La rinuncia alle chiavi del regno

The Pope’s renunciation of his munus primaziale is a rare event throughout history but contains in itself an extre¬mely important and delicate matter, which involves crucial interests of ecclesial life, opening up new views that invest the very conception of nature and the most authentic dimension. of the ministry that He Who is, above all, “Servus servororum Dei” is called to carry out in the Church. The institute of renunciation, positivized in the Constitution Quoniam of Boniface VIII of 1294 and subsequently expressly codified by the canonical legislator. After centuries of quiescence, has regained its concreteness and effectiveness - placing itself at the center of the theological, juridical and political debate - following the renuntiandi voluntas of Benedict XVI . The choice of Benedict XVI, without precedents in the recent history of the Church, has placed a series of unpublished, complex and relevant doctrinal questions, concerning, in particular, the cano¬nical status to be attributed to the resignant Pontiff: it is therefore essential to analyze its scope, having, in any case, which the “bonum commune Ecclesiae” is an indispensable and precious point of reference, that the Vicar of Christ, in renouncing the keys of the Kingdom, will be called to safeguard.