MGB:_I do wish they had included Garry Wills and left out Professor Butler. Rev. MacCulloch was probably asking a rhetorical question about two popes as a way to bring in the 11th Century crisis of the antipopes, all of whom were deposed and replaced with a new pope. Even earlier, the papacy was as much about filling the power vacuum that was left when Constantine moved the seat of empire to Constantinople, creating with the an Ecumencial Patriarchy in what was called New Rome (and still is). He could not quite get away with proclaiming it the See of Peter, and he did not have reach to suppress the Roman patriarchy, leaving a theocracy in his wake which was more courtly than sacred.
As for Benedict, he was wise to both retire and not step on Francis’ heels. He was not a statesman as much as a scholar. To complete the story, adding a discuion of Pio Nono and the surrender of the Papal States would have been in order, as well as some of the ways that Pius tried to hold back modernity and how those ripples led St. John Paul to not resign, as well as being the source of the opposition to Vatican II (and St. John Paul’s role in it). I suspect these topics were left out because they could easily take an hour (especially if CNN addresses the sex abuse scandal, in which case they must call Garry.
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