The editor-in-chief of the New Daily Compass, an Italian conservative Catholic website, reported Aug. 7 that in 2014, Pope Benedict XVI penned a letter to a prominent Italian monsignor firmly dismissing concerns that his resignation from the papacy was invalid. 

The editor-in-chief of the New Daily Compass, an Italian conservative Catholic website, reported Aug. 7 that in 2014, Pope Benedict XVI penned a letter to a prominent Italian monsignor firmly dismissing concerns that his resignation from the papacy was invalid. 

Riccardo Cascioli reported in the article that the alleged letter is being published in full in the appendix of a new book by the letter’s recipient, Msgr. Nicola Bux, who was a counsellor member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) at the time when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) was prefect of the congregation. 

In Msgr. Bux’s book Reality and Utopia in the Church, he includes a photocopy of the letter allegedly from Pope Benedict, according to Cascioli. The letter reportedly contains Pope Benedict’s response to doubts and questions Msgr. Bux inquired about regarding the legitimacy of his resignation — a controversy brought up by some who debated who was the “true pope,” according to Cascioli.

Cascioli reports that the letter reads in part: “To say that in my resignation I would have left ‘only the exercise of the ministry and not also the munus’ is contrary to clear dogmatic-canonical doctrine. If some journalists speak of a ‘creeping schism’, they do not deserve any attention.” 

The term “munus Petrinum,” Latin typically translated to “Petrine Ministry,” appears in Pope Benedict’s 2013 letter announcing his resignation from the papacy, according to a 2016 Catholic News Agency report. 

Pope Benedict wrote in the 2013 letter, “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”

Pope Benedict’s alleged letter also responds to the concerns by regarding “the resignation of a Pope to be ‘fully’' valid, and the parallelism ‘between the diocesan bishop and the Bishop of Rome with regard to the question of resignation' to be ‘well-founded,’” Cascioli reported. 

“He also defends the right of a pope to speak and write outside of his official duties, as he himself did by continuing to write books during his pontificate,” Cascioli added, “such as the volumes dedicated to Jesus, which he considered ‘a mission from the Lord.’”

Why now? 

In a follow-up article Aug. 9, Cascioli wrote about why he posits Msgr. Bux chose to reveal the letter’s contents to the public in 2025, instead of sooner, when speculation about the Pope’s resignation was more prominent. 

“Firstly, because it was ‘private correspondence’ and Monsignor Bux wanted to keep it that way,” Cascioli wrote. “But above all, he wanted to avoid the letter becoming further fuel for the war between opposing factions over Benedict XVI's resignation and Francis's pontificate. The disorderly and surreal reactions of those who have prospered on bizarre theories about Benedict XVI's resignation in recent years justify Monsignor Bux's decision.”

Cascioli also posited that Msgr. Bux is now availing the letter for historical purposes and assessment. 

In the Aug. 7 article, Cascioli wrote that the letter “is of fundamental historical importance. It allows us to understand the Pope Emeritus's intentions regarding his resignation and the establishment of the emeritus pontificate, as well as his broader theological vision of the papacy.”

Msgr. Bux also states his own “why” in the book, according to Cascioli’s Aug. 9 report: “Because, with the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV, he considers the emotional phase opened by Benedict XVI's resignation to be over.”