Benedict XVI

2005-08-15T15:46:00.000-04:00

Le Monde's Reporter Henri Tincq

Henri Tincq's Portrait of Josef Ratzinger : Part III

2005-06-09T03:35:00.000-04:00

France, along with other countries, discovers Ratzinger’s iron fist when beginning in 1983 in Paris and in Lyon the new Prefect of the Doctrine holds a conference criticizing the catechism and Catholic pedagogy, viewed as too modern, developed by the Church of France inside its handbook, Pierres Vivantes (The Living Stones). The humiliation of the French episcopate is the first confirming of a malaise between France and Rome which require time to dissipate. A malaise which began with the first visit of the Pope to Paris in 1980 and the famous reprimand: France, what has become of your Baptismal oaths?

In Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger becomes both the impetus and the executor of disciplinary measures directed at the liberation theologists of Latin America (supporters of a peoples' Church) and other dissidents (Hans Küng, and later Charles Curran and Eugen Drewerman...). In 1984, he imposes a one-year penitential silence on the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff. In 1983 and 1985, he drafts two instructions (doctrinal documents) on liberation theology, suspected of connivance with Marxism. He reminds his audience that true liberation in Christ cannot be terrestrial; it is integral.

In a book translated in France under the title Conversation on the Faith (Entretien sur la Foi, Ed. Fayard, 1985) and published just prior to the extraordinary bishops’ synod called by John Paul II to discuss the outcome of the Vatican II Council, Cardinal Ratzinger clearly defends the idea of doctrinal recalibration, which he qualifies as restoration, a word which carries a certain connotation for Frenchmen and which will foster a great deal of controversy.

During the same period, he publishes bludgeoning texts attacking the Freemasons and walks away from the dialog which Vatican II had opened with them, and homosexuals. In 1987, in an instruction entitled, Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), Ratzinger condemns any form of medically-assisted conception, even in the case of a married couples faced with sterility. Controversy breaks out. The Church is accused of a lack of compassion for persons unable to have children. An increasing number of physicians and couples leave the Church. In institutions where artificial insemination is studied, for example at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, researchers are peremptorily called to obedience by the German cardinal.

Every Friday night in Rome Ratzinger conducts working sessions with John Paul II; on Tuesdays he lunches with him to discuss bioethics, ecumenism and liberation theology. The crowning exemplar of his work in Rome is the drafting of the Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church. This work, published in 1992, is the result of six years' labor. It sums up all his doctrinal and disciplinary positions as seen through the strictest of Roman orthodoxy.

Even John Paul II’s encyclical Splendor Veritatis (The Splendor of Truth, 1993) dealing with the relationship of freedom and truth is a mirror image of the ideas of Josef Ratzinger on the rudderless drift of a modernity which cannot distinguish good from evil. This text reflects Ratzinger’s ideas on the limits of a freedom that is devoid of all transcendental reference, on the obligations of obedience by Catholic theologians and on the moral betrayal of Western Christianity. The restrictions placed on seminaries and Catholic Universities, religious orders, research institutions become tighter and tighter and little by little theological advances the world shrivel to nothing. Plenty of other theologians are censured, like Jesuit Jacques Dupuis, an expert on oriental religions, and Sri Lankan theologian Tisa Balasurya.

However, Cardinal Ratzinger shares John-Paul II’s audacious steps in favor of rapprochement with the Jewish community and apologies for the Inquisition, the anti-Jewish pogroms and the condemnation of Galileo. In challenging a reticent Church, John Paul supports efforts at purification of Christian memory and conversations with non-Christian faiths. But then there was the jolt of the Year 2000 Jubilee: this anniversary of the birth of Christianity should have been celebrated in the unity of all Christian families. But a few rare, joint ceremonies (at St. Peter’s Baslica) did not soften the disappointment in Protestant circles when the practice of granting Jubilee indulgences was reintroduced.

On September 5, 2000, using the same tone, Cardinal Ratzinger published a document entitled, Dominus Jesus, which provokes a violent reaction in progressive and ecumenical circles. In this instruction, the Prefect of the Doctrine affirms that the Catholic Church has exclusive claim to the truth of Christian faith. If Orthodox churches are true Churches because have kept alive the principle of apostolic succession, then the Protestant Churches are merely, in his eyes, ecclesiastical communities disinherited from the legacy of the faith in Jesus Christ as handed down through the Apostles. The document provokes an earthquake. This declaration is considered as a provocation and a regression from all the progress attained through ecumenical dialog since Vatican II.

In the margin of his duties, Josef Ratzinger continues his personal work on several books. The Christian Faith, Yesterday and Tomorrow and Salt of the Earth are volumes of dialogs in which he answers questions on Christianity and the Church from its origins to the Third Millennium.

During the final years of the pontificate of John Paul II, Josef Ratzinger reiterates his warnings against homosexuality, access to sacraments by divorced and remarried couples, feminism, and abuses in the practice of the Eucharist. He specifically targets intercommunion (Catholics and Protestants taking Communion together). During Kirchentage (literally, Churches Day, a Christian gathering) in Berlin in 2003, he sanctions a priest for having distributed Communion to Protestants. All these writings increase his unpopularity and harden the perception of the Church ias an irritating and authoritarian institution out of touch with the modern world and taken over by the ultraconservatives of the Curia while the papacy of John Paul II was nearing its end.

This is the man whom the Conclave of Cardinals has elected Pope. This intransigent individual, incapable of making a single concession where the truth of the Catholic Church is concerned, is convinced that knowing how to say “no” is an act of charity. The new Pope is 78 years old, the age at which John Paul XXIII was selected by the Conclave, paving the way towards the Vatican II Council and an updating of the Church. Because of his intelligence, considered to be “radiant” in Rome, his culture, his experience and his critical vision of modern secularism and his capacity to dialog with the modern, globalized world the Bavarian Cardinal was doubtless the best placed person to ensure the legacy of John Paul II. But the controversies which were buried at the end of the papacy of his predecessor will doubtlessly resurface.

Benedict XVI and the Spectre of the Spanish Civil War

2005-06-07T19:37:00.000-04:00

This article by Le Monde's competent and insightful Vatican reporter, Henri Tincq, narrates the background and potential for violence.

The Mythical Catholic Nation of Spain

The months-long conflict opposing the Spanish catholic hierarchy and the Socialist government of Spanish Premier José Luis Zapatero harkens back to the most somber if not the most contested pages in the history of the mythical Catholic Nation. On May 23rd, continuing the struggle initiated by John-Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI urged Spanish catholics to resist secular tendencies which, according to the Pope, threaten their country. He has ordered the Spanish Church to show firmness in its options to counter Zapatero.

The Spanish Church opposes several reforms introduced by the leftist government in Madrid, most notably those liberalizing divorce, permitting gay marriage and stem cell research and making religious instruction in public schools optional. According to a recent survey by the Opina Institute, 82% of the Spanish population says it is Catholic, but only 42% are practicing. Most Spaniards in this group vote for the Partito Popular (PP, right-wing). However, 2/3 of Spaniards believe that the Church is far divorced from social realitities.

This type of fracture is not unique in Europe. Over the last few years, in countries such as France, Holland or Belgium, where homosexual unions are recognized by the law, the national bishops’ council has declared war on the governing powers. Gay marriage has become a kind of red flag waving in the face of Catholicism.

In Italy right now, the Church is leading a campaign of voter abstention in the upcoming national referendum on whether to authorize stem cell research using human embryos. The Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, wrote in an editorial in the May 23 issue of the Italian daily, La Repubblica, that the practice is a “Faustian bargain.” The campaign resembles prior efforts against divorce and abortion led and subsequently lost by the Church at the beginning of the ‘70s.

But in Spain, battles between Church and State may take on exaggerated proportions, given the sad history of the 20th century. Certain Spanish Catholics compare the attitude of the Zapatero government with the anarchist and anticlerical experiment which, according to the Church, nearly crushed the “soul” of Spain.

The creation of the Spanish Republic of 1931 was a de facto separation of Church and State, as it was for France in 1905. The Spanish State has no official religion, declared the new fundamental law of the republic. Churches and monasteries were burned to the ground in Asturias, Catalonia and Andalusia. Religious orders such as the Jesuits were banned or expelled. All governmental subsidies to the Catholic Church and its institutions were terminated.

Historian Bartholomé Bennassar reminds us that the Spanish Civil War was a war of religion. Franco’s forces marched in a crusade in the name of Christ the King against “Marxists,” and carried out hundreds of summary executions of the “red vermin.” The Republicans were equally brutal and placed priests, nuns and bishops in front of the firing squad. 7,000 clerics lost their lives during the Spanish Civil War. The Hero of the Alcazar of Toledo, Franco’s General Moscado, thundered at the sanctuary of St. James of Compostela: To thee, Saint James, who inspires us in these terrible moments of war and who guides our leader Generalissimo Franco, we proclaim our Catholic and national convictions as we are challenged by Jewish and cosmopolitan nihilism.

The Catholic Church was the pillar of Franco’s régime. Its backing permitted Franco to don a sort of moral mantle, marking his distance from Fascist and Nazi régimes. The Franco government encouraged the teaching of religion in schools, acceded to every demand of Reconquista Catholicism, and insisted on the right of nomination of candidates for bishop before their appointment by the Pope. But, thanks to internal changes within the Catholic Church of the 1960s and 1970s, Pope John XXIII’s Encyclical Pacem in Terris, the Vatican II Council (1962-1965), the teachings of Pope Paul VI on liberalism, the respect for the right of the press to go on strike, the Catholic Church, with the exception of a few ultra-Francoists and technocrat ministers with membership in Opus Dei, distanced itself from Franco.

El Caudillo, who had his hands full with the separatist Basque clergy, claimed that he was stabbed in the back. He detested Paul VI, who did not reply to his invitation to visit the country. Cardinal Vicente Enrique y Tarancon (1907-1994), Archbishop of Toledo and Madrid and Primate of Spain, preached national conciliation, condemned Catholic triumphalism in the aftermath of the Civil War, demanded liberalization and protested repression.

When Admiral Carrereo Blano, a radical Catholic and head of the Franco government, was assassinated by the ETA in 1973, the “Red Bishop” became a public whipping boy. In street protests organized by ultra-Francoists, Tarancon was vitiated in banners reading, Tarancon al paredon (String up Tarancon!). After the death of Franco in 1975, Cardinal Tarancon rallied the support of the Catholic Church behind the idea of a non-confessional state.

In the conflict which is occurring now, thirty years later, between the Church and Spain’s socialist government, we should bear in mind the passions of yesterday and the widespread resentment, intolerance and violence which accompanied them. But this unhappy past must not justify an attitude of systematic opposition [to reform] uncoupled from the legacy of Cardinal Tarancon and the Vatican II Council. The way in which Benedict XVI will handle this crisis in the coming months will be an indication of the direction which he has chosen for his pontificate.

Henri Tincq's Portrait of Josef Ratzinger : Part II

2005-06-01T01:40:00.000-04:00

As soon as Ratzinger returns to Germany, he is frightened by the frenzy of change and the controversy which has seized the Church, as in nearby France. Seminaries and ecclesiastical training institutions latch on to the most innovative and liberal theologies. He is alarmed by the increasing interest Marxism. A number of seminarians and priests abandon their orders and get married. Together with Hans-Urs von Balthazar, the great Swiss theologian whom he frequents, he perceives the risk of being cast adrift as Vatican II is applied, especially in liturgical reform, ecumenical relations (with Protestants) and the role of laypersons. As early as 1966, during the Katholikentag (Catholic Assembly) in Bamberg (Baveria), he warns against vogue and unmooring. According to Ratzinger, these effects are not what the Fathers of Vatican II desired. At the Würzburg Synod he enters into controversy with Juliusz Doepfner, the Archbishop of Munich and a notable within the German Church.

Young Ratzinger is bowled over by May 1968, synonymous in his eyes with the end of the world. Ratzinger is one of those university professors and men of the Church who were knocked off kilter by events of 1968 and who never admitted their liberalizing and prophetic character. At the Sorbonne in Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger felt equally traumatized. The two made it clear a hundred times: nothing good was going to come out of this funfair. In May 68, Ratzinger sees nihilist trends.

Consequently, he sought refuge in intellectual tasks. He breaks his ties with the theologians with whom he founded the international review, Concilium, and starts up with Hans-Urs von Balthazar and others the theological review, Communio. His goal? He wants an "authentic" interpretation of Vatican II and a stronger Catholic identity to prevail in modern society and in a Church where the confusion of the minds reigns. He publishes Introduction to Christianity in 1968 and Dogma and Revelation in 1973. Josef Ratzinger publishes a great deal and his notoriety rises inside German theological circles. Another remarkable publication: a manifesto entitled, Why have I remained inside the Church? In these profoundly troubled years, this text is an affirmation of faith in a Church which is under attack from all sides.

To his great surprise, Pope Paul VI names him Archbishop of Munich and Freysing on March 24, 1977. Josef Ratzinger is then only 50 years old. His consecration as archbishop takes place on May 28 and he is promoted to cardinal during Paul VI’s first Consistory on June 27, 1977. This permits Ratzinger to participate in two conclaves—August and October 1978--which elect John Paul I and John Paul II. His friendship with the latter goes back to the Bishops’ Synod of 1977 on the Cathechism in Rome and the conclaves of 1978. He exchanges books with Karol Wojtyla and is attracted by his frankness and his simplicity, his openness and his cordiality, and his philosophical and theological culture.

Very early on, Josef Ratzinger discerns a prophetic figures in the Archbishop of Cracow, not only a man who will contribute to the reconciliation of the Polish and German Churches, but also an capable observer who will soothe the tensions arising out of Vatican II. For Cardinal Ratzinger, Karol Wojtyla is an icon of the Silent Church under the Communist yoke. He sees in him a kind of shield against contemporary atheism and what he is to call later in his homily of the mass inaugurating the conclave on Monday 18 April, dehumanizing secularism, and the dictatorship of relativism and agnosticism, which are to become his chief nemeses.

This precocious friendship with the Pope from Poland will transform itself into a direct collaboration. In Munich, Cardinal Ratzinger finds himself embroiled in a dispute over the legacy of the the Vatican II Council between traditionalist and progressive currents. The experience is draining for him. His name is proposed to John Paul II when he begins his search for a Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, that is, the man who, in the Roman Curia, is responsible for the indispensables, who must set the course, oversee the creation of theologians and enforce discipline in the clergy, in training institutions and within the orders. It is a crushing task before which he recoils more than once to the point of asking permission of John Paul II to go back to Germany to return to teaching theology, which is his true calling. But Karol Wojtyla turns a deaf ear: he ties him down to his post.

Nothing is more representative in the new pope than his reputatioin as a rigid German theologian and an inquisitor, soon nicknamed the Panzerkardinal by progressives within his own country. However, in Rome, in the bureaus of the former Holy Office, he takes his visitors by surprise by his courteous welcome, the gentleness of his blue eyes, his soft voice and the subtlety of his intelligence. He charms people with his humility.

Benedict XVI on Islam

2005-05-11T20:38:00.000-04:00

Plumbing the recent archives of Le Monde, we found an May 5th, 2005 analysis by reporter Xavier Ternisien on the state of the relations of the Catholic Church with Islam.

Josef Ratzinger has been ambivalent on relations with Islam and may break with John-Paul II's dialog with Muslims.

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So far, only a single phrase concerning Islam has been uttered by Benedict XVI. On Monday 25 April, at a reception for non-Christian religious leaders, the pope praised “the progress of dialog between Muslims and Christians, both locally and internationally.” There is little doubt, however, that relations between Catholicism and Islam will take center stage during the new pontificate. Many Christians favoring dialog hope that Benedict XVI will take a stand opposed to the Essentialist and Culturalist views formulated in the Clash of Civilizations, which opposes the Judeo-Christain West to the Muslim world, viewed through the lens of Islamist politics. Is Josef Ratzinger up to the task?

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) marked a positive turning point in relations between Islam and Christianity. Two documents produced by the Council addressed the subject in language that was very bold for the times.

The first document is the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium. After citing the very special relationship with the Jewish people, the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh, the text goes on to address Muslims: But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

The text remains discreet on the Islamic claim that their faith evolves from Abraham, a subject on which the Council made no pronouncement. The figure of Abraham as described in the Koran is a defender of pure monotheism. This is different from the Biblical Abraham, the man of the Covenant between God and his people.

The second Vatican Council II document which touches upon Islam is the Nostra Aetate, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Here again, the tone is profoundly optimistic: The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems, who adore the one God. Up to this point, relations between Islam and Christianity were troubled by debate and attempts at conversion. It took the arrival on the scene great French Orientalist Louis Massignon (1883-1962), a devout Christian, before the attitude of the Catholic Church began to evolve. For the Church, Islam was a kind of Abrahamic schism and heir to Ishmael, the son of Abraham and the servant-girl, Hagar, who received only partial divine benediction.

All the dazzling arguments of Massignon were brushed off by the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Massignon’s influence remained strong, especially on Cardinal Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. It is said that Montitni was a member of the badaliya, an invisible monastery created by Massignon to pray for the Muslims.

Far from backtracking from such conciliatory advances, Jean Paul II confirmed them. More than once, Jean Paul II insisted on the points held in common between the two religions. While visiting the Philippines in 1981, he used the expression, my brothers, to address Muslims. Jean-Paul longest address on the subject is the long meditation shared in Casablanca, in Morocco, on 19 August 1985 in front of tens of thousands of young Muslims. “Christians and Muslims, we have many things in common, in our beliefs and in our humanity. We believe in God, the One God.

When Josef Ratzinger was a cardinal, he did recoreded as having much to say concerning Islam. However, in a March 20, 1997 interview with L’Express, he allowed a ray of Essentialist vision to slip out: Islam cannot renounce its intrinsic desire play a decisive role in maintaining pubic order. In September 2000, Ratzinger signed the famous Dominus Iesus Declaration, whose language seems to be a departure from the speeches given by John Paul II.

According to the Dominus Iesus Declaration, non-Christian religions do not constitute a faith, but rather, a religious experience still in search of the absolute truth and still lacking assent to God who reveals himself. Furthermore, Josef Ratzinger declared himself hostile to the entry of Turkey into the European Union, emphasizing its cultural and religious differences.

There already exists within the Catholic Church a clean division between the insights of the Vatican II Council, the prophetic statements by Jean Paul II and prevalent attitudes which reveal an increasing chill. An invisible frontier seems to separate Christians who wish to pursue dialog and those who don’t, out of fear of being accused of Relativism.

The conservative camp has swelled with those disenchanted with dialog between Islam and Christianity who are offended by the retrogression observed in the Islamic world, Islamic terrorist and the persecution of fair number of eastern Christian churches.

Given the circumstances, it is time to rally the forces of Angelism—those defenders of inter-religious dialog. One often hears in Christian circles such off-the-cuff judgments as, We do not worship the same God. Divergence is even seen among Catholic clergy in France. Fr. Père François Jourdan, in charge of Islamic Relations for the Diocese of Paris has issued multiple warnings: He believes that it possible to pray at the same time but not together, because the words of the prayer do not hold the same meaning.

However, Secretariat for Relations with Islam, (SRI) of the Conference of Bishops just published a handbook of common prayers which may be recited, especially by mixed couples “in the mutual respect of their respective faiths”. Defenders of dialog, founded on spiritual experience, claim they are not being naïve. The wish to continue to bet on what is best within the Muslim faith. But are they going to find support in Rome?

Liberal American Jesuit Priest Fr. Thomas Reese Disciplined

2005-05-11T15:59:00.000-04:00

Father Thomas Reese, editor-in-chief of the famous American Jesuit journal, America, and a frequest guest to television talk-shows, resigned his functions on Friday, May 6th under duress from the Vatican. According to the New York Times and the National Catholic Reporter, the journal, headquartered in New York City, was under surveillance since allowing commentary from both proponents and adversaries of gay marriage and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. The journal also wrote that it opposed the ban on Communion to politicians supporting abortion pronounced by the Catholic hierarchy in the United States.

Benedict XVI on Abortion and Euthanasia

2005-05-11T15:57:00.000-04:00

Henri Tincq, the admirable Vatican correspondent for Le Monde, looks at the new pope's stance regarding John-Paul II's legacy on abortion and Euthanasia.

Cardinal Ratzinger is undeniably a strict moralist who will be challenged by the "shopping cart" faith of millions of Catholics brought up in the democratic tradition as he takes up the mantle of John-Paul II's pro-life struggle. In the arm-wrestle for relevancy, does the Church or the Western liberal tradition come out on top?
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It would be inconceivable to imagine that the new pontiff, whoever he might be, would adopt any position apart from those of John-Paul II on themes as sensitive as abortion and euthanasia. Since Monday May 7th, Benedict has removed all ambiguity surrounding the question of respect for life. Since taking possession of the Bishop's chair at the Cathedral or Rome, St. John Lateran, the Pope espoused the vigorous tone of his predecessor in condemning all laws permitting voluntary interruption of pregnancy and euthanasia in his homily: Freedom to kill is not true freedom, but tyranny, which reduces human beings to slavery.

The new pope took pains to carefully sidestepped any accusation of authoritarianism. The Pope is not an absolute ruler, whose thoughts and desires are law, said Ratzinger. To the contrary: the ministry of the Pope is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to His words. His power is not above but in service to the Word of God. The Pope, he added, must not proclaim his own ideas but rather resist all temptation of accommodation, gloss-over or opportunism.

Encouraged by applause, Benedict XVI went on to recall the perseverance of John-Paul II in his pro-life struggle, which earned him a good deal of incomprehension and criticism. Against all temptations, which on the surface appeared well-meaning toward mankind, and against all mistaken interpretations of freedom, the late pope displayed in a manner beyond reproach the inviolability of the human being and the inviolability of the human life, from conception until natural death.

In other words, Benedict XVI announced that he would painstakingly follow the path traced by his predecessor concerning the defense of traditional moral values against liberal ideas which, according to him, threaten faith. We have come upon the point separation between the Catholic Church and democratic societies. In his 1995 encyclical, Gospel of Life, which stirred much debate, John Paul II expressed his views on abortion and euthanasia by calling them tyrannical decisions and crimes against humanity. The pontiff added, Not only do laws of this kind create no obligation of conscience, but they entail the obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.

The severity of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict VXI, can be distinguished in these words. His warning at St. John Lateran has the merit of being both unmistakable and uninterrupted. However, physicians, legislators and couples remain troubled in coming to terms with very concrete ethical situations. How does one remain faithful to both the core of Christian teaching on life and the tradition of accompaniment of conscience, which is among the best traditions of the Church? This will be one of the most delicate challenges facing Benedict XVI in the future.

The Anti-Modernist Oath

2005-04-23T20:18:00.000-04:00

Pope Pius X's reaction to empiricism in 1910. Basically, it's a loyalty oath imposed on all members of the clergy. Here is the core of the oath in two sentences.

I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition.

The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different.

Read the whole thing here.

Ratzinger and the Relativism Debate

2005-04-22T15:05:00.000-04:00

Once again, over at Corriere della Sera, Giulio Giorello--Professor of Philosophy of Science at Milan University and Director of Science and Ideas Publications for Raffaello Cortina Publishers in Milan--investigates the so-called Relativism debate in the Catholic Church in an insightful article. Thomas Kuhn would be proud...and why do the major European papers seem so...adult?

MILAN. In the homily of the Pro eligendo romano Pontifice mass celebrated last Monday in the Basilica of Saint Peter, before the Conclave which elected him Pope, Joseph Ratzinger warned Christians not to be hoodwinked by ways of thinking or by ideological currents which in the recent past have rocked the St. Peter’s boat. From Marxism to liberalism and to libertinism, from collectivism to radical individualism, from atheism to a wave of religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism—there are plenty currents around for everyone. But Public Enemy Number One seems to be what some people call relativism, which Ratzinger accuses of having been transformed into some sort of “dictatorship” which recognizes nothing as definitive and which ultimately reverts to one’s own personal preference. I have no intention of employing superficiality or a little free-flowing imagination to drive myself into accepting that such a position is fundamentalist or obscurantist (and it remains to be seen if Ratzinger, now that he is Pope, will want to sound these themes again). Rather, I am going to limit myself to saying that the specter of relativism is a convenient label for lifestyles and ways of thinking which are extremely diverse and often incompatible.

LIBERAL THOUGHT. What does liberalism have to do with the New Age or the current wave of mysticism? Was it merely just a way of thinking which gave substance to political experiments such as the United States, following its victorious War of Independence, or to other forms of open society, able to act against despots and to resist the totalitarian offensives of the 20th century? And what would one say to the liberalism deployed to defend Catholics in places where they were discriminated against? Finally, what about that kind of liberal Catholicism which contributed in Italy not only to a political theory but to the practice of politics from Sturzo to De Gasperi? For certain, liberalism does retain a certain familiarity with regard to libertinism. Thinkers like John Stewart Mill knew this well. Mill recognized a debt to the libertines, who paid with their life for their passion and knowledge outside the boundaries of any religious or political system. And as Karl Popper almost coyly observes, being a liberal is nothing more than being a timid libertine. The border shifts back and forth, as often happens within this tradition of thought--which is at the root of Europe (and the United States), Christianity included--between the normal expression of freedom and excess of freedom. But what kind of freedom is not excessive when the blossoming of all mankind is at stake? Popper, like Mill, admits to a model of scientific investigation where the possibility of collision, and the eventuality of conflict, pervades a wide spectrum of research yet at the same time signifies the growth of knowledge and the opening of a wealth of opportunity, even in the fields of economics and technology.

THE SPIRIT OF CRITICAL THINKING. Often the application of critical thinking and the construction of fallible knowledge are divided from one another due to a lack of responsibility or by giving way to arrogance. But for those who have ever participated in this painstaking and difficult enterprise, they know that things are quite the opposite. That which critical thinking and an open society permit is that any point of view deserves a public defense. What critical thinking and open society demand is that this defense goes beyond the imposition of silence or excommunication towards a summons to reason. Can you really call this relativism? Labels don’t frighten me but wouldn’t thinkers Jefferson and Cattaneo, Einaudi and Popper be considered relativists? However it may be, there is no trace of dictatorship in relativism, because at the core of the liberal tradition is the recognition that silencing even one individual, beyond hurting the victim, damages the rest of the community.

The faith and tribulation of young Josef Ratzinger

2005-04-21T22:36:00.000-04:00

Over at Corriere della Sera, columnist Gianni Riotta examines the transforming milestones in Josef Ratzinger's journey to the papacy...from defender of liberation theology to champion of orthodoxy.

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The Mass Celebrated in Latin? More an archaeological artifact than a rite. On the group characteristic of the bishops, counterbalanced by the Pope: the episcopal conferences seem to be the royal road to a concrete plurality with unanimity. Who could have possibly taken such forthright positions, prefiguring Cardinal Martini, writing in the first issue of the review, Concilium, forty years ago? None other than Benedict XVI--Cardinal Ratzinger. And around Concilium, in the trenches of liberal theology at the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger gathers the best intellectuals of progressive Catholic Church.

Among the collaborators of Ratzinger are Hans Küng, his former instructor at Tübingen, the Flemish Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx and the Jesuit Karl Rahner, the defender of the inviolable right to pursue spiritual research. The future Benedict XVI, amidst theologians writing for Concilium, is formidable in doctrine and in courage. God, across the entire spectrum of history, has never been on the side of the institutions; He has always been on the side of the suffering and the persecuted, declares Ratzinger in 1962 in his essay, Freedom of Expression and Obedience in the Church.

Benedict XVI is an intellectual Pope, a theologian chafed by Saint Thomas but nurtured by Saint Augustine, Saint Bonaventure and the Greek philosopher Origen (with whom he shares the theory of “empty hell”--the goodness of Christ will redeem all). In order to reconstruct his biography tormented by faith and ideas, we must reexamine the transition of this young German prelate from Concilium to the austere review, Communio, which he founds in 1972, disillusioned, writes his biographer John Allen, by the post-Vatican II race towards modernity. If Concilium can be considered the Last Supper of the Progressives, then Communio is the platform of the conservatives--the legendary Hans Urs van Balthasar and Henri de Lubac. The only protagonist who finds himself in both camps is Pope Benedict XVI who, after chastising the companions of his youth--they have changed their positions, but not I-- he contributes to the revocation of Hans Küng’s faculty appointment at Catholic University.

According to Ratzinger’s biography, Milestones 1927-1977, the origins of the trauma may be traced back to 1968 in Tübingen when he sees “signs of a tyrannical, brutal and cruel ideology". I began to understand that to fulfill the undertaking of Vatican II, I must counter the abuse of faith…during those times, anyone wishing to continue to be known as a progressive lost all integrity. Malicious critics claim that the change coincided with his advance on the rungs of power--his nomination as Cardinal in 1977 by Pope Paul VI, and his appointment by John-Paul II in 1981 to head The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But the rupture on Ratzinger’s trajectory is too radical to be explained by the sight of a ‘68 leaflet reading, The Cross is the Symbol of Sadomasochism! or by flattery in Rome. His biography--from a Bavarian farmboy growing up in villages as idyllic as a Nativity scene to a seminarian who has to sleep in a bunk bed to a priest ordained together with his brother on June 29th, 1951--is rich with analysis and ideas. Amidst the books and the theological principles, we can trace the development of Benedict XVI, from the official theologian of the Second Vatican Council to the defender of the Pope Wojtyla’s orthodoxy. When his father, Joseph, a police officer who detests the Nazis, explains to him that the Church will outlast even Hitler, little Ratzinger learns an unforgettable lesson: Despite so many human failings, the Church will remain the only alternative to the destructive ideology of Nazism. The Antichrist may have swallowed the powerful but the Church remains firmly anchored by the force of eternity, proving that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Non praevalebunt

Ratzinger arrives at the Second Vatican Council as the official theologian (peritus) of Cardinal Frings of Cologne. From day one, he demonstrates that he is no flunky and on October 25, 1962, the unknown priest presents a contestatory report to the Curia, approved by powerful Cardinal Ottaviani, on the subject of Revelation. Ratzinger is only 35 years old and before the princes of the Church--the future Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Montini, and Cardinals Alfrink and Suenes, deacons of the New Catholicism, and the powerful Cardinal Siri--he attacks the Thomism of the French School, affirming that the Church must go back to its roots, from the writings of the early Church Fathers. The Church must exist, not as a school of exegesis and philology, bent on identifying what is sacred and what is not in the Bible. The Church must “be horizontal”, with the bishops, and diachronic, living its history and accepting it fully with each succeeding day. Together with its sins, writes young Ratzinger. Montini is impressed and once he becomes Pope, he will name the peritus a cardinal straight away. In 1969, as controversy divided the ranks of the Council, Karl Lehmann, the future head of the German Conference of Bishops, summarized: the stars of Vatican II were Rahner, Ratzinger, Küng and Schillebeeckx…capable of forcing stubborn half-wits into the light of theological freedom.

In less than a decade, notes biographer Allen, the current divides. Schillebeeckx is inquisitioned by the ex-Holy Office, Küng loses his faculty appointment and Ratzinger goes to Rome. The peritus of the Ecclesia semper reformanda imposes a year's silence on the Latin-American liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, strips the theological credentials from the American Charles Curran at Catholic University of America for his writings on sexual morality and excommunicated Rev. Tyssa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka, who contested Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception. In all, the Ratzinger-led Congregation hands out a dozen condemnations.

The “two Ratzingers” are, judging from his intellectual journey, really just one. Convinced that the German Church, which submitted to Nazism (the Bishop of Frieburg, Konrad Grober, accepted an honorary rank in the SS), could go over to the Antichrist, Ratzinger develops his faith in the Church as an “institution”, able to renew its liturgy but without subservience to the approval of the world. Yesterday Nazism, in 1968 anarchic nihilism and in the 1980’s a liberation theology which loses sight of the Holy Spirit. In 1988 while in New York, Ratzinger synthesizes the two influences on his thought when he speaks of a living Church where Scripture is Revelation…which we can all see..not like a meteor which falls to earth and is hauled away for sampling in a laboratory. Pope Ratzinger’s distrust of Saint Thomas surfaces in the postmodern world: reason is not enough to save us.

There has been plenty of conversation in the last few days about the brother of Benedict XVI, who is also a priest. But there has been little mention of their sister Maria, to whom both were devoted and who served as their housekeeper. For the refined theologian accustomed to exposit the doctrine to cardinals and popes, Maria represented the Catholic base, a simple believer, who like the housewife in Tolstoy’s short story Father Sergei is the only one to save herself in front of the Tsar and the prelates. When he had some doubt concerning how some precept of the Council would affect the minds of parishioners, he would put it to his sister and test her reaction. Today the choices of this theologian, champion of the progressives and the conservatives, will become the paradigm for the entire Catholic Church. One billion twenty-seven million faithful will hear what he has to say as Maria once did. Ten years ago, John Paul II confided to Ratzinger that the Third Millennium would be the springtime of the human spirit reunited with God. Unfortunately I do not see such a happy event heading our way, replied the embittered Ratzinger. In choosing the name Benedict, like the founder of the monastic order, he aims to re-evangelize Europe, which he considers a moral desert. The multitude of voices in his “flock” and his companions of today and yesterday will immediately put his character to the test. In the United States, 70% of Catholics say they are against or unsure about the nomination of Ratzinger. It will take every ounce of his longtime doctrinal studies, even those doctrines of which he is no longer enamored, to unite them.

Henri Tincq's Portrait of Josef Ratzinger : Part I

2005-04-21T08:44:00.000-04:00

Again, Le Monde's capable Vatican correspondent, Henri Tincq, writes a detailed portrait of Josef Ratzinger in the 21 April on-line edition.

US bloggers have been unable to analyze, for all the "inquisitioner" and "Hitler Youth" talk, the personality of Ratzinger and his impact as theologian. For better or worse, the Church governs 1,026,000,000 souls. Josef Ratzinger deserves consideration and contemplation. He thoughts and deeds could affect a lot of things...

Speaking for myself, I am intrigued by a German man of faith (who happens to have a doctorate in Philosophy) who lived through WWII inside the evil empire of the day. He has seen the world shattered--and restored. I can't help but want to know more.
:::---:::
It was just after the first of the year when faced with the failing health of John Paul II that the thought of Cardinal Josef Ratzinger as a successor to the ailing pontiff began to materialize. The American press began spreading the rumor, which was picked up in Italy and then by the rest of the world. The rumor was founded on the intellectual brilliance of a man whom the US press and the Bush Administration were to discover only belatedly. The rumor first provoked surprise, then scandal—and not only in progressive Catholic circles where the Cardinal is viewed as Public Enemy No. 1.

Josef Ratzinger had become the emblematic figure of doctrinal conservatism marking the pontificate of John Paul II. It was hard to believe that the Conclave could fix itself on such a personality and elect him as history’s 265th pope. The more the rumor gathered momentum, the more the election of Cardinal Ratzinger became not only plausible but the natural and logical choice. His reputation and his age--he turned 78 on April 16th—did not diminish the facts: the widely-held opinion in the Curia that he was above all the others, superior in intellect and in spirituality; the loyal, sincere and unflagging friendship displayed for him by Pope Wojtyla, who kept Ratzinger by his side in the Vatican for twenty-three years against hell and high water as Guardian of the Doctrine; and the class and the elegance of Ratzinger which came shining through during the last agonizing weeks of John-Paul II.

At the beginning of 2005, this friend became “brother” to the ailing pope. A “brother” who visited him, held his hand, shared his last confidences and who kept himself above the rumor and speculation of a papal resignation. During these weeks of doubt and concern, Cardinal Ratzinger rose to the occasion. Between the Cardinal and the Pope, a sort of passing of the torch took place. By tradition, a dying pope does not designate a successor. But during the last moments his life and papacy, John-Paul II conferred upon Ratzinger one of the most cherished honors: the Good Friday Meditation on the Passion of Christ.

The Passion of Christ and the passion of the Pope coincided this past Good Friday, March 25th, at the Coliseum. It was a stunning yet overwhelming passion for both the pope and his friend. Ratzinger acquitted himself perfectly in his role as stand-in. In his meditation along the Way of the Cross, he impressed the world in denouncing the “stains of the Church”.

Events unraveled quickly after that: the cardinals, shocked by the death of the sovereign pontiff and inexperienced in the preparation of the Conclave, began to perceive in Ratzinger a natural leader. It is Ratzinger, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who presides at the papal funeral, delivers a remarkable homily, and receives the condolences of the entire world which has rushed to assemble in Rome. Again, it is Ratzinger who invokes a vow of absolute silence on the pre-conclave proceedings to avoid any and all pressure. It is to Ratzinger that the novice cardinals turn and upon whom their hopes converge.

The Church, orphaned by John-Paul II and exposed to the risks of controversy and division, needed an able helmsman, a solid and experienced leader possessing both great spirituality and intellectual courage. Quite apart from a transition papacy, it should be recalled that conservative leaders of the Church, like conservative statesmen, are often the sole individuals able to initiate reforms.

Josef Ratzinger hails from a modest rural family. He was born on April 16th, 1927, in Marktl-am-Inn near Passau in ultra-Catholic Lower Bavaria. His father was a police inspector but his roots are clearly agricultural. The economic hardship endured by his family and looming war prevented him for some time from attending school. He studied on his own, at home. He loved music and listened to Mozart. Raised in the traditional Catholic faith, he entered the seminary in Traunstein at a very young age where his family, generally believed to be anti-Nazi, sought refuge.

Together with his older brother, Georg--who today is 81--, the future Benedict XVI was compelled in 1941 to join Hitler Youth, as are all German youngsters. He performs his military service from August 1943 to September 1944. Like many boys of his age, he is assigned to the anti-aircraft auxiliary within the national armed forces. He was among a generation of adolescents from whom the state of ruin in which the country existed, both materially and morally, was concealed. His memories would be rekindled sixty years later in Caen, as the papal delegate to the 60th Anniversary of the Normandy Landing.

In 1946, following the war, he began his studies at the University of Munich and at the College of Law in Freysing, Baveria, during a period of great intellectual effervescence in German Catholic circles. Ordained a priest in 1951, Ratzinger received his first Theology degree after arguing a thesis on The People of God in Saint Augustine. In 1957, he earned his Ph.D. after defending a doctoral thesis on The Theology of the History of Saint Bonaventure.

He was then assigned as a parish priest in Munich, which he covered from one end to the other by bicycle. He was, however, quickly recognized as one of the youngest and most brilliant minds in Theology. A promising university career seemed to open up before him in a country where Theology is part of the Classical Studies curriculum both in high school and at the university level. In 1957 he is offered the Chair in Dogmatic and Fundamental Theology at Freysing. As his academic career progressed, he was offered teaching positions in Bonn (1959-1969), Münster (1963-1966) and Tübingen (1966-1969).

One of his faculty colleagues at Tübingen was none other than Hans Küng, the brilliant heteroclite, who will later have his faculty position revoked by Pope Paul VI. He will also become the determined adversary of both Pope John-Paul II and Josef Ratzinger. In 1969, Ratzinger is appointed Professor of Dogmatic Studies and History of the Dogma at Regensburg University as well as Vice President of the institution. One of his former students in Tübingen, Stanislas Lalanne, the current Secretary General of the French Bishops Council, recalls not only Ratzinger’s high intellectual caliber but his willingness to listen to his students.

During the 1960’s, Josef Ratzinger underwent two traumatizing experiences which will leave a great imprint on his life and work: the anarchic upshot of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the events of May 1968.

At Vatican II, Ratzinger sat on the Council as the peritus (expert theological observer) appointed by Cardinal Josef Frings, Archbishop of Cologne, a militant reformer. During this period, he was known for his rather open mind. Defending reforms envisaged by the Council, he went as far as arguing for “decentralization” of the ancient patriarchal model of Church administration and for reform of the methods used by the Holy Office.

To be continued...

Benedict XV: Papal Namesake

2005-04-20T20:06:00.000-04:00

Le Monde's Vatican City correspondent, Henri Tincq, has written a good article on Benedict XV, the namesake of the new pope.

The choice by Josef Ratzinger of the name, Benedict XVI, is surprising. Benedict XV (1914-1922) remains the pope of World War I but for historians he is also the misunderstood pope. In raising him out of oblivion, Josef Ratzinger sends a message to the world and to the Church.

Genoese Giacomo della Chiesa, later Benedict XV, was born on November 21, 1854. He made his career in the diplomatic corps of the Curia under Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State for Pope Leon XIII. Archbishop of Bologna, della Chiesa was elected pope on September 3rd, 1914, as the shadow of war descended upon Europe, three months after having been named cardinal. He very quickly staked out a position of neutrality for the Church. In his message of July 28th, 1915, he denounced the horrible butchery that dishonors Europe. He pled for a just and lasting peace, argued for the necessity of “humanizing war”, agitated for better treatment of prisoners of war and the wounded, and, in promoting this last point, insisted on being heard by George V, Tsar Nicholas II and French President Raymond Poincaré.

Yet the pacifism of Benedict VX was not understood. In a diplomatic note addressed to Berlin and to Paris dated August 1, 1917, Benedict XV proposed a concrete resolution to the conflict. But the note provoked a campaign against the Pope, accusing him a demoralizing the troops. Clemenceau derided him as le pape boche [the “Kraut” Pope] and an advocate for a German peace, while General Ludendorff, who was to participate in Hitler’s failed 1923 putsch, dismissed him as the French Pope.

The appeals for peace launched by Benedict XV were in vain. Nevertheless, thanks to his conciliatory nature, the après-guerre was marked by a rapprochement between the papacy and the Italian state.

But Benedict XV, is also the pope of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the man ready to swear the antimodernist oath (required of all priests and educators) and the architect of missionary works. He encouraged popular cults, the adoration of the Sacred Heart and the recitation of the Rosary. He is the pope who canonized Joan of Arc on May 16, 1920. Addressing a victorious but bruised France, he extoled the notion of the saintliness of sacrifice in battle but not of warfare. He died on January 22, 1922, at the age of 68. His papacy lasted only seven years but it marked the watershed between two worlds—the before and after of global conflict.

Biography of Joseph Ratzinger

2005-04-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

A glimpse at the man who would lead the Catholic Church--Joseph Ratzinger: Pope Benedict XVI.

There is a nice biographical photogallery here at Corriere della Sera.

I found two short portraits which seem to sum the new Pope up. He is extremely conservative but at the same time, perhaps someone who has a living memory of the tragedy and horror of WWII can't be too bad. We hope that somehow he'll oppose Bush's future war plans.

Corriere della Sera:
Joseph Ratzinger was born in Marktl-am-Inn in the Bavarian diocese of Passau on 16 April 1927 into a family of farmers, of slender means but of great devotion. Ratzinger studied philosophy and theology at the University of Munich and at 24 took Holy Orders. In 1977, at the age of 50, Pope Paul VI first appointed him Archbishop of München und Freising, followed by his elevation to cardinal a few months later. At the beginning of the 1980s, Pope Wojtyla summoned Ratzinger to Rome to lead The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2002 he became Dean of the College of Cardinals. Before his election in conclave, Ratzinger was also Chairman of both the Pontifical Commission on the Bible and the Pontifical Commission on International Theology.

An intransigent guardian of Catholic dogma, Ratzinger is opposed by Catholic progressives. From 1981 until this day, he has issued countless No's: "No" to liberation theology, "No" to women in the priesthood, "No" to marriage for priests, "No" to homosexuality, "No" to Turkey joining the European Union...even "No" to rock music because it is an "expression of base passions" and a vehicle for Satanic communication. Futher, he defines countries where abortion is legal as "cultures of death". Ratzinger has even put the breaks on interreligious dialog with his document, Dominus Jesus.

However, he wrote an ecumenical catechism, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992. Someone in Germany accused him of having a Nazi past because Ratzinger wrote in his autobiography, Memoires 1927-1977, that he and his brother were forced to join Hitler Youth (it was compulsory)--the volume includes anecdotes of family life during the Third Reich. In recent years, the Dean of the College of Cardinals expressed on several occasions the desire to be released from his duties as Prefect of the Congregation to return to his homeland. This kind of life is very fatiguing. I await with relish the moment in which I can sit down and begin to write, said Cardinal Ratzinger in an interview a few years ago. But Wojtyla was unwilling to release him and lose a valued collaborator, on whom he could not only rely but enjoy his personal friendship and expansive culture.

Le Monde:
Josef Ratzinger, the 78 year-old Prefect of the Curia, was born on 16 April 1927 in Marktl am Inn in Bavaria. Nothing is more defining of his character than his reputation of a German theologian-inquisitor. His progressive colleagues call him the Panzerkardinal.

He takes you by surprise with his soft blue eyes and the refinement of his intellect. Prefect since 1981 of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the ex-Holy Office, following an unpleasant experience as Archbishop of Munich, he became the emblematic figure of doctrinal conservatism during long pontificate of John-Paul II.

A priest since 1951, he was an expert observer at the Vatican II Council (1962-1965) and open to reforms. But afterwards he says he was turned away by the nihilistic divergences of May 1968. Precociously, he saw in the Polish pontiff a shield against "modern atheism" and "dehumanizing secularism".

As both the inspiration and the dispenser of disclipline to the Liberation Theologians, he held the quill for the most important papal texts on the relationships between freedom and truth. His own instructions to the faithful, such as Donum Vitae (against artificial conception) and Dominus Jesus (the supremacy of the Catholic Church over other faiths, 2000), made him unpopular in progressive circles.