To many observers, Benedict was known for criticizing what he saw as the modern world’s rejection of God and the timeless truths of Christianity. But as a student of the diversity of global Catholicism, I believe it is best to avoid simplistic representations of Benedict’s theology, which I believe will influence the Catholic Church for generations.
While the brilliance of this intellectual legacy will no doubt live on, it will also have to face the shadows of the many controversies that marked Benedict’s time as pope and, later, as pope emeritus.
priest and teacher
Benedict was born Josef Alois Ratzinger on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Germany. During World War II, he had to join the Hitler Youth, a wing of the Nazi party. He later was recruited into an anti-aircraft unit and then into the infantry of Nazi Germany.
In 1945, he deserted from the German army and was held as a prisoner of war by the Americans; although he was released at the end of World War II. In 1946, he began his priestly studies and was ordained five years later. He received his doctorate in theology in 1953.
While teaching at the University of Bonn, Ratzinger was chosen theological adviser to Cardinal Joseph Frings of Cologne, a strong critic of Nazism, for the Second Vatican Council held between 1962 and 1965. The Second Vatican Council attempted to renew the Catholic Church through a compromise more constructive with the modern world. There, Ratzinger argued that Catholic theology needed to develop a “new language” to speak to a changing world.
As pope, Benedict would later reject more progressive interpretations of the council as a revolutionary event intended to remake the Catholic Church. Although he introduced substantial changes to Catholic life, notably by allowing Mass in local languages, Benedict resisted any suggestion that the Second Vatican Council called for a fundamental break with centuries-old Catholic doctrine and tradition. And during his pontificate, he allowed a broader celebration of the old Latin Mass, a decision his successor, Pope Francis, would reverse.
In 1966, Ratzinger accepted an important teaching position at the University of Tübingen. In the late 1960s, Tübingen was the scene of student protests, some of which demanded further democratization of the Catholic Church. When protesting students disrupted the Tübingen faculty cloister, Ratzinger reportedly walked away rather than speak to the students as other professors did. Ratzinger was upset by what he considered to be dictatorial and Marxist tendencies among the student protesters. He then transferred to the University of Regensberg.
In 1977, he was appointed Bishop of Munich and Freising by Pope Paul VI. Shortly thereafter he was made a cardinal, a member of the administrative body that elects the pope.
cardinal and pope
As an expert theologian, Ratzinger was chosen by Pope John Paul II to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees and enforces Catholic doctrine. In this position, Cardinal Ratzinger sanctioned several theologians. The most notable case was that of American priest and theologian Charles Curran, who was fired from The Catholic University of America for questioning official Catholic teaching on sexuality.
Ratzinger was also chosen to lead the writing committee of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Published in 1992, the Catechism remains an important foundation for understanding Catholic thought and practice.
After the death of John Paul II in 2005, Ratzinger was elected pope. He chose the name “Benedict” in honor of Benedict of Nursia, the founder of Western monasticism, a religious movement that preserved Western culture after the fall of Rome. The name “Benedict” also recognized Benedict XV, a much-forgotten pope who tried to broker a peace deal to end World War I.
Controversies in the pontificate
After his election, Pope Benedict XVI had to face the growing scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. While he was a cardinal, he had publicly downplayed the scope and severity of the crisis. Under his leadership the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decided not to remove Lawrence C. Murphy from the priesthood, despite the fact that Murphy had been accused of abusing more than 200 children at a Catholic school for the deaf in Wisconsin.
However, as pope, Benedict took some strong measures that his predecessor, John Paul II, had not taken. The most significant was the punishment of Marcial Maciel Degollado, an incestuous bigamist, serial pedophile, and founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a major Catholic religious order, and the withdrawal of his permission to preach or give mass publicly. He also criticized the Irish bishops for their mismanagement of the sexual abuse crisis.
For many survivors of clergy sexual abuse, these measures were not enough. Benedict did not open the Vatican archives to public inquiry, nor did he discipline cardinals and bishops who relocated pedophile priests.
Beyond the sexual abuse crisis, Benedict’s pontificate had other controversies that attracted worldwide attention. During a conference in Regensberg in 2006, Benedict appeared to criticize the Islamic view of God and the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. This sparked protests in the Middle East and South Asia. However, his official visits to Beirut and Istanbul repaired some of the damage.
Benedict XVI also reached out to dissident Catholic groups. In 2009, he lifted the excommunication of bishops from the Order of Saint Pius X, a dissident Catholic sect that rejects the Second Vatican Council’s reforms. After doing this, Benedict learned that a Bishop of Saint Pius X, Richard Williamson, had made anti-Semitic comments and was a Holocaust denier.
Benedict said his ignorance of Williamson’s views was an “unforeseen mishap” due to his unfamiliarity with the Internet as a “source of information.”
theological writings
As pope, Benedict continued his theological writings and produced three major encyclicals, or papal letters.
The first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, or “God is love,” defends “charity” as love that is freely given. Charity is not simply a good deed, but an act that changes both the giver and the receiver.
The second encyclical, Spe Salvi, or “Saved in Hope,” reflects on the hope that God gives human beings in a world that often seems hopeless.
In the third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, or “Charity in Truth,” Benedict argues that charity is fundamentally related to justice. And when it comes to questions of progress and human fulfillment, we cannot place our trust in the nation-state or in market economies because “without God, man does not know which way to go, he does not even understand who he is.”
These papal letters attempt to defend Christianity in a world that Benedict believed to be increasingly hostile to religious faith. What was striking about Benedict’s thought—even to his theological critics—was the elegance with which he presented his arguments for Christ and the transformative power of Christianity as sources of truth, beauty, and love.
But long before he became pope, Benedict recognized that Christianity would continue to lose cultural ground and be reduced to a shrinking group of adherents. In 1969, Ratzinger predicted that the Church would have to “start all over again,” which meant that one day Christianity would have to be rebuilt from its foundations.
The legacy of Benedict XVI
When Benedict stepped down as pope in 2013, he took the world by storm. Saying that he could no longer bear the burdens of the papacy, Benedict vowed to live in seclusion. His official title became “pope emeritus.”
But the controversy also followed his resignation. For example, he gave interviews and put his name in writings that appeared to criticize the reforms of his successor, Pope Francis.
More recently, a January 2022 report on sexual abuse in the Munich diocese criticized Ratzinger’s “inaction” in relation to four cases of sexual abuse during his term as archbishop, from 1977 to 1982. Reacting to the report, the pope emeritus apologized but did not admit any administrative failure.
Benedict XVI’s writings will be relevant decades from now, but his pontificate will inevitably be associated with controversy. As for his personal legacy, he will likely be defined by the question that most concerned Benedict: how can the Catholic Church continue to make a difference in the modern world.
This article has been published in
The Conversation
#Benedict #XVI #man #odds #modern #world