This is an audio file.
This is a great conference, but in it Mark Docherty reads an erroneous translation of Canon 332 §2. He says it reads, If it happen that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office but the Latin has neither the word “resigns” nor the word “office”, the correct English translation of the Canon, begins, rather, If it happen that the Roman Pontiff renounce his munus. This is a key point, because according to the canon, even if a Roman Pontiff renounces his office, but not his munus, he remains the pope. This is because an office is merely a canonical status implying dignity and power and/or jurisdiction, but does not comprehend the entirety of the theological or canonical reality of munus.
Ann and Mark work well together.
The podcast is both enjoyable and informative.
Thanks for posting it.
Yes, it is a great podcast. You will get more than a 12 needed laughs while hearing a sound exposition of the problem and a refutation of many common errors.
My dear Bro. Alexis,
The essence of the whole controversy boils down to a defective resignation under Canon 332.2 precisely because Pope Benedict resigned and renounced the ministry and not the office. Fr. Gruner states it directly & concisely and in about thirty seconds–the true “elevator version”–in his last video wherein he states Canon 332.2 requires a pope to resign the munus, which is the office, and Benedict did not do that. Rather he resigned the ministry.
And only part of the ministry, at that.
I think therefore your quibble on both words is quite likely to muddy the waters.
Renounce / resign may not be the literal translation. Nonetheless, resign seems to capture the essential meaning.
But worse, to claim munus translates as munus doesn’t actually translate the word at all. Because munus is not a word in English.
There are shades of meaning of the word and idea “office,” it seems to me (even before scurrying for my Roget’s Thesaurus. Such connotations can include a charge or mandate, as you’ve discussed before, among other aspects of the “theological or canonical reality of munus.”
Didn’t now-Archbishop Miller write a dissertation on the very distinction between ministerio and munus, translated in the common tongue as ministry and office?
If you don’t think office is close or good enough, what English word would you suggest? It’s crucial to get this right, and we’re not sure seven years later….
Oh Brother, watch my Documentary, which from your comments, I can infer, you have not done. Its at the top of the page in the featured articles.
Fra–
Fair enough.
Meanwhile, in a word (or phrase), what do you think is the best translation of munus?
B. B.
As I explain in the documentary, “Charge”, as when the King says to the servant, I charge you to guard this castle with your life, and the servant say I accept this charge with all fealty and devotion.– But since we do not talk this way in English anymore, I leave it as munus. Benedict calls it the Spiritual mandate, but the mandate is what the King says, the charge is what the servant accepts and receives. In virtue of the charge, the servant becomes the Baliff of the Castle, and is reckoned a nobleman. The last is the dignity, the penultimate the office. They all flow from the charge, which in turn is comes from the mandate.
Excellent podcast! Just that part in minute 18:09 when Ann says “Hold on one sec… I have to take a sh..t, uh, a sip of what I’m drinking here because, oh my gawsh!”, was very odd LOL
Ann always drinks some hard liquor when doing a pod cast. Perhaps because it helps her be loquacious.
Got it Brother. I still think it begs the question to translate munus as munus!
We must come up with a clear definition, be it mandate/charge/essence/office, or some combination of the three, of munus, what it is that Benedict must renounce or resign, in order to resign the papacy.
Canon 188 is the other mainstay, be it mistake, fear unjustly inflicted, or simony. I found the arguments on simony the least persuasive on the Barnhardt podcast.
And while the port may make the lady loquacious it clearly impedes her eloquence, not to mention brevity.
There’s many a synonym for the sometimes scatological references she chooses to make that she herself might even think of were she not north of “22%” capacity.
Brother,
I am a translator, and so from my experience, it is sometimes necessary not to translate a term, because in doing so you will alter the meaning and change all the arguments in which it figures. Just like at Mass, we say Amen, using the Hebrew Word, and not translating it.