Cardinal Camillo Ruini thinks Benedict XVI’s resignation was a mistake. Ruini also found himself flummoxed by the Francis pontificate and unsure whether the reign of the late Argentinian pontiff will prove to have done more harm or good.

Ruini said so – in words – in a wide-ranging interview with Italy’s Corriere della seranewspaper that was published late last week.

Ruini, who served the better part of two decades as Pope St. John Paul II’s vicar for the Rome diocese and as president of the Italian bishops’ conference, is more than a venerable figure in the Italian episcopate and senior member of the college of cardinals.

Now 95 years old, he has seen more of the last century than almost anyone else, not only because he lived through it but because he was there for it.

When he gives an opinion about anything – especially about a pope – it is a good idea to take him seriously.

Ruini knows his opinions carry weight, even though he has been retired from active public life since 2008, which is why his candid remarks to the Corriere regarding Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, and Pope Leo XIV are themselves remarkable.

It probably won’t surprise many leaders to know that Ruini ranked Pope St. John Paul II as maggiore – which is the comparative of grandeor “great” – saying “he was a true leader on the world stage.”

Corriere had asked him to rank the popes of his lifetime, and Ruini said it was a tall order.

“For the Church, Ruini said, “it has been a fortunate period, in which various great popes have succeeded one another.”

“I think of Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI,” Ruini said.

“I found myself in difficulty with Pope Francis,” Ruini said in response to a question asking whether the late pontiff had disappointed him. “The change was too great and sudden,” Ruini said.

“More than disappointed,” Ruini said he was “surprised.”

Asked for his measure of the Francis pontificate, whether it did “more good or more harm to the Church,” Ruini said his would be “a complex assessment, with very positive aspects and others much less so.”

“It’s too early to judge which of them prevail,” he said.

Ruini was less circumspect regarding the pontificate of Benedict XVI, especially regarding Benedict’s shocking February 2013 decision to resign the papal office.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” Ruini said in response to the Corriere’s point-blank question whether is was a mistake for Benedict to resign, “it was a mistaken decision, at least it seems so to me.”

More: https://x.com/pluant/status/2025615022362435911?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w