Benedict XVI was Forced into Vacating the Papal Throne

David Martin | The Daily Knight

The growing discussion on the social media concerning the nullity of Benedict XVI's resignation is supported by a plethora of documented information that has never truly been refuted. None less than Benedict himself made it clear that he forever remained the Petrine servant of God because of his unending acceptance of the Petrine Office.

On the eve of his resignation, he said:

“Anyone who accepts the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and completely to everyone, to the whole Church... The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ – there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this.” (General Audience, February 27, 2013)

From the text we can infer that there was no revocation of Benedict’s office. He simply resigned from the active ministry of governing the Church while retaining his Petrine office. It can be compared to a person in an crippling situation who simply gives up driving his car while retaining his driver license. Benedict under duress gave up driving the Petrine Barque while retaining his Petrine license.

According to Church law, a pope must fully give up his office (license) for his resignation to be valid (Canon 332). The text indicates that Benedict chose to retain his office "forever," which is why he continued to wear the white papal garb and to go by the name Benedict XVI and why he continued living within the Vatican walls.

In a 2016 book-length interview by Peter Seewald with Pope Benedict, the Holy Father tells the journalist: "The situation of [Pope] Celestine V was extremely peculiar and could in no way be invoked as my precedent."

Celestine V’s ‘peculiar situation’ was that he fully abdicated the papacy, that is, he laid off his papal munus and went back to being the simple monk Pietro da Morrone, and not Pope Emeritus as Benedict XVI did. What Benedict was telling Seewald is that he “in no way” related to what Celestine did, that full abdication of the papacy is what he didn’t do.

Benedict Agreed to say ‘Uncle’

What Benedict did do was to agree to step down, but this was done against his wish. Canon 332 says that the pope’s resignation must be done “freely” to render it valid. A decision to resign cannot be said to have been free if blackmail or political pressures played any part in it.

The truth is that Benedict XVI was forced into vacating the Chair of Peter, but this was done under the guise of a resignation so as to not split the Barque of Peter asunder with controversy. Credible reports from 2015 indicate that Benedict XVI was coerced into stepping down, which was providentially foreshadowed in his inaugural speech of April 24, 2005, when he said: "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves."

Unfortunately, Benedict did flee. In Peter Seewald's biography Benedict XVI, His Life, he reveals that Pope Benedict told him that wicked cardinals pressured him into vacating the Chair of Peter. Benedict was brutally coerced by what he called this “Antichrist” cabal, which he said brought upon him pressures so great that remaining on the Throne would have literally killed him (via heart attack or even murder). These pressures left him with no recourse but to act against his will.

Hence, when Benedict said that he was resigning for reasons of health he was saying the truth but not the whole truth. It was the cruel pressures and threats behind his failing health that caused him to step down. 

In a taped interview in September 2015, the radical-left Cardinal Danneels of Brussels said that he and several cardinals were part of the "Sankt Gallen Mafia" reformist group opposed to Benedict XVI. He said that the group was calling for drastic changes in the Church, to make it "much more modern," and that the plan was to oust Benedict and have Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio head it.

Papal Election not Possible if Papal Office is Occupied

However, it wasn’t possible that Bergoglio could be made pope for the simple reason that Benedict still retained his office (munus). In the case of an impeded See where the Holy Father is a prisoner, confined, or pressured to the point of death, he loses his ministerium (his power to govern the Church) without losing his munus. He loses the ability to act as Pope while retaining the title and office of pope, his investiture.

Hence, the 2013 conclave conferred no right on Francis because any attempt to elect a new pope while the papal office is occupied automatically renders the election null and void. Pope Benedict’s “resignation” was forced on him thereby rendering it invalid and Benedict’s confidant and biographer Peter Seewald isn’t the only one saying these things.

On December 30, 2022, the eve of Benedict's burial, retired brigadier general and Catholic author Piero Laporta reported that shortly after Benedict XVI's election in 2005, “a leading delegate of the U.S. government, who had his hands in Italian finances” and who was “a figure in the highest ranks of the National Security Agency (NSA)” was “bragging about the resignation to which H.H. Benedict XVI of revered memory would soon be forced.”

The agent was reportedly tied with “a great Roman circle that is still active today” and that is even more powerful than the “Sankt Gallen group.” Laporta said this “Roman circle,” which he calls the “dome of demons,” was dedicated to the slogans “God is dead” and “Jesus is fake news” and was in a “panic” when Benedict was elected. The infamous clique worked conjointly with the Sankt Gallen cabal that had clamored for Benedict's resignation, the same that had almost prevented his election in 2005.

Benedict Was Given One Year to Live

On February 10, 2012, almost one year to the day before Benedict XVI announced his resignation, it was reported that the pope was given only one year to live if he didn't resign. The Telegraph UK reported that Cardinal Paolo Romeo, Archbishop of Palermo, said these things to a group of people in Beijing toward the end of 2011.

"His remarks were expressed with such certainty and resolution that the people he was speaking to thought, with a sense of alarm, that an attack on the Pope's life was being planned," the report said. 

The extraordinary comments were written up in a top-secret report, dated Dec. 30, 2011, and delivered to Pope Benedict XVI by a senior cardinal, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, in January 2012. The report was written in German, apparently to limit the number of people within the Vatican who would understand it if inadvertently leaked. It warned of a "Mordkomplott" – death plot – against Benedict.

It was just a little over a year later, on February 11, 2013, that Pope Benedict announced he was stepping down from the Chair of Peter.