For the last few days I’ve noted with interest that there is a new iPhone app (Android soon) with a historic SIX hour clock which can ring also the Ave Maria Bell, which technically should be rung 30 minutes after sunset. HERE
In earlier posts in which I have explained the six hour clock and the Ave Maria Bell, I’ve addressed the old ways of computing time, determining the end of a day and the beginning of a new day, which was important for issues like contracts and appointments to positions of authority.
In a nutshell, the Ave Maria Bells signals the end of the “religious” day and the beginning of “religious” night and it is rung in the ball park of 30 minutes after sunset. If the Ave Maria rings at, say, 19:00h (7PM) of 28 February, then 18:00h (6PM) would start the 23rd hour of the day and 19:00 would start the 1st hour of the new day’s, 1 March, “evening and morning”. In Roman churches, Vespers were usually sung about an hour before the Ave Maria Bell. Hence, in the example above, at about 18:00 at the 23rd hour.
Why is the pertinent?
Recently I saw a bit of news that a Vatican court is looking into the – get this! – the validity of the resignation of Benedict XVI! HERE There, there a link to a longish piece from late November 2025 by long-time Vatican journalist Andrea Cionci about the computation of time indicated by Benedict in his declaration of resignation, about text changes the Secretariat of State made to the Declaration and the change of a comma such that the result was NOT that Benedict resigned but that he was saying that the See of Peter was impeded.
There is a lot packed into that article. Here is a precis.
Cionci’s article argues that Benedict XVI’s Declaration was manipulated so that it would appear to be a valid resignation when, in the Cionci’s view, it was actually a juridical signal of an “impeded see.” Its first major claim concerns the word commissum. Cionci says that if Benedict originally wrote or spoke commissum, the phrase could be understood as referring to a “misdeed” committed by cardinals on 19 April 2005. In that reading, Benedict would not be saying that the papal office had simply been entrusted to him, but rather hinting at wrongdoing surrounding the beginning of his pontificate. Changing that to commisso makes the phrase fit the official sense, “entrusted to me,” and thus supports the standard reading of the text as a normal resignation formula.
Here’s the time part.
The second major claim concerns a comma before hora vigesima. The article says that with the comma, the text reads like “from 28 February 2013, at the twentieth hour,” which would indicate 8 p.m. on 28 February. Without the comma, however, it can be read as “at the twentieth hour from 28 February.” Cionci then applies the old Italian method of reckoning hours from sunset rather than from midnight. Since sunset in Rome on 28 February 2013 was about 6 p.m., counting forward twenty hours reaches 1 p.m. on 1 March. That timing matters to the article because it places the decisive moment after the Vatican bulletin convoking the conclave, allowing the author to argue that Benedict had not abdicated validly and was then effectively forced into an impeded see.
That comma issue is not insignificant. You know the old joke: “Let’s eat, Grandma!” or “Let’s eat Grandma!” In Italian there is ” “Grazia, impossibile fucilarlo” or “Grazia impossibile, fucilarlo” (Pardon, impossible to shoot him” and “Pardon is impossible, shoot him.”).
Here is Benedict XVI’s declaration:
The article has different links and some images to help ground and explain the argument. The article also deals with Benedict’s resignation of the ministerium and not the munus. The idea being this, taken together with the issue of time, the comma, and text changes, since can 332 §2, which governs abdication, requires renunciation of the Petrine munus, therefore Benedict XVI’s abdication is null and invalid. He remained pope after the resignation, and Bergoglio was an antipope, as such destined to the nullity of everything he said and did in 12 years. This means that, according to Cionci, the Declaration was not a badly written abdication (and it was not well-written), but a decisio, that is, a decree with which Benedict announced his See to be impeded. Hence, also the announcement of a conclave was made before the time set by Benedict (that vigesima hora business) demonstration the usurpation of the papacy, making Francis an antipope.
In that graphic, above, you see – according to Cionci – that on 28 Feb at the 20th hour Benedict is in a state of his See being “totally impeded” (cf. can. 335). The key point is that an impeded see is not the same thing as a vacant see. A vacant see means the officeholder is gone, by death, resignation, transfer, or deprivation. An impeded see means the officeholder remains, but cannot function. Benedict still possessed the munus while being prevented from exercising the ministerium.
Take any or all of that and conclude as you wish. What I found interesting is the ongoing relevance of old ways of computing time in the Church. The fact that an Ave Maria Bell is still on the Vatican curial calendar is …. ehem… timely.
