Is the pope Catholic? | Brendan O’Neill | spiked

He gets the doctrine of papal infallibility wrong (as most do), but otherwise gets the problem right:

Is the pope Catholic? | Brendan O’Neill | spiked: In the back-slapping for Benedict we’re really witnessing the breathing of a mass, global sigh of relief that pretty much the last institution which elevates its own needs over the needs of its occupant, which demands unwavering, total, literally Christ-like commitment, has now allowed the reality of frailty to creep into its hallowed halls. Today’s fashionable allergy to the pope, and to the Catholic Church more broadly, is driven more by a petit-bourgeois disdain for firm commitment to a cause and belief in something bigger than ourselves than it is by a grown-up critique of Catholic theology.

The Pope Abdicates - NYTimes.com

Ross Douthat puts into words my unease at the Pope's retirement:

The Pope Abdicates - NYTimes.com: There is great symbolic significance in the fact that popes die rather than resign: It’s a reminder that the pontiff is supposed to be a spiritual father more than a chief executive (presidents leave office, but your parents are your parents till they die), a sign of absolute papal surrender to the divine will (after all, if God wants a new pope, He’ll get one), and an illustration of the theological point that the church is still supposed to be the church even when its human leadership isn’t at fighting trim, whether physically or intellectually or (for that matter) morally.