The boy who became Pope
MCP
By Paul Vallely
20 April 2005
The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church have elected as Pope perhaps the
most controversial, divisive and reactionary of all the plausible
candidates. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger becomes Pope Benedict XVI, at 78 the
oldest pope elected in the past 100 years after the swiftest conclave of
modern times. It lasted just over 24 hours.
As head of the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he has
been not only the Vatican's guardian of orthodoxy since 1981, but in recent
years he has been, in effect, second-in-command to Pope John Paul II. In
that role he has been associated with all of John Paul's most hardline
policies.
Cardinal Ratzinger was born in Bavaria in 1927, a policeman's son. As a
child he was a member of the Hitler Youth, though he was never a member of
the Nazi Party. His studies for the priesthood were interrupted in the war
when he was drafted into an anti-aircraft unit but eventually he deserted.
He ended the war as a prisoner of the Americans.
From the outset he was marked out as an intellectual of extraordinary
capacity, and he was a radical in his youth. One of his doctoral
dissertations was rejected when his superiors accused him - ironically given
the subject of his final sermon just before the conclave - of relativism.
After a circuit of famous German theological faculties, in Bonn, Münster,
Tübingen and Regensburg, he became a theological adviser at the Second
Vatican Council - the Church's great reforming movement in the 1960s. There
he penned a famous line about the Holy Office, the body previously known as
the Inquisition, asserting that its "methods and behaviour do not conform to
the modern era and are a source of scandal to the world".
At that time, no one would have suspected that Joseph Ratzinger, the
energetic apostle of a reformed vision of the church, would go on to head
that same office - and have exactly the same accusations levelled against
him.
For the softly spoken, courteous, Bavarian cardinal is the iron fist in
Catholicism's velvet glove. Nicknamed "God's rottweiler" and the
"Panzerkardinal" he takes the same unyielding stance on issues such as
artificial contraception, abortion and homosexuality - which he has
personally called "intrinsically evil". He called for pro-abortion
politicians to be denied communion during the US election campaign. He has
argued that Europe should be re-Christianised and that Turkey should not be
admitted into the European Union.
In many areas he is more hardline than his predecessor. He undermined Pope
John Paul II's attempts at reconciliation with the Orthodox churches. After
the last pope visited Athens to apologies for the Great Schism of the 11th
century, Cardinal Ratzinger issued a document insisting that the Catholic
Church was the "mother" of other Christian denominations as opposed to a
"sister," the more common description in ecumenical circles. It was typical
of his stance as a more rigid outrider to the positions adopted by John Paul
II.
What is said to have changed the future pope from a leading progressive to
the architect of reactionary restoration today was horror at the German
student revolutions of 1968. Since that point he has steadily retreated into
an increasingly conservative stance.
By 1997 he had rowed back to the point where he said that the way Pope Paul
VI dumped the Latin Mass and imposed a vernacular version had created a
"tragic breach" in the tradition. "I am convinced that the crisis in the
Church that we are experiencing today is, to a large extent, due to the
disintegration of the liturgy," he wrote. He has since said he hoped for a
new generation of bishops who would restore Latin to the liturgy and curb
the "wild excesses" of the years since Vatican II.
In 1977 he was made Archbishop of Munich and became a cardinal a few months
later. Soon after Pope John Paul II made him the Vatican's guardian of
orthodoxy. From the outset, Cardinal Ratzinger moved to stamp out liberation
theology, a trend in Catholic thought mainly in Latin America which mixed
Catholic theology with Marxist analysis of capitalism. Where John Paul II,
with his Polish background, had some sympathty with the movement and its
critique of the cruelties of capitalism, the German theologian had none. He
decided to stamp it out.
Throughout the 1980s Cardinal Ratzinger began investigating liberation
theology, having decided that it wanted redemption inside history which he
saw as a heresy. His critics say he misunderstood the notion and saw these
Third World movements through too European a lens. In May 1985, Ratzinger
notified its leading exponent, the Franciscan Father Leonardo Boff, that he
was to be silenced. The crackdown had begun.
As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal
Ratzinger became notorious for his readiness to boot liberal theologians out
of their university posts and, if necessary, right out of the church. Right
wingers in the Church say that his stance has been the intellectual
salvation of Roman Catholicism in a time of confusion and compromise. But
others see in the future Pope's hammering of dissent an attempt to restore a
model of church - clerical, dogmatic and rule-bound - which Vatican II
sought to overthrow.
It all brought back echoes not heard in the church since the clampdown on
modernism at the end of the 19th century and the heresy trails of the
Reformation. Infallibility was expanded, to include the ban on women's
ordination and the invalidity of ordinations in the Anglican church.
Almost all the Catholic controversy in the past 20 years somehow involved
Joseph Ratzinger. In all this the new Pope demonstrated all the
authoritarianism of John Paul and none of his warmth or spontaneity.
Towards the end of Pope John Paul II's life, the man who was to be his
successor took on more and more tasks. The late pope allowed "his trusted
friend" to make his office the most powerful in the Vatican, exercising an
informal veto over the key job of appointing bishops. His hardline influence
extended even to the ruling that parishes should not use female altar
servers and choristers. In all of this the new Pope exhibited the stern
unbending face of Catholicism.
After the death of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, as Dean of the
College of Cardinals, took charge of the formal morning meetings of
cardinals during the nine days of mourning. As one of only two cardinals who
was not appointed by John Paul - his red hat having been awarded by Pope
Paul VI - he had a knowledge of the running of a conclave which was not
shared by the rest.
His authority was enhanced when he preached an emotional sermon at John
Paul's funeral, which concentrated on the late pope's positive qualities,
while avoiding any mention of matters that would have embarrassed guests
like President Bush such as John Paul II's opposition to thewar in Iraq.
Then, just before the conclave, he preached a sermon which was effectively a
manifesto for his papacy. In St Peter's he attacked modern relativism with
its anything-goes philosophies. "We are moving towards a dictatorship of
relativism which does not recognise anything as definitive and has as its
highest value one's own ego and one's own desires ... from Marxism to
free-market liberalism to even libertarianism, from collectivism to radical
individualism, from atheism to a vague religion, from agnosticism to
syncretism and so forth."
It seems to have been a clinching moment. Liberal cardinals were
wrong-footed and unable to find a candidate to stop him.
On the balcony of St Peter's he chose the name Benedict. The last Pope
Benedict was known as a man of peace, who sought to prevent and then end the
First World War. But it will take more than a gesture to convince many of
his critics that a Ratzinger papacy will be anything other than a time of
war within the church.
How the world reacted
DR ROWAN WILLIAMS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
"He is a theologian of great stature, who has written some profound
reflections on the nature of God and the Church. His choice of the name
Benedict suggests he wants to connect his vision of the Church to the
monastic spirit of service and contemplation."
CHIEF RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
"As a global leader in a global age, his voice will be important in framing
some of the great challenges of the 21st century. I hope therefore that he
will speak in defence of the covenant of human solidarity in alleviating
poverty and disease, illiteracy and absence of hope."
GERHARD SCHRÖDER, GERMAN CHANCELLOR
"This is a great honour for Germany. I think he will be a worthy successor
to Pope John Paul II. I congratulate him on behalf of the government and all
Germans.
KOFI ANNAN, THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UN
"His Holiness brings a wealth of experience to this exalted office. The UN
and the Holy See share a strong commitment to peace, social justice, human
dignity, religious freedom and mutual respect among the world's religions."
JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT
"I send Pope Benedict XVI my warmest congratulations and sincere good wishes
for the high mission that has just been entrusted on the head of the
Catholic Church."
MARY McALEESE, IRISH PRESIDENT
"May your acceptance of this tremendous burden of service bear fruit in our
world. May God give you strength for these new cares."
BILL FRIST, US SENATE MAJORITY LEADER
"I'm confident Pope Benedict XVI is blessed with the same compassion and
vision that made Pope John Paul II one of the world's most revered and
respected voices."
--
Men are everywhere that matters!
catfish
and
>vision that made Pope John Paul II one of the world's most revered and
>respected voices."
Yes, indeed. I feel confident that Pope Benedict XVI has a clear vision
of the 14th century.
Catfish