Pope Benedict XVI’s Abdication and Geopolitics in Its Background

Benedict XVI announcing his abdication is the first such an occurrence since 600 years. Thus, it is a precedent event, which in addition concerns a person believed to be conservative. Therefore, it has raised many doubts and resulted in emergence of possible theories about the nature of such decision. The underlying reasons should be seen in psychology, geriatrics or medicine. One should bear in mind that the current pope supported the opinion that his ill predecessor should hold his office till death. Doubts should, however, be thrown on sources this piece of information comes from. Therefore, the abdication will be analysed in a geopolitical context.

Tendency to multiply entities beyond necessity led to emergence of a term “geopolitics of religion,” which falsely considers religion to be part of politics. Religion should, however, be analysed in terms of using its ideological potential for the benefit of creating a political arena. It should be done in accordance with state’s interests regarding the international relations and even interests of a group or a ruling class living in that state. That is why one should rather speak about religion in geopolitics. 

A way in which Western Christianity took, during the period of 1000 years of the so called Middle-age, an active part in creating the European political arena, whereas Eastern Christianity supported rise of Russia and its power are examples of such an approach. The analysis of religion’s influence on geopolitics should also be considered with view to Mieszko I’s decision to get baptised in the year 966 and impact this decision had on the discussed phenomenon. It was a serious step Mieszko took bearing geopolitics in mind. His aim was to protect developing Poland from German attacks, which were justified by the idea of waging a holy war with pagans. 

Back to the current issues – nowadays, the role John Paul II played in fights against the USSR and against the communist ideology during the Cold War is emphasised. Death of his predecessor, John Paul I, is still widely analysed and according to some of these analysis, he was reluctant to involve religion in geopolitical fight between Western and Eastern blocs. Looking back at this fact some years later, it is clear that, at that time, religion was a real soft power, it was used to support the competing ideologies during conferences in Yalta and Potsdam. Political ideology perceived by communists in a narrow sense (it ignored importance of other aspects of social consciousness and conditions), was fully expressed in Stalin’s cynical question, namely, how many tanks Vatican has. It proves that the leader of the Soviet Union used, in fact, a realistic paradigm of power, measured especially in military force. That paradigm led to limitation in the possible range of decisions that could have been taken with view to the Cold War confrontation, which the USSR eventually lost. It is, nevertheless, worth mentioning that Russian Federation managed to quickly draw conclusions from that defeat.    

Benedict XVI announcing his abdication is the first such an occurrence since 600 years. Thus, it is a precedent event, which in addition concerns a person believed to be conservative. Therefore, it has raised many doubts and resulted in emergence of possible theories about the nature of such decision. The underlying reasons should be seen in psychology, geriatrics or medicine. One should bear in mind that the current pope supported the opinion that his ill predecessor should hold his office till death. Doubts should, however, be thrown on sources this piece of information comes from. Therefore, the abdication will be analysed in a geopolitical context.

One should note four facts that should be considered only as selected examples depicting Vatican’s multidimensional policy. What is important, is the fact that Vatican, having a dual nature, combines two things: power held over the Catholic Church and being a state, i.e. a member of the international community. As far as the above mentioned facts are concerned, these are: a medal awarded to Alexander Lukashenko, who, in fact, paid a visit to Benedict XVI; approval of Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Poland (it was a turning point in bilateral relations of two biggest factions of Christianity – Moscow seems to be an ally in preserving Christian values); Benedict XVI expressing his support for introducing Tobin tax, which is to be charged for financial flows; and recently, lack of support for initiative of France, which called for recognizing Syrian opposition coalition, and, thus, Vatican regarding oppositionists as terrorists. When one adds to these facts criticism of economic inequalities and cultural relativism, one can warily conjecture that Vatican and its geopolitical approach were often not in congruent with plans of the most powerful states in the West.

Obviously, an ideological foundation of opposition expressed against the postmodern empire, i.e. the USA, was conservatism, which is a Catholic dogma. This foundation had also another geopolitical importance in just another international context. An example of it was harsh criticism of liberation theology (it combines Christian teachings with economic analyses of Karol Marx) expressed at the end of the 1970s. According to this theology, church guards law and order and prevents it from being infringed by emancipation movements launched by Latin America community. Basically, that act of criticism was in keeping with interests of elites staying in some relation with the USA. Similarly to the previous decision, Vatican gave support (and did it before Germany) to Slovenia’s and Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia; it took place at the beginning of the 1990s. Reoccurrence of war in Europe after the end of a bipolar world could mean that Vatican’s approach may in some degree coincide with a certain version of a new world order.    

However, the development of that concept may, in the past 20 years, have become less and less coherent with ideas accepted by Vatican. There was no longer an enemy that came in the form of the atheistic Soviet Union, founded on the concept of Enlightenment universalism. Terrorism, regarded as the enemy of the “free world” of the 21^st century, was not so clearly justified to be actually considered the enemy as far as Catholic doctrines are concerned. It was postmodern relativism of global turbocapitalism that could result in the future decline of Catholicism. Hence, it can be suggested that in order to preserve the important role the Catholic Church plays in the world, geopolitical alternatives should be sought by Vatican. One should bear in mind that, in the past, Vatican approved the idea of Moscow becoming the Third Rome, the idea which is regarded to be foundation of eschatological myth of imperial Russia. At that time, the Russian Empire managed to find ways to prevent expansion of the Ottoman Empire, which led to the end of the Byzantine Empire and fall of Constantinople in 1453.

At the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, it came to interregnum in the international relations, i.e. lack of an actual leading country (Z. Bauman). It resulted in high probability of or actual war outbreaks, ecological disasters and permanent economic crisis of the Western capitalism (financialization); generally: in crisis of culture. Vatican has, without any doubts, noted that new powers are emerging. Leading-countries-to-be, which are to implement reforms, are People's Republic of China, greatly influenced by the philosophy of Confucius, and Russia, believing the Orthodox faith to be an important ideological element of a new political system. Taking into considerations these facts, the decision to change the leader of such an important global social institution Vatican is, is quite surprising.

An answer to the above mentioned doubts will come along with the choice of a new pope. There are four possibilities:

1. a new pope will continue to purse aims and objectives set by his conservative predecessor, i.e. preserving the important role the Catholic Church plays in the world and, by that, dodging between political powers of the emerging international order (e.g. cardinal Mark Quellet from Canada);
2. a new pope will be Timothy Gartner Dolan, archbishop of New York, supporter of the New Evangelization. He suggests bigger cooperation with the USA;
3. a new pope will support implementation of financial reforms. He will refer to the ideas of pope Paul VI, who implied that there is a structural sin in the core of the financial system. It is the sin, which quite noticeably, influences lives of most people living in this world. This attitude is pretty important since some trends in Islam emphasize injustice resulting from capitalism;
4. a new pope will be a native of Africa (e.g. cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana or Franciz Arinze from Nigeria), who, not unlike pope John Paul II, will get involved in policies pursued by the most powerful Western countries acting against their geopolitical enemy, i.e. China. Beijing is successfully going to increase its influences within Africa, which, after the fall of USSR, was perceived by the West only as a continent where there are plenty of resources and “unwanted people”. The other candidate, who will pursue similar goals, can be the one from Latin America (e.g. cardinal Leonardo Sandri from Argentina) – continent characterised by hostile attitude towards the USA and rule of, in various degree, left-wing leaders (from moderate left-wing Brazil to the 21^st century-socialist Venezuela). Although, it is hard to imagine that the left-wing liberation theology could be restored, the fact that archbishop Gerhard Müller, who is a friend of a Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierezze, was appointed as the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith can be regarded as an indication of it.

Therefore, in the case of the fourth possibility, one can posit that Vatican will get more sensitive to world’s diversity. What is more, it will, supposedly, pay more attention to carrying out a reform of the current system that led to social injustice. It is quite probable since left-wing activists from South America are usually eager to cooperate with the Church, provided that it fulfills its moral mission and, thus, gives up its cooperation with the most powerful Western countries.     

It is also possible that the reason for pope’s abdication is that he feels powerless or is reluctant to join the West, since he is conscious that sharper disagreements can result in a global conflict. In this case, the psychological-moral aspect could have the most significance: Benedict XVI does not want to go down in history as the pope that did not manage to prevent war outbreak. The next pope will, simply, take responsible for what will happen in the future.

Only when the possibility a) turns out to be true, the analysis of this situation in the geopolitical context does not have any sense.