A few days ago, I reminisced about the vacancy of the papal see in Sede Vacante 2005. How does it seem this time?

After the death of John Paul II, when I was already far from being in that Church as when I was with the Institute of Christ the King, I felt a sense of despondency and cynicism. It was almost a climax of a de facto sede vacante as Pope John Paul II slowly declined into death.

This time, we can have the impression that Benedict XVI, like Benedict XIV in the eighteenth century, was a brief ray of light and left his desk tidy. I have no way of knowing other than by what I read on the internet – and that is often very unreliable. All I can give is a couple of impressions like last time. For news and predictions about the next Pope, there are plenty of other sites and blogs from Novus Ordo Watch to Catholica Forum, representing every point of view from resurrecting Pius IX or making Ms Jefferts Schori pope with her army of lawyers.

I too am in my own way in sede vacante, being, as one blogger put it, Fr Anthony Chadwick, a non-parochial priest living in France, who runs a blog, and whose ecclesiastical status has been unclear since Hepworth retired. In fact, I am discreetly discerning the future, with a trip to England on the horizon, and I am quite confident that things will turn out in a quiet way. Hmm, enough of that for the moment.

Naturally, the sede vacante in Rome and the election of the new Pope will have no bearing on my own pilgrimage. As I have said before, I am concerned for a large but dwindling number of Christians who rightly or wrongly look to Rome for example and leadership.

Late last night, I caught up with the videos and goodbye speeches as I got home from an evening with some musical friends. The question of many retired men is what they will do with their time. I don’t think Benedict XVI will have any difficulty for as long as he is reasonably healthy. I hope he will write new books and continue his profound reflections on the liturgy as when he was a Cardinal and at the CDF. I would imagine that the eye of the media will be off him when they start reporting on black smoke and white smoke over the Sistine Chapel roof and making their guesses about the winning horses.

Sede vacante is a time of anti-climax and emptiness. The various Roman Catholic blogs and forums exchange ideas. Our Anglican blogs are very quiet. Fr Smuts is keeping very quiet – it is Lent and he is certainly occupied with his parish ministry and the good work he does with the fire brigade. Deborah Gyapong has the occasional article to post from the Ordinariate point of view. All the other Ordinariate watering holes are quiet. The Anglo-Catholic had a rumbling about Bishop Williamson (former SSPX) being about to start consecrating bishops, and then nothing. Virtue Online goes on as ever with its articles, some informative and others of local American interest. My own blog can hardly do more than repeat someone else’s new reports – I hardly see the sense of that – or give reflections from the point of view of a canonical “outlaw”.

Many are grateful for the little Benedict XVI has been able to achieve in the face of the “old guard” from the days of Paul VI and John Paul II. Others are downright mean, both traditionalists and “liberals” (I could call them left-wing anti-conservative conservatives) and say that they chanted Santo subito! when John Paul II died, but not this time. Normally, we would be mourning and praying for the soul of a deceased Pope, but the outgoing Pontiff is still alive and behind closed doors out of sight.

The conclave horse fair will go on as planned in something like a couple of weeks, and I feel very cynical about that. I prayed uno cum famulo tuo papa nostro Benedicto in the Mass, as recognising the Papacy as an ideal symbol of Church unity in the west. Now, that little phrase is omitted. Will I say uno cum famulo tuo papa nostro Pio or Leone or whatever? I am uncertain. I am an “outlaw” and will certainly continue as some kind of Anglican in a continuing Church living out my days doing what I can do with the gift of the priesthood I received. I often think I should not have received it, and I would certainly have done something else in life has I known about the trajectory I would follow. But, I have received it, and it is my duty to put it to the service of the Church in some way. I suspect I will limit myself to praying in union with my diocesan Bishop and the Queen of my country.

With the conservative / liberal dialectics as they are, I see little light at the end of the tunnel. If the Roman Catholic Church were to collapse, really collapse, I wonder how well the rest of us would do out of it. I think such a collapse would discredit Christianity almost entirely except the most rabid anti-Catholic Evangelical Protestantism in its modern American form. What will give the Church its credibility? If that question can be answered, there is hope.

During the last sede vacante, we felt that something had to move in the stagnant stillness. Now, we look for signs of stability and light, that the baby not be thrown out with the foetid bathwater. Cardinal Ratzinger seemed the obvious hope back in 2005, but most of us believed he would not be elected. Who is the obvious hope now?

There will be a new Pope, but what I am really interested in is the availability of the Church at a local level through small dioceses of human dimensions with very little paperwork like in some parts of Europe up to the 1970’s with equally small and welcoming parishes. When Cardinal Ratzinger talked about little communities of faith, I think this is what he meant and not some kind of “spiritual genocide” against the weak and mediocre. This is something we can do whether we are Roman Catholics or belonging to “ragtag” churches like the continuing Anglicans or other independent sacramental communities trying to live the way of the Gospel.

So, instead of lamenting about the sede vacante as I did back in 2005, there is something to do about it, because Christ still occupies his place.