good is that there are many clear medieval elements to the modern papacy, as with many modern institutions, and moreover the Catholic Church has a specific relationship with its past. When Benedict wanted to cite canon law for his retirement, it’s the canon law after Celestine’s retirement to which he turns, the passage of centuries no obstacle to finding precedent. In fact, an understanding of medieval Christianity is useful, even necessary, to understanding modern Christianity. But there also tends to be a misunderstanding of the modern papacy as medieval. That’s an argument made both by critics of the church and by some in the church itself, one trying to banish it to the past, the other seeking to present itself as suprahuman, eternal, unchanging. That’s just bad history. The medieval papacy was not just one thing, but many different things in every era, with a wide variety of legal, institutional, theological, political, and military roles in any given moment.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next in Rome and neither does anyone else. But whatever it is, there are going to be historians who will be able to frame current events in the useful historical context and extricate current events from myth and propaganda.
And hey, maybe the next one will also pick a throwback to some thirteenth century dude. I’ll be ready!
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Hi, Linda, Great story about the passing of JPII. Driving to & from work I listened to Catholic Radio during the conclave that chose Benedict, but being Presbyterian I missed a lot of the implications. My guess this time it will be backlash, to the sorrow of many who love and admire what Pope Francis has done in the world.
You are so right about having to be quick off the mark and quick with the pen. I did this with the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and suggested there were worse things than resigning in disgrace, see: Becket and Cramner!
I think everyone here is missing someone important.
Francis will have appointed at least two thirds of the cardinals who will elect his successor. Will they follow the same style of Papacy as Francis? Unlikely. But do you really think he didn't appoint cardinal electors who would, first and foremost, agree with his biggest moves (from an internal perspective)?
I remember hearing that the current pope had chosen the name Francis. I could hardly believe it, but it was a big improvement on Benedict's "conservatism" (as if that is an accurate characterization. If the conclave picks "backlash" Francis's gestures toward reform and openness and inclusion will turn out to be just that -- gestures.
Hi David! Yes: I, too, was yelling at the news outlets when Benedict XII resigned about the precedent being Celestine V and not the Great Schism. And of course was surprised when the church wound up with Francis and not a Boniface VIII clone. Oh right: that was Ratzinger . . . I was at an event at a Medieval Academy meeting when JPII died and was talking with a bunch of folks who were teaching at Catholic universities and suggested to them that the likely pick was going to be Ratzinger, as a backlash candidate since JPII had been on an apology tour for some time (loved it when he apologized for the 4th Crusade) and the conservatives were having kittens. I was told by all of the Catholic boyz and gurls "Oh no! They'd never do that!" I silently rolled my eyes. Et voilà . . . So I suspect that, since he has kidney failure as well as double pneumonia, Francis's days are numbered. And my automatic question is "reform or backlash?" I suspect backlash. What do you think?