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On Monday, February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict surprised many people throughout the world by announcing that he would resign from the papacy, effective 8:00 PM (Roman time) on February 28, 2013. While Benedict’s decision astounded many, he himself had already publicly stated that if a pope were no longer able to carry out the responsibilities of the office, he had the option, and possibly the obligation, to resign.

In his announcement of the resignation, he explained that at his age he is no longer has the strengths needed to carry out the duties of the papacy. His decision is a dramatic exemplification of the distinction between the office of the papacy and the person who occupies it.

In the transition from this pontificate to the next, there will be substantial continuity regarding interreligious relations. Pope Paul VI (pope from 1963 to 1978) and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) established the fundamental relationship of the Catholic Church to other religious traditions today, which any future pope will continue.

Reversing centuries of frequent interreligious conflicts and misunderstanding, the leaders of the Catholic Church publicly expressed their respect for other religious traditions and their desire to cooperate for the sake of shared values. Both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI repeatedly reaffirmed this policy, as future popes will also be expected to do.

Nonetheless, Benedict has had a reputation for stirring up controversy in interreligious relations. His 2006 academic lecture on faith and reason in Regensburg, Germany, quoted remarks attributed to the medieval Byzantine Emperor Manuel II that were insulting to the prophet Muhammad; in the address Benedict did not explicitly agree or disagree with these remarks, thereby giving the impression that he endorsed them; he also made comments about the Holy Qur’an and Islamic belief that were widely seen as inaccurate and offensive.

After an outpouring of protest across the Muslim world, Benedict added explanatory notes to the address as published on the Vatican website, commenting on the quotation from the medieval Christian that had given the greatest offence: “this sentence does not express my personal view of the Qur’an, for which I have the respect due to the holy book of a great religion.”

Perhaps most noteworthy is that about a year later, 138 Muslim leaders from numerous countries and traditions issued “A Common Word Between Us and You,” addressed to Pope Benedict and many other Christian leaders. This led to international Muslim-Catholic dialogues at the Vatican and a number of other sites.

In 2009, Benedict stirred tremendous controversy in Jewish-Catholic relations by lifting the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson of the St. Pius X Society, an organization founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the Second Vatican Council’s changes in Catholic relations with other religious traditions. Shortly after Benedict’s action, it was revealed that one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, had publicly denied that Jews were killed in gas chambers during the Shoah (the Holocaust) and had minimized the number of Jews killed by the Nazis.

When he lifted the excommunication, Benedict was apparently unaware of Williamson’s views. There was widespread dismay among Jews and Christians alike. This debacle is testimony to the incompetence of the Vatican staff, who failed to do a background search on Williamson. It did not indicate a fundamental change of position. Vatica representatives have repeatedly stated that members of the St. Pius X Society will have to accept the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on interreligious relations in order to be reconciled with the Catholic Church.

In 1986, John Paul II invited leaders from a very wide range of the world’s religious traditions to come to Assisi, the town of St. Francis, for an unprecedented World Day of Prayer for Peace. Benedict convened another interreligious assembly in Assisi, this time inviting not only religious leaders but also non-believers such as the noted scholar Julia Kristeva. Speaking to the 2011 assembly, Benedict observed that the world had changed in many ways since 1986 and expressed his central concern in interreligious relations: “The fact that, in the case we are considering here, religion really does motivate violence should be profoundly disturbing to us as religious persons. In a way that is more subtle but no less cruel, we also see religion as the cause of violence when force is used by the defenders of one religion against others. . . . Herein lies a fundamental task for interreligious dialogue– an exercise which is to receive renewed emphasis through this meeting.”

At the center of Benedict’s involvement in interreligious relation is the concern for religious freedom. Given the often violent conflicts in interreligious relations in many areas today, this concern will likely remain central for any future pope.

Any future pontiff will follow the main outlines of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions. The precise shape that this will take remains to be seen.

By Leo D. Lefebure, Board Trustee, Council for a Parliament of the World Religions