Say another, Pope Francis does not understand that there could be good reasons for a bishop to want to leave office before reaching the age of 75.
But as the case of Bamberg Archbishop Ludwig Schick shows, Francis is a bit picky.
You can obviously count on papal approval if you say at the age of 73 that you want to leave the upcoming tasks to a man who will be responsible for another ten years.
On the other hand, an archbishop has a bad hand if, like Stefan Heße (Hamburg), he is younger and, at an even younger age, had now and then given up when dealing with abusers and those affected: rejected his resignation.
Failure of an entire generation of bishops
Even a symbolic resignation in view of the collective failure of an entire generation of bishops, as Archbishop Reinhard Cardinal Marx of Munich wanted his offer to be understood, could not convince the Pope.
What remains is the offer of resignation from Marx's Cologne opponent Woelki, which was not entirely voluntary.
He could tell the pope what he also knows himself: that the "crisis of trust" that Francis diagnosed in Cologne last year will not end.
But only the man in white knows whether such an argument will ever be caught.