While this was a shocking disappointment for some former colleagues, there were others for whom the move was not altogether unsurprising. Father Ralph M. Wiltgen wrote an account of Vatican II in 1967, in which he remarked, “Father Ratzinger, the personal theologian of Cardinal Frings … had seemed to give an almost unquestioning support to the views of his former teacher during the council. But as it was drawing to a close, he admitted that he disagreed on various points, and said he would begin to assert himself more after the council was over.”
And assert himself he did.
Ratzinger describes his years at Regensburg as “a time of fruitful theological work.” He reveled in the pure, uninterrupted time he was now able to devote to his writings. His prolific output during this period drew increasing attention from senior echelons of the church, and his reputation as a “conservative standard-bearer” was swiftly affirmed. Distancing himself yet further from his former colleagues in Tübingen, in 1972 he resigned his seat on the board of the progressive journal Concilium and joined forces with a group of distinguished conservative theologians to launch the rival journal Communio. As Allen remarks, it is a “telling indicator” of the church under John Paul II that all the founding members of Communio were elevated to senior positions during his papacy, while those from the more progressive Concilium received no such honors.
Joseph Ratzinger was bound for the top.
THE THEOLOGIAN BECOMES A CARDINAL
By July 1976, forty-nine-year-old Joseph Ratzinger was considered by many to be at the pinnacle of his academic career. But when news was announced of the sudden death of the archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Julius Döpfner—who had expressed surprise at Ratzinger’s emerging conservative streak ten years earlier—everything changed in an instant.
Shocked at the news—Döpfner was only sixty-two—Ratzinger dismissed the quickly circulating rumors that tipped him as Döpfner’s natural successor. In his 1997 memoir he wrote:
I did not take them very seriously, because my limitations with regard to health were as well-known as my inability in matters of governance and administration. I knew I was called to the scholar’s life and never considered anything else. Academic offices—I was now dean again and vice-president of the university—remained within the realm of functions that a professor must assume and were very far from the responsibilities of a bishop.
These were prescient words: eight years after he wrote that passage, during the 2005 conclave, Ratzinger would again be confronted by doubts about the serious “limitations” of his capacity to fulfill the responsibilities of the office presented to him. Furthermore, those who were opposed to his candidacy for the papacy would also refer to his “inability in matters of governance and administration,” claiming he was a theologian and not a pope, and that his lack of pastoral experience would be detrimental to the Catholic Church as a whole.
It was Plato who said, “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.” When Döpfner died, it wasn’t just that Ratzinger was not seeking power, but that he would very soon make every effort to reject it. When analyzing his career in detail, clear patterns of behavior begin to emerge. Throughout his service to the church, it is in the exact moments that many would see as prodigious opportunities that Ratzinger seems to have felt quite the opposite.
Believing he had put an end to discussions regarding his succession, Ratzinger was surprised when the apostolic nuncio visited him in Regensburg “under some pretext” and, after dispensing with general pleasantries, pressed a letter detailing his appointment as archbishop of Munich and Freising into his hands. Permitted by the nuncio to consult his confessor, Ratzinger spoke with Professor Alfons Auer, whom he describes as having “a very realistic knowledge of my limitations, both theological and human.” Having fully expected that Auer would advise him to decline, he found it more than a little surprising, therefore, when “without much reflection,” Auer told the forty-nine-year-old Joseph that he “must accept.” Still deeply unsure, Ratzinger returned to meet the nuncio and once more plead his reservations, but described how, “in the end, with him as my witness, I hesitantly wrote my acceptance on the stationery of the hotel where he was staying.”
Ratzinger’s anxious hand-wringing in 1976 grew, over his first four years as archbishop of Munich, into confidence in asserting what he felt his true calling to be—or, inversely, a certainty of what he was not meant to do. The responsibilities of his office were demanding, especially when he was “said to have had rocky relations with the priests in his archdiocese.” Perhaps the challenges were compounded by the breakneck speed with which he was thrust into high office: he was appointed archbishop on March 25, 1977, consecrated on May 28, and as the new leader of a major metropolitan archdiocese, he was whisked off to Rome less than a month later, handed a red silk hat, and elevated to the College of Cardinals on June 27.
In the last pages of his memoirs Ratzinger admits that “the weeks before the consecration were difficult. Interiorly I was still very unsure, and in addition I had the huge burden of work that was nearly crushing me. And so it was in rather poor health that I approached the day of consecration.” There is no mention of his feelings during that momentous visit to Rome, but one could not fault him for having a sense of trepidation.
Newly appointed Cardinal Ratzinger was afforded little time to dwell on these concerns, for a little over a year later, on August 6, 1978, Pope Paul VI died, and he was summoned to Rome to attend his first conclave.
Remarkably, as a “young and intelligent conservative” who was not Italian, Ratzinger made several lists of potential papal candidates, but what held more significance for him—for it’s a safe bet that those lists would have terrified the life out of him—was his first meeting with another candidate, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Kraków.
The pair were already acquainted, having exchanged books since 1974, but this meeting enabled them to connect personally through the “deep orthodoxy” that the “young … and intelligent conservatives” both shared. Neither man ultimately emerged as a real contender. Ratzinger was considered to be carrying “too much baggage as a theologian who had so publicly changed his mind about Vatican II,” and Wojtyla, despite receiving four votes in the second ballot, was “much less well known, a minor figure at Vatican II who lived in a closed-off society under the Communists in Poland.” Instead, after two days of voting, the conclave elected Cardinal Albino Luciani, who had been considered even less papabile than Ratzinger and Wojtyla, and was viewed by many as a “simple, pastoral, direct and non-intellectual” alternative to the fifteen-year reign of Paul VI, which many had felt to be too heavily concerned with the bureaucracy of reforming the Roman Curia in favor of a more collegial church, in line with the conclusions reached at the end of the Second Vatican Council.
When the postconclave dust had settled after the election of the new Pope John Paul I, Ratzinger was dispatched as a papal representative at a Marian (relating to the Virgin Mary) congress in Ecuador in September 1978. Here he “cautioned against Marxist ideologies and the theology of liberation” and “pressures from the forces of the left.”
* * *
John Paul I was known to the public as “the smiling pope,” but he began his papacy with a sense of foreboding. Following the final ballot count that confirmed his majority, he shocked fellow cardinals with his answer to the traditional question “Do you accept?” by replying, “May God forgive you for what you have done in my regard” before adding, “Accepto.” He felt himself ill equipped and unworthy of the Chair of Saint Peter, and admitted to the crowds during his first address, “I am still overwhelmed at the thought of this tremendous ministry for which I have been chosen: as Peter, I seem to have stepped out on treacherous waters. I am battered by a strong wind. So I turn towards Christ saying: ‘Lord, save me.’” A few days later, when a church historian commented pedantically that his name should surely just be John Paul, rather than John Paul I, he replied ominously: “My name is John Paul the firs
t. I will be here only a short time. The second is coming.”
In the early hours of September 29, 1978, just thirty-three days into his papacy, John Paul I was found dead in his bed, with his reading light still on and an open book beside him. Vatican doctors estimated he had died of a heart attack around eleven o’clock the previous evening.
We will never know if the fears John Paul expressed were simply an acknowledgment of his shortcomings or whether he knew in a deeper sense that he was unwell. Whatever the truth, and despite the absurd conspiracy theories that flowed, many commentators felt that he was fundamentally cast adrift by the Vatican, who did little to look out for his well-being when he was clearly completely overwhelmed, both mentally and physically, by the demands of the papacy. Despite his somewhat reluctant start and his brief time in office, his attitudes had swiftly impressed people as a genuine chance for reform. His simple pastoral approach saw him renounce the traditional majestic plural, preferring to refer to himself by the singular I (although the Vatican continued to use We on all documentation); refuse a coronation in favor of a simple mass; and request that staff refrain from kneeling in his presence. He also set out his plans to tackle the murky world of the Vatican Bank, took bold steps toward reversing Paul VI’s controversial encyclical on birth control, and expressed a strong desire to return the church to the poor.
But that dream was over before it began. The cardinals returned to Rome for the funeral and yet another conclave. After several rounds of balloting in which the previous two favorites, Italian cardinals Giuseppe Siri and Giovanni Benelli, were running neck and neck, the mood inside the Sistine Chapel shifted and Wojtyla began to gain ground. Several commentators at the time believed that this was no coincidence, but rather was due to a good deal of background campaigning from Joseph Ratzinger. Having just lost a pope at only sixty-five years of age, the cardinals must have seen the strong appeal of an even younger successor, and after eight ballots and three days, Wojtyla emerged victorious. He took the name John Paul II as a mark of respect for his predecessor.
Having identified Ratzinger as someone who shared his beliefs, and perhaps grateful for his support during the conclave, John Paul II wasted no time in drawing him into his inner circle, offering him the role of prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, a senior role within the curia responsible for the three major educational sectors: seminaries and religious formation institutes; institutes of higher education such as universities; and all religious schools. Ratzinger refused, explaining that it was too early to abandon his post in Munich, but the pair continued to work closely during the 1980 Synod of Bishops on “The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World,” in which Ratzinger excelled in his role as relator. Aside from an embarrassing visit by the new pope to Bavaria in which one of Ratzinger’s young acolytes gave a somewhat scathing speech about the church’s archaic views on women, sexuality, and relationships, the association between John Paul II and Ratzinger continued to strengthen.
Undeterred by his cardinal’s earlier refusal, John Paul had a deep respect for Ratzinger’s theological expertise and was determined to have him in Rome. The perfect opportunity presented itself when the most senior curial position, outside of the pope’s own, became vacant. John Paul immediately offered Ratzinger the role of prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which he dutifully accepted on November 25, 1981, tasked to promote and defend the doctrine of the faith and its traditions in all of the Catholic world.
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
While heresy-hunting was no longer its primary function, the CDF’s Holy Inquisitorial origins were well known to all. Ratzinger had already demonstrated himself capable of getting his hands dirty at John Paul’s behest, having successfully stripped his former friends and colleagues Hans Küng and Johann Baptist Metz of their theological authority within the German Catholic Church in 1979. Both men were widely respected, and many considered their treatment a scandal, occurring, as it did, largely behind a veil of secrecy and without due process, but the new pope considered them to be dangerous political radicals who posed a real threat to the church. So they had to go.
In his handling of these two cases, Ratzinger had displayed an unerring capacity to do what he deemed necessary to protect the faith. He proved there “would be no hesitation, no muddled half-moves, when the time came to act, and there would be no reversals when the inevitable outcry of protest rolled in.” This, combined with his chief concern that “attempts to emphasize the social and political dimension of Christianity, or to challenge Roman authority, were not to be tolerated,” confirmed to John Paul that he had chosen the right man for the job.
Ratzinger spent just shy of twenty-four years in a role that people loved to hate. Such feelings had resulted, in part, from the CDF’s fearsome reputation as a rigid enforcer of doctrine but also on account of historic resentment of its Supreme and Sacred status, titles that were removed in rebranding efforts of 1965 and 1985, respectively. Yet it was not just the position that drew murmurs of dissent. Many felt betrayed by a theologian once seen as a progressive liberal hope. As Allen notes, “When someone moves from exploring the boundaries to enforcing them, as Ratzinger has, it naturally arouses suspicion.… The questions arise: Did he sell out? Did he earn his success by betraying his earlier convictions?”
Ratzinger’s first major battle once again brought him face-to-face with his old foe Marxism. He looked to Latin America to tackle the rise of liberation theology, a movement founded in the late 1960s “that sought to align the Roman Catholic Church with progressive movements for social change”—a movement that, at this same time, was stirring the imagination of one Jorge Bergoglio. Pope John Paul, with his deep-rooted support for social justice, was less threatened by this school of thought than Ratzinger but did not contest his cardinal’s proposed course of action. The movement’s leaders were ordered to appear before the CDF in Rome, where sanctions on their teachings were outlined in detail, and a report was published in August 1984 attacking the movement as a “perversion of the Christian message as God entrusted it to His church.” In support of Ratzinger’s efforts, John Paul made a conscious effort to appoint only hard-line bishops in Latin America who would be loyal to Vatican teachings.
It was not just Latin America that harbored rebellious theologians. Ratzinger soon turned his gaze to North America, and in particular to an outspoken critic of Pope Paul VI’s controversial 1968 encyclical on contraception, Humanae vitae. At a time when John Paul II was reaffirming papal infallibility, Fr. Charles Curran’s argument that the encyclical was in fact “noninfallible,” and therefore open to interpretation for those Catholics wishing to use birth control, was unwelcome. Again, Ratzinger called his target to appear before him in Rome, in March 1986, but was dissatisfied with Curran’s testimony and stripped him of his right to teach Catholic theology. Consequently, Curran was fired from his teaching post at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. As Collins notes, “choosing a leading figure in a theological movement seemed to be the CDF prefect’s methodology—that you frighten the disciples by picking off the leader.”
A long line of dismissals followed these first two major cases, and numerous priests and bishops were reined in, removed from their posts, or excommunicated for their views. Ratzinger’s “willingness to polarize, to draw lines in the sand,” combined with his hard-line approach to differing theological schools of thought, drew significant criticism, not least because “the man who once complained that the Holy Office was insufficiently tolerant of different theological schools has shown too little tolerance himself.” His time in office represents a period of doctrinal rigidity within the church, when theological dissent, and even dialogue, was drastically curtailed. The effects of this were felt most notably in developing countries, which had not only some of the world’s highest populations of Catholics per capita but also fragile political systems, within which local priests and bishops were attempting to interpret the V
atican’s teaching in the best way possible to engage and enrich their predominantly poor communities. The fact that they were presented with a Vatican almost as hard-line as many of their ruling communist or fascist governments made their jobs all the more difficult.
But for all the criticism of Ratzinger’s relentless methods, there was a strong level of support among conservative Catholics, who gratefully welcomed him as a tireless defender of the faith, steering the church away from harm. Ratzinger’s own defense was that his responsibility as prefect of the CDF was to protect the teachings of the church on behalf of “those who can’t fight back intellectually.” If that brought him up against “intellectual assaults” by theologians, then so be it. His supporters also made great efforts to rebut allegations that his aggressive methods were a direct reflection of his personality: far from it, they said and still say. The descriptions of Ratzinger as a good listener, calm, kind, and serene, seem incongruous in light of his reputation as an enforcer. But as David Gibson remarks, “The paradox of the ivory tower is that the scholarly academics are among the most combative people, fiercely promoting their ideas and principles, but their dirty work is usually done at a bloodless distance, in journals or from the parapet of the conference lectern.” It is only natural, therefore, that those defending issues of faith are, bloodlessly, elevated to a position of righteousness.
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