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Defending
Pope Benedict XVI
Special
Crisis e-Report
April 22,
2005
Four Myths
About Pope Benedict XVI
1.
"Benedict XVI 'campaigned' for the papacy, outmaneuvering the
liberal
faction to win the job."
Unfortunately,
it's a tendency of the American media to project the
styles and
categories of U.S. politics onto every other kind of
election.
Such is the case here. Following this model, the former
Cardinal
Ratzinger is said to have maneuvered his way into the
papacy,
through behind-the-scenes campaigning and deft use of his
prominence as
the Dean of the College of Cardinals. His magnificent
homily at
John Paul II's funeral and his no-nonsense criticism of
moral
relativism preceding the conclave are offered as evidence.
But this is
simple nonsense, and it ignores several well-established
facts:
First, in the
modern era at least, the vast majority of cardinals do
not want to
be elevated to the papacy, and the few who do are not
elected. The
life of the Supreme Pontiff is a difficult one. His life
is no longer
his own. Gone is his privacy, his freedom, his leisure,
and his
regular contact with friends and family.
Second, it's
well known that Benedict XVI did NOT want to be pope.
By his own
admission, he was never completely comfortable in his role
as Prefect of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and
tried to
resign several times (John Paul II would have none of it).
Furthermore,
it was Benedict's dream to leave the Vatican to return
to the
slow-paced world of teaching. In an interview with Matthew
Schofield of
Knight Ridder, the pope's brother, Father Georg
Ratzinger,
recalled a conversation with him over Christmas where they
discussed his
retiring to a quite life back in Germany.
But what
about his strong homily taking on moral relativism at the
opening of
the conclave? Much of the secular media has described it
as though it
were a kind of campaign event (one particularly clueless
journalist
referred to the homily as a "stump speech").
The truth is
quite the opposite. Most informed Vatican observers
recognized
the homily as Benedict XVI's last attempt to avoid
election to
the papacy. After all, if he were actually campaigning,
he would have
delivered something softer that appealled to the
moderates
within the College of Cardinals... not the no-holds-barred
assault on
secularism that he delivered instead.
Even Fr.
Richard McBrien recognized this, managing to get it both
right and
wrong at the same time. Just after the conclave opened, he
noted:
"If Cardinal Ratzinger were really campaigning for pope, he
would have
given a far more conciliatory homily designed to appeal to
the moderates
as well as to the hard-liners among the cardinals. I
think this
homily shows he realizes he's not going to be elected.
He's too much
of a polarizing figure."
In short, a
homily is not a stump speech, a conclave is not a
polling
station, and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had no ambitions to
become
Benedict XVI.
2. "Pope
Benedict XVI was chosen as a transitional pope."
To a partial
degree, this is true. After all, at 78 years of age,
the Holy
Father won't have the same lengthy reign as his predecessor.
Nevertheless,
there's an important difference between a transitional
papacy and a
short papacy. Blessed John XXIII had a short papacy,
after all,
but it was hardly the slow-paced transition his electors
might have
been expecting. His decision to convene the Second Vatican
Council,
after all, forever changed the face of the Catholic Church.
Make no
mistake -- none of the cardinal electors at this conclave
had any
notion that Benedict XVI would sit around the Vatican,
issuing the
occasional unremarkable document. As those who have
worked with
him can tell you, Benedict XVI gets things done. This
will be an
active and productive papacy. And given the prolific
writing
career of the former-Cardinal Ratzinger, we can expect a
small library
of encyclicals from him, now that he occupies the
Apostolic
See. Please Lord, may it be so.
3.
"Benedict XVI has a dark, Nazi past."
This one is
almost too ridiculous to address. But since the
ridiculous is
no disqualifier for some, we must answer it. The charge
stems from
the pope's childhood in Nazi Germany. At the time,
membership in
the Hitler Youth was mandatory for young men. And so,
against his
wishes, he was enrolled.
By all
counts, he was a very unenthusiastic member -- indeed, his
family had
been outspoken in their opposition to Nazism, to the point
where they
actually had to move to a different town out of safety
concerns.
When the pope
turned 16, he was drafted into the German army to
serve with an
anti-aircraft unit. He never saw combat and
subsequently
deserted (an action that would have meant summary
execution had
he been caught).
And that's
the sum total of his involvement with the Third Reich.
Does this
constitute a "dark past"? After all, he describes all of
this himself
in his book, "Salt of the Earth." The interesting thing
is, none of
his critics actually believe he had any affection for the
Nazis.
Furthermore, the "Nazi Connection" charge was ably refuted a
few days ago
in the Jerusalem Post -- hardly a haven for Hitler
apologists.
And other prominent Jewish leaders, like Abraham Foxman
of the
Anti-Defamation League, have come to the pope's defense.
As for his
attitude towards Judaism, it's well known that he was a
key
participant in and supporter of Pope John Paul II's historic
outreach to
the Jewish people. And anyone who reads his wonderful
book,
"Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church, and the
World,"
will discover his affection for our elder brothers and
sisters in
the Jewish Faith.
So, is
Benedict XVI an anti-Semite? No. A man with a suspicious Nazi
past? No. In
the end, the pope's sole mistake was being born in the
wrong nation
at the wrong time.
4. "Pope
Benedict XVI is a doctrinal hardliner who opposes the
reforms of
the Second Vatican Council."
It's almost
difficult to know where to start. Since when, after all,
does standing
behind that which has always been believed and taught
make one a
"hardliner"? Furthermore, can the term itself be
understood as
anything other than an insult? Have you ever heard it
used as a
compliment? And what if the position one stands behind is
true? If I
defend the existence of gravity against someone who denies
it, does that
make me a gravitational hardliner? How silly.
Happily, the
main portion of the charge -- that he opposes the
reforms of
Vatican II -- is much easier to address. As anyone
familiar with
his life or work knows, Benedict XVI fully supports the
documents and
decrees of the Council. Indeed, he attended as a
theological
advisor and, along with Henri de Lubac, was a chief
proponent of
the Council's return to Scripture and the Early Fathers
as the prime
sources of Catholic theology.
What Benedict
XVI does oppose, however, is the misuse of Vatican II
to justify
things the Council Fathers never proposed. Abortion,
contraception,
women's ordination, acceptance of homosexual behavior
-- all are
paraded by dissenting Catholics as natural outgrowths from
the documents
of the Council. But such claims are only convincing to
one who has
never actually read those same documents (which are
thoroughly
orthodox and bear no support whatsoever to such radical
positions).
That's when
the "Spirit of Vatican II" makes its entrance. You see,
since
dissenting Catholics cannot actually find their wish list
anywhere in
the actual conciliar documents, they're forced to imagine
a kind of
trajectory from the Council -- almost as if Vatican II were
a perpetual,
unending event. Given enough time, the theory goes, the
Fathers would
have eventually embraced the theological fascinations
of the
Catholic Left.
Don't be
fooled. One of my favorite former theology professors --
certainly no
conservative -- used to say that the phrase "The Spirit
of Vatican
II" really means, "This is what Vatican II would have said
if Vatican II
were me."
Just so.
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