Pope Benedict XVI
| Benedict XVI |
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Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: Benedictus PP. XVI; born April 16, 1927 as
Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am
Inn, Bavaria, Germany) is the 265th reigning pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican
City. He was elected on April 19, 2005, in a papal conclave over which he presided in his capacity as dean of the College of Cardinals. He celebrated his Papal Inauguration Mass on April 24, 2005 and was
enthroned in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano on May 7, 2005.
One of the most
influential academic theologians since the 1960s and author of many books, he
is viewed as conservative and a close ally of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. He served as Archbishop of Munich, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and
Dean of the College of
Cardinals before becoming Pope.
The Pope particularly emphasizes
what he sees as the need for Europe to turn back to its fundamental values,
facing increasing de-christianisation in many developed countries, where secular humanism, secularism, secularization and freethought generally are increasing in
influence.
Overview
Benedict XVI was elected
pope at the age of 78. He is the oldest person to have been elected pope since Clement XII in 1730.
He served longer as a cardinal
before being elected pope than any pope since Benedict XIII (elected 1724). He is the
9th German pope, the last being the Dutch-German Adrian VI (1522–1523). The last Pope Benedict, Benedict XV, was an Italian who served as pope from 1914 to 1922 and reigned
during World War I.
Ratzinger was
born in Bavaria, Germany. He had a distinguished career as a university theologian before being made the archbishop of Munich; he was subsequently made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in the consistory of June 27,
1977. He was appointed as the prefect of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope
John Paul II in 1981 and was made the cardinal bishop of the suburbicarian diocese of Velletri-Segni on April 5, 1993. In 1998, he was made the sub-dean of the College of Cardinals; later, on November 30, 2002, he
became the dean and simultaneously the cardinal bishop of the suburbicarian
diocese of Ostia. He was the first dean of the
college elected pope since Paul IV in 1555 and the first cardinal bishop elected pope
since Pius VIII in 1829.
Before becoming pope, Cardinal Ratzinger was already one of the most
influential men in the Vatican, and was a close associate of the late
John Paul II. He presided over the funeral of John Paul II and also over the
Mass immediately preceding the 2005 conclave in which he was elected,
in which he called on the assembled cardinals to hold fast to the doctrine
of the faith. He was the public face of the church in much of the sede vacante period, although he ranked below the
camerlengo in administrative
authority during that time.
Benedict XVI's views appear to be similar
to those of his predecessor in maintaining the traditional Catholic doctrines
on artificial birth control, abortion, and homosexuality while promoting Catholic social teaching.
Benedict speaks several languages, including German, Italian and French fluently, as well as English, Spanish and Latin. He can read
ancient Greek and classical Hebrew. He is a member of a large number of
academies, such as the French Académie des sciences morales et politiques.
He plays the piano and has a preference for Mozart and Beethoven.
Early
life of Pope Benedict XVI
Ratzinger was born at a
house in Marktl am Inn which survives today.
Ratzinger studied at Saint Michael Seminary in Traunstein,
Germany.
Joseph Alois Ratzinger was born on Holy Saturday, at Schulstrasse 11, his parents'
home in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., a police
officer, and his wife, Maria Ratzinger (nee Peintner), who worked as a
barmaid, and whose family were from South
Tyrol (today part of Italy). His father
served in both the Bavarian State Police (Landespolizei) and the German national Regular
Police (Ordnungspolizei) before
retiring in 1937 to the town of Traunstein. The Sunday Times of London described
the elder Ratzinger as "an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler's Sturmabteilung forced the family to move
several times." [1].
According to the International Herald Tribune, these relocations were
directly related to Joseph Ratzinger, Sr.'s continued resistance to Nazism, which resulted in demotions and transfers.
[2] The
pope's brother Georg said: "Our father
was a bitter enemy of Nazism because he believed it was in conflict with our
faith." [3].
Pope Benedict's brother, Georg, is still living. His sister, Maria
Ratzinger, who never married, managed her brother Joseph's household until
her death in 1991. Their grand uncle Georg Ratzinger was a priest and
member of the Reichstag, as
the German Parliament was called then. The pope's relatives agree that his
ambitions to serve in the upper echelons of the Church were apparent since
childhood. At age five, Ratzinger was in a group of children who presented
the Archbishop of Munich with flowers; later that day he announced he wanted
to be a cardinal. (See also Early life of Pope Benedict XVI.)
According to his cousin
Erika Kopp, Ratzinger had no desire from childhood to be anything other than
a priest. When he was 15, she says, he announced that he was going to be a
bishop, whereupon she playfully remarked, 'And why not Pope?'.
When
Ratzinger turned 14 he was forced by law to join the Hitler Youth (membership was legally required from December 1936[4].) According to the National Catholic Reporter
correspondent and biographer John Allen, Ratzinger was an unenthusiastic
member who refused to attend meetings. Ratzinger has mentioned that a Nazi
mathematics professor arranged reduced tuition payments for him at seminary. This normally required documentation of
attendance at Hitler Youth activities; however, according to Ratzinger, his
sympathetic professor arranged things so that he did not have to attend to
receive a scholarship.
1943, when he was 16, Ratzinger was drafted
with many of his classmates into the FlaK (anti-aircraft artillery corps). They guarded various facilities
including a BMW aircraft engine plant north of
Munich and, later, the jet fighter base at Gilching, where Ratzinger served in telephone
communications. After his class was released from the Corps in September 1944, Ratzinger was put to work setting up anti-tank
defences in the Hungarian border area of Austria in preparation for the expected Red Army offensive. When his unit was released
from service in November 1944, he went home for
three weeks, and then was drafted into the German army at Munich to receive
basic infantry training in the nearby town of
Traunstein. His unit served at various posts around the city and was never
sent to the front.
In late April or early May, 1945 days or weeks
before the German
surrender, Ratzinger deserted. Desertion
was widespread during the last weeks of the war, even though punishable by
death (executions, frequently extrajudicial, continued to the end);
diminished morale and the greatly diminished risk of prosecution from a
preoccupied and disorganized German military contributed to the growing wave
of soldiers looking toward self-preservation. On his way home he ran into
soldiers on guard, but they let him go. When the Americans arrived in the
village, all soldiers were taken prisoners
of war. Ratzinger was briefly interned in a prisoner-of-war camp near Ulm and was repatriated on June
19, 1945. The family was reunited when his
brother, Georg, returned after being repatriated from a prisoner-of-war camp
in Italy.
Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. According to an
interview with Peter Seewald, he and his fellow students were particularly
influenced by the works of Gertrud von le Fort, Ernst Wiechert, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Elisabeth Langgässer, Theodor Steinbüchel, Martin Heidegger and Karl
Jaspers. The young Ratzinger saw the last three in particular as a break
with the dominance of Neo-Kantianism,
with the key work being Steinbüchel's Die Wende des Denkens ("The
Change in Thinking"). By the end of his studies he was drawn more to the
active Saint Augustine than to Thomas Aquinas, and among the scholastics he was more interested in Saint Bonaventure.
On June 29, 1951, he and his
brother were ordained by Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber of Munich. His dissertation (1953) was on Saint Augustine, entitled "The People and the
House of God in Augustine's Doctrine of the Church," and his Habilitationsschrift (a dissertation which
serves as qualification for a professorship) was on Saint Bonaventure. It was
completed in 1957 and he became a professor of Freising College in 1958.
Ratzinger as a young priest
celebrates mass in Ruhpolding, Germany in 1952.
Ratzinger offers an oath of submission at the September 1978
papal inauguration of John Paul I.
Ratzinger is given a formal farewell as he leaves the
Archdiocese of Munich to become the new Prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith on February 28, 1982.
Ratzinger with John Paul II in 2003.
Ratzinger debates with German philosopher
Jürgen Habermas at the Catholic Academy of
Bavaria, Germany in 2004.
Ratzinger became a professor at the University
of Bonn in 1959; his inaugural lecture was on "The God of Faith
and the God of Philosophy." In 1963 he moved
to the University of Münster,
where his inaugural lecture was given in a packed lecture hall, as he was
already well known as a theologian. At the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), Ratzinger served as a peritus or theological
consultant to Josef Cardinal Frings
of Cologne, Germany, and has continued to
defend the council, including Nostra Aetate, the document on respect of other religions and
the declaration of the right to religious freedom. He was viewed during the time of the council as
a reformer. (Later, as the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, Ratzinger most clearly spelled out the Catholic Church's
position on other religions in the document Dominus Iesus (2000) which also talks
about the proper way to engage in ecumenical dialogue.)
In 1966, he took a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he was a
colleague of Hans Küng. In his 1968 book Introduction to Christianity, he wrote that
the pope has a duty to hear differing voices within the Church before making
a decision, and downplayed the centrality of the papacy. He also wrote that
the church of the time was too centralized, rule-bound and overly controlled
from Rome. These sentences, however, did not appear in later editions of the
book. During this time, he distanced himself from the atmosphere of Tübingen
and the Marxist leanings of the student
movement of the 1960s, that in Germany quickly
radicalised in the years 1967 and 1968, culminating in a series of disturbances and riots in
April and May 1968. Ratzinger came increasingly to see these and associated
developments (decreasing respect for authority among his students, the rise
of the German gay rights movement) as
related to a departure from traditional Catholic teachings. Increasingly, his
views, despite his reformist bent, contrasted with those liberal ideas
gaining currency in the theological academy.[5] In 1969 he returned
to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg.
In 1972, he founded the theological journal Communio with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Walter
Kasper and others. Communio, now published in seventeen editions
(German, English, Spanish and
many others), has become one of the most important journals of Catholic thought. He remains one of the
journal's most prolific contributors.
In March 1977 Ratzinger was named archbishop of Munich and
Freising. According to his autobiography,
Milestones, he took as his episcopal motto Cooperatores
Veritatis, co-workers of the Truth, from 3 John: 8.
In the consistory of June 1977 he was named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI. By the time of the 2005 Conclave, he was one of only 14
remaining cardinals appointed by Paul VI, and one of only three of those
under the age of 80, and one of only two who participated in the conclave,
the other being Cardinal Baum.
Cardinal Ratzinger. Prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith
On November 25, 1981, Pope John Paul II
named Ratzinger prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
formerly known as the Holy
Office of the Inquisition. He resigned the Munich archdiocese in early 1982. Already a cardinal priest, he was raised to Cardinal
Bishop of Velletri-Segni in 1993. He became
vice-dean of the College of
Cardinals in 1998, and dean in 2002.
In office, Ratzinger usually took traditional
views on topics such as birth control,
homosexuality, and inter-religious dialogue. Among other things, he played
a key role in silencing outspoken liberation theologians and clergy in Latin America in the 1980s.
(See also Theology of Pope Benedict XVI.)
Health
In the early 1990s Ratzinger suffered a stroke which slightly impaired his eyesight temporarily.
The existence of the stroke had been known during the conclave that elected
him pope. In May 2005, the Vatican revealed that he had subsequently suffered
another mild stroke - it did not reveal when, other than that it occurred
between 2003 and 2005. France's Philippe Cardinal Barbarin further
revealed that since the first stroke, Ratzinger has suffered from a heart
condition. Because of his health problems, Ratzinger had hoped to retire, but
had continued in his position in obedience to the wishes of Pope John Paul
II.[6]
Response to sex abuse
scandal
As Cardinal Ratzinger was Prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the sexual abuse of minors by priests was his
responsibility to investigate from 2001, when that charge was given to the
CDF by Pope John Paul. [7]
On May 18, 2001, Ratzinger, as part of the implementation of
the norms enacted and promulgated [8] on April 30, 2001 by Pope John Paul II, sent a Latin language letter [9] to every bishop in the Catholic Church
reminding them of the strict penalties facing those who revealed confidential
details concerning enquiries into allegations against priests of certain
grave ecclesiastical crimes, including sexual
abuse, reserved to the jurisdiction of the CDF. The letter extended the
prescription (statute of
limitations) for these crimes to ten years. However, when the crime is
sexual abuse of a minor, the "prescription begins to run from the day on that
which the minor completes the eighteenth year of age." [10] Lawyers
acting for two alleged victims of abuse in Texas claim that by sending the
letter the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice. [11]
However, the letter did not discourage victims from reporting the abuse
itself to the police; the secrecy related to the internal investigation. "The
letter said the new norms reflected the CDF's traditional “exclusive
competence” regarding delicta graviora—Latin for “graver
offenses.” According to canon law experts
in Rome, reserving cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the CDF is
something new. In past eras, some serious crimes by priests against sexual
morality, including pedophilia, were
handled by that congregation or its predecessor, the Holy Office, but this
has not been true in recent years." [12] The
promulgation of the norms by Pope John Paul II and the subsequent letter by
the then Prefect of the CDF were published in 2001 in Acta Apostolicae
Sedis [13] which, in
accordance with the Code of Canon Law [14], is the Holy See's
official journal, disseminated monthly to thousands of libraries and offices
around the world. [15]
In 2002, Ratzinger accurately told the Catholic News Service
that "less than one percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type." [16] Opponents saw
this as ignoring the crimes of those who committed the abuse; others saw it
as merely pointing out that this should not taint other priests who live respectable
lives. [17] A report
by the Catholic Church itself estimated that some 4,450 of the Roman Catholic
clergy who served between 1950 and 2002 have faced credible accusations of abuse. [18] His
Good Friday reflections in 2005 were interpreted as strongly condemning and regretting the
abuse scandals, which largely put to rest the speculation of indifference.
Shortly after his election, he told Francis Cardinal George, the Archbishop of Chicago, that he would attend
to the matter. [19]
Dialogue with other faiths
In 2000, the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith published a document entitled Dominus Iesus which reaffirmed the historic doctrine and
mission of the Church to proclaim the Gospel. This was misunderstood by some
who mistakenly believed that the Church had previously repudiated its unique
role in the world. [20].
This document pointed out the danger to the Church of relativistic
theories which seek to justify religious pluralism by denying that God
has revealed truth to humanity. (par. 4)
Addressing the question that
one religion is as a good as another (syncretism or indifferentism) it states:
...followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also
certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient
situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of
the means of salvation. (par.22)
The deliberate ommission of "filioque" clause ("and the Son") in the
first paragraph [21] is
seen as an outreach to Orthodox Church
which has been in conflict with the Roman
Catholic Church over its addition to the Nicene Creed for about one thousand years.[22]
The World Jewish Congress "welcomed" his election to the
pontificate, noted "his great sensitivity to the Jewish history and the
Holocaust", and quoted the Pope in its press release:
- Even if
the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah (Holocaust) was
perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike
the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot
be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part
of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the
hearts of not a few Christians. [23]
His Holiness the Dalai Lama congratulated Pope Benedict XVI
upon his election. [24]
In an
interview in 2004 for Le Figaro magazine, Ratzinger said Turkey, a country Muslim by
heritage and staunchly secularist by its
state constitution, should seek its future in an association of Islamic nations rather than the EU, which has Christian
roots. He said Turkey had always been "in permanent contrast to Europe" and that linking it to Europe would be a
mistake.[25]
His
defenders argue that it is to be expected that a leader within the Catholic
Church would forcefully and explicitly argue in favor of the superiority of
Catholicism over other religions. Others
also maintain that single quotes from Dominus Iesus are not indicative of intolerance or an
unwillingness to engage in dialogue with other faiths, and this is clear from a reading of the entire
document. They point out that Ratzinger has been very active in promoting
inter-faith dialogue. Specifically, they argue that Ratzinger has been
instrumental at encouraging reconciliation with Lutherans. In defending Dominus Iesus, Ratzinger
himself has stated that his belief is that inter-faith dialogue should take
place on the basis of equal human dignity, but that equality of human dignity
should not imply that each side is equally correct.
Ratzinger and Fatima
Ratzinger has long been tied into the message of Our Lady of Fatima to three young Portuguese children. Notably, until her death, Lúcia dos Santos was under orders from
the Vatican not to discuss the Fatima revelations publicly unless given leave
by Cardinal Ratzinger, one of seven people known to have read the actual
Third Message put into writing in 1944,
and author of the Theological Commentary on the Third Message, one of
four canon sourceworks kept alongside the Message.
In 1984, an
interview with Ratzinger was published in the Pauline Sisters newsletter and that it deals with
"dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore
of the world", while stating that it marks the beginning of the end-times. A year later the interview was
re-published in The Ratzinger Report, though several statements were
omitted - either for editorial reasons, or clandestine conspiratorial reasons
- depending on the party asked.
In October of 1987 he stated that
the things contained in [the] Third Secret correspond to what has been
announced in Scripture and has been said again and again in many other Marian
apparitions; first of all, that of Fatima in what is already known of what
its message contains, conversion and penitence are the essential conditions
for salvation.
Ratzinger and Bertone at the press conference
In 1997, Ratzinger and Capovilla publicly stated that the
Third Message was not being withheld for fears it would condemn the
changes of the Vatican II council.
On June 26th 2000, following the release of the text of the prophecy,
Ratzinger issued a joint statement with Cardinal Bertone that the third and final chapter of Mary's prophecy had been fulfilled in 1981 in a failed
attempt on the Pope's life; critics point out however that a year after the
attempted assassination, Lúcia told the Pope that the third prophecy had
still not been fulfilled. He was quoted in the media as stating "No great
mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled. A careful reading of the
text will probably prove disappointing."
Papacy
Not knowing that within a few weeks he would ascend the Throne
of St. Peter himself, Ratzinger presided over the 2005 Easter Vigil Mass at
St. Peter's Basilica in place of Pope John Paul II.
Election to the Papacy
Prediction
On January 2, 2005,
Time magazine quoted unnamed
Vatican sources as saying that Ratzinger was a frontrunner to succeed John Paul II should the pope die or
become too ill to continue as pope. On the death of John Paul II, the Financial Times gave the odds of Ratzinger becoming pope as
7–1, the lead position, but close to his rivals on the liberal wing of the
church. In April 2005, before his election
as pope, he was identified as one of the 100 most influential people
in the world by Time magazine. Ratzinger himself had repeatedly
stated he would like to retire to a Bavarian village and dedicate himself to
writing books, but more recently, he told friends he was ready to "accept any
charge God placed on him."
Piers Paul Read wrote in The Spectator on March 5, 2005:
- There can
be little doubt that his courageous promotion of orthodox Catholic teaching
has earned him the respect of his fellow cardinals throughout the world. He
is patently holy, highly intelligent and sees clearly what is at stake.
Indeed, for those who blame the decline of Catholic practice in the developed
world precisely on the propensity of many European bishops to hide their
heads in the sand, a pope who confronts it may be just what is required.
Ratzinger is no longer young—he is 78 years old: but Angelo Roncalli, who
revolutionized Catholicism by calling the Second Vatican Council was almost
the same age (76) when he became pope as John XXIII. As Jeff Israely, the correspondent of Time, was told
by a Vatican insider last month, "The Ratzinger solution is definitely
on."
However, Papal predictions in modern history had
usually been wrong, with the most popular candidates often losing the
election in favor of a more unknown, obscure cardinal. For example following
the death of Pope Paul VI many in the media predicted the next pope would be
a non-Italian, only to have this prediction proven wrong with the election of
Albino Luciani as John Paul I.
Likewise, when John Paul died many predicted his successor would in
turn be another Italian, yet this also was proven wrong with the election of
the Polish Karol Wojtyła, who was himself an obscure candidate.
Election
Benedict XVI appears on the balcony shortly after his
election.
Benedict's installation mass on St. Peter's Square
On April 19, 2005
Cardinal Ratzinger was elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II on the
second day of the papal conclave
after four ballots. Coincidentally, April 19
is the feast of St. Leo IX, a German pope
and saint who instituted major reforms in the Middle Ages during his papacy.
Cardinal Ratzinger had hoped
to retire peacefully and said that "At a certain point, I prayed to God
'please don't do this to me'...Evidently, this time He didn't listen to me."
[26]
Styles of
Pope Benedict XVI |
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| Reference style |
His
Holiness | | Spoken
style | Your Holiness |
| Religious style | Holy Father | | Other Religious style (if awarded after death) |
not applicable | |
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Before his first appearance
at the balcony of Saint Peter's
Basilica after becoming pope, he was announced by Jorge Cardinal Medina Estévez, the protodeacon of the College of Cardinals. Cardinal
Medina Estévez first addressed the massive crowd as "dear(est) brothers and
sisters" in Italian, Spanish, French, German and English — each language
receiving cheers from the international crowd — before continuing in
Latin.
At the balcony, Benedict's first words to the crowd, before he
gave the traditional Urbi et Orbi
blessing, were:
- Dear brothers and sisters, after the great
Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble
labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.
- The fact that the Lord
knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me,
and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.
- In the joy of
the Risen Lord, let us move forward, confident of his unfailing help. The
Lord will help us and Mary, his Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank
you. (translation from original Italian).
He then gave the
blessing to the people.
Choice of
name
The choice of the name Benedict (Latin "the blessed") is
significant. Benedict XVI used his first General Audience in St. Peter's Square, on April 27, 2005, to
explain to the world on why he chose the name:
- "Filled with
sentiments of awe and thanksgiving, I wish to speak of why I chose the name
Benedict. Firstly, I remember Pope
Benedict XV, that courageous prophet of peace, who guided the Church
through turbulent times of war. In his footsteps I place my ministry in the
service of reconciliation and harmony between peoples. Additionally, I recall
Saint Benedict of Norcia, co-patron of
Europe, whose life evokes the Christian roots of Europe. I ask him to help us
all to hold firm to the centrality of Christ in our Christian life: May
Christ always take first place in our thoughts and actions!" [27]
Early days of Papacy
Papal Arms of Pope Benedict
XVI. The
papal tiara was replaced with a
bishop's
mitre, and
pallium of the Pope was added beneath the coat of
arms.
Pope Benedict has confounded the expectations of
many in the early days of his papacy by his gentle public persona and his
promise to listen. It is notable that he has used an open popemobile, saying that he wants to be closer to the
people.
Benedict's coat of arms have officially omitted the papal tiara, traditionally appearing in the
background to designate the Pope's position and replaced it with a simple mitre.[28] However, there have been papal documents
since his inauguration that have been appearing with the papal tiara present.
Since it is the shield and not the background which is unique to the
individual Pope, various backgrounds are possible (though rarely used) for
even a single shield.
During his inaugural Mass, the previous custom
of all the cardinals submitting was replaced by having 12 people,
representing cardinals, clergy, religious, a married couple and their child,
and newly confirmed people, submit to
him. However, all the cardinals had already sworn their obedience upon his
election. In a return to tradition, Benedict chose to resurrect the ancient
tradition of the red papal shoes and to
delegate the celebration of the beatification liturgies.
In an address
to a conference of the Diocese of Rome held at St. John Lateran basilica on June
6, 2005, Benedict remarked on the issues of same-sex marriage and abortion:
- "The various forms of the
dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going
up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of
an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man...from here
it becomes all the more clear how contrary it is to human love, to the
profound vocation of man and woman, to systematically close their union to
the gift of life, and even worse to suppress or tamper with the life that is
born," he said.[29]
Curial
appointments
Upon becoming Pope, Benedict reappointed all former
officers of the Roman Curia under John
Paul II to new terms, their terms having ended with the papacy. This assured
an easy transition into new government. The highest of those appointments are
those considered to be Benedict XVI's prime
ministers: Angelo Cardinal
Sodano of Italy who serves as Cardinal Secretary of State and Edmund Cardinal Szoka of the United States who serves as Governor of Vatican City.
Benedict XVI's only major new appointment was that of his successor as
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Early speculation
included the names of Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna in Austria and Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago in the United States. Both
were renowned for their knowledge of Church doctrine and were considered
among the more conservative members of the College of Cardinals.
On May 13, 2005, Benedict
XVI appointed a non-Cardinal, William Joseph Levada, Archbishop of San Francisco in the United
States. Renowned for his knowledge of Church doctrine due to his office as
principal editor of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, Levada is considered by some to
be even more staunchly conservative than all the Pope's choices within the
College of Cardinals. Levada relinquishes his see in San Francisco on August 17,
2005 and is expected to be raised in consistory
to the title of Cardinal.
Due to the immense influence wielded by the
office of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith—arguably more immense than that of the Pope's own prime
ministers—Benedict XVI's appointment of an American in effect raises the
United States into greater prominence in the universal Church. That fact
sparked many fears that the United States was being given too much power in
the Church; people worldwide generally express uneasiness that the United
States already dominates global politics. It is for that reason that
Americans are never considered papabile.
Beatifications
Benedict XVI oversaw his first beatification on May
14, 2005, honoring Mother Marianne Cope of Hawaii with the title
Blessed. He wore a traditional Hawaiian maile lei as a
stole for the occasion.
On May 13, 2005, Benedict
XVI made his first promulgation of the beatification process. The honoree of the process
was his predecessor, John Paul II. Normally five years pass before the
beatification process begins for a person after his or her death but due to
the popularity of John Paul II — devotees chanted "Santo subito!" meaning
"Saint now!" during the late pontiff's funeral — Benedict XVI waived the
custom and officially styled the late pope with the title given to all those
being scrutinized in the beatification process, Servant of God.
Upon the confirmation after scrutiny
that the late pontiff's life is found morally clean and manifests heroic
virtues, a decree of heroicity will be proclaimed and John Paul II will be
declared Venerable on the road to
beatification. Before changes in canon law
in 1917, the title Venerable was given at
the same time a person was declared Servant of God. Upon the
confirmation of miracles attributed to the
honoree, John Paul II would then be declared Blessed. A person is strictly prohibited from being
officially celebrated in Mass until he
or she achieves the title of Blessed.
The next day, on May 14, Benedict XVI made his first official
beatification, raising Mother
Marianne Cope — who served with Blessed Damien of Molokai helping those suffering from leprosy in what is now the Diocese of Honolulu in Hawaii — to the title of "Blessed Marianne of
Molokai." She was the first addition to the calendar of saints by Benedict XVI announcing an optional feast
to be celebrated in her honor annually on January 23. Blessed Damien and Blessed Marianne are the patrons of HIV/AIDS and outcasts. Both are
expected to become the first saints of the Hawaiian Islands. Mother Ascensión Nicol Goñi was also beatified on the same
day.
Unlike his predecessor, Benedict XVI delegated the beatification
liturgical service to a principal aide, José Cardinal Saraiva Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the
Causes of Saints. It was noted by Vatican watchers that the practice of
delegating prominent functions enjoyed by the late John Paul II would become
the norm for Benedict XVI, who seems to prefer the duties of Church manager
as opposed to having more of a public face. This may also reflect the need
for Benedict to maintain a more restricted public appearance schedule, due to
his recent health history, which may be described as resulting from age
related illnesses.
Pope Benedict XVI
participated in a Mass attended by 800,000 people in Cologne, Germany, during
the World Youth Day. This marked the pontiff's first apostolic journey.
On June 16, 2005, it was learned that the planned beatification of a French
priest, the Rev. Leon Dehon, had been suspended
by the Vatican after complaints about anti-Semitism in his writings. The Vatican
decided to further study the life and writings of the Fr. Dehon, who died
in 1925 and who had founded the priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus religious
order. The beatification was postponed originally due to the death of Pope
John Paul II on April 2, 2005. The move came after a French Catholic newspaper, La
Croix, reported that some of his writings contained anti-Semitic passages.
La Croix quoted his writings as saying Jews were "united in their hatred
of Jesus" and were enemies of Christians, and that anti-Semitism was a "sign
of hope."
The possibility of declaring Fr. Dehon a saint
has been under consideration by the church for decades. The process began
formally in 1939. The church declared his virtues in 1983, and John Paul gave
him the title "venerable" in 1997 after the church ruled that an electrician
in Brazil had been miraculously cured of an illness in 1954 after prayers
were directed to him. However, France's government had put the Vatican on
notice that it would not send a representative to the beatification, and the
French bishops' conference urged the Vatican to act with caution, according
to French newspaper reports. [30].
For many in the Catholic community
who had been concerned about the rapidity of the beatification process during
the reign of Pope John Paul II, this
incident seemed to indicate that the management of the practice of making
saints will be more measured and, possibly, less inclined to speed up the
process.
Concern in parts of the Jewish community may similarly be
delaying the beatification process of Pope Pius XII, who was declared Venerable in the 1990's. The overall Jewish concern at
the history of Pius XII interventions or lack thereof surfaced in this
pontiff's recent visit to the Cologne Synagogue when the president of that synagogue,
Abraham Lehrer, asked that the Vatican's archives relating to Pope Pius XII
be opened for scrutiny. This was widely reported in the European media and is
the first such public call to be directly made.
Pope Benedict XVI will
also have to deal with a class action suit against the Vatican Bank and
others brought up in the United
States by various Holocaust survivors, alleging collusion in war crimes
by the Ustashe regime of the Independent State of Croatia.
On June 19, 2005, Benedict XVI beatified Father Wladysław Findysz, a martyr of the Communist regime, Father Bronisław Markiewicz, the founder of the
Congregation of
St. Michael, and Father Ignacy Kłopotowski, the founder of the Congregation of the
Sisters of Loreto. Benedict XVI had delegated Józef Cardinal Glemp of Warsaw to preside over the beatification liturgy, which
took place at Piłsudski Square in
Warsaw. The beatifications were originally scheduled for April 24 2005, however they were delayed due to the
death of Pope John Paul II. Pope
John Paul II also started the process of the beatifications of the above
Poles, but Benedict XVI had to complete the process.
Canonizations
The first Mass of Canonization for Benedict XVI is scheduled for October 23, 2005
in St. Peter's Square. Benedict XVI
will bestow the honor of the title of Saint to: Józef Bilczewski of Poland and Ukraine,
Archbishop of Lviv (Lwów); Gaetano Catanoso of Italy, priest
and founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Veronica
(also known as the Missionaries of the Holy Face); Zygmunt Gorazdowski of Poland and Ukraine,
priest and founder of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph; Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga of Chile, priest of the Society of Jesus, and Felice Da Nicosia of Italy, lay member of the Capuchins.
Apostolic journeys
- Germany (August 18—August 21,
2005): The Pope arrived in Germany on August
18, 2005, in order to participate in the 20th World Youth Day in Cologne. There he met with President Horst Köhler, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, leader of the Opposition Angela Merkel and others, and visited the famous Cologne Cathedral. The Pope visited the
synagogue of the Jewish community in
Cologne. After Saint Peter and John Paul
II, he thus is the third Pontiff to set foot into a synagogue. He also
spoke with representatives of the Muslim and Protestant communities of
Cologne. On August 21 he led a mass at Marienfeld with about 800,000 youths
present.
