EKPOMA REVIEW

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation on February 28, 2013, was a disruption in modern Catholic consciousness, even if it was not without historical precedent. Lieven Boeve posits that the resignation can be understood in terms of cognitive dissonance—a tension between Benedict XVI/Ratzinger’s theological vision of a Church called to conversion and coherence, and the concrete reality of ecclesial scandals unfolding within a cultural context increasingly perceived as hostile to faith. According to this reading, the resignation served as an attempt to reduce the dissonance arising from the gap between theological ideals and lived ecclesial reality. This essay engages Boeve’s insight further by showing that Benedict XVI’s resignation constitutes a major interruption in the exercise of the Petrine ministry and, by implication, in the life of the Church itself. Rather than a mere administrative decision or a capitulation to pressure, the resignation is interpreted as the culmination of a theologically coherent vision rooted in Joseph Ratzinger’s understanding of conscience and shaped by an Augustinian ecclesiology that resists sacralized and monarchical models of papal authority. Flowing from a Newmanian account of conscience, Benedict XVI’s resignation emerges as an act of truthfulness that reshapes papal authority as service under discernment and opens the Church to renewed dialogue with a pluralistic modern world. The sacramentality of the Petrine office does not deny its human limitations and vice versa. Precisely in this way, it witnesses to a Church that invites the world to conversion by taking a decisive step in the conversion process.

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