When reviewing Ratzinger’s record at the CDF, Gibson believes that he “too easily ignored the fact that he was dealing with fellow human beings, with other Christians, and not just with ideas. Abstracting people into their positions can make personal confrontations more palatable, especially for someone with Ratzinger’s mix of zeal and timidity.” This viewpoint was all too apparent within the context of issues that affected a billion Catholics on a daily basis, such as divorce, contraception, homosexuality, and sexual abuse by priests. These are universal experiences in the modern world, and it is in pluralist societies such as western Europe and the United States that so many people have turned away from the church, in part because of its reluctance to engage in any form of debate. As Paul Collins, a former priest who fell afoul of the CDF and John Paul II’s papacy, remarks in his book God’s New Man:
There is an emerging assumption among some very senior church leaders that the contemporary western world is so far gone in individualism, permissiveness and consumerism that it is totally impervious to church teaching … churchmen, such as Ratzinger, have virtually abandoned the secularized masses to their fate, to nurture elitist enclaves which will carry the true faith through to future, more “receptive” generations.
Throughout John Paul’s papacy, both he and Ratzinger made concerted efforts to centralize the Catholic Church by drawing power back to the curia, most notably by, in direct contradiction of Vatican II, reducing the authority of bishops. It was no longer, for instance, possible for a bishop to allow Catholic social services to counsel a woman considering an abortion; Rome, and Cardinal No, had spoken. And when wine is turned into blood, during mass, the priest’s words were changed from “this is the cup of my blood … shed for you and for all people, so that sins will be forgiven” to merely “shed for many,” arguably excluding in one stroke all but Christians from Christ’s forgiveness.
Pope Paul VI’s intentions when he assumed control of the council, following the death of Pope John XXIII, between 1963 and 1965 had been to move away from papal infallibility and promote a more collegial approach to governance through a newly created body known as the Synod of Bishops. Granting them authority to address local issues via a democratic voting system, he declared that “because of our esteem and regard for all the Catholic bishops,” he wished to provide them with abundant “means for greater and more effective participation in our concern for the universal Church.” As Allen explains, “The theory of collegiality holds that the bishops are jointly the successors of the original Twelve Apostles who followed Jesus, and thus they form a ‘college.’ As such, they together enjoy supreme authority for the church. This authority does not exceed the pope’s, but neither is it subsumed into the pope’s.” Having initially supported this move in his essays following the council, Ratzinger once more shocked his former colleagues with a drastic U-turn on the validity of the synod almost as soon as he was appointed prefect of the CDF. Eventually, this resulted in John Paul’s 1998 decree, Apostolos suos, which reduced the synod to a position of complete impotence and “asserted that bishops’ conferences have no right to teach authoritatively.”
As well as reducing the power and standing of the bishops, John Paul went even further to ensure his papacy was watertight against dissent by appointing a number of ill-qualified bishops who were willing to toe the party line. When reflecting upon his reign, academics are in agreement that this was his greatest failing. Paul Collins writes that, significantly, “the biggest problem was the appointment of a large number of mediocre bishops who lacked any real leadership skill or genuine pastoral sensitivity,” and that this resulted in large numbers of “conformist ‘yes men’ utterly loyal to Rome rather than to their dioceses.”
The consequences of John Paul’s appointments were exposed when the allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy exploded in the press, and many dioceses were found incapable of handling the crisis. The loss of confidence in the church from those affected by the abuse was only furthered by the Vatican’s interpretation of the scandal as a campaign against the church by Western media. Rather than excommunicating and bringing to justice those accused after an open investigation, the Vatican refused to divulge information to aid criminal investigations, blocked several internal inquiries, and in countless cases moved priests accused of abuse to new parishes or quietly reinstated those who had been forced by bishops to stand down from their positions.
Prominent cases under the tenure of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger include: Cardinal Hans Hermann Gröer of Vienna, accused of abusing more than two thousand boys over several decades, victims having since come forward stating that they were offered payments by the church in exchange for their silence; Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, first accused of the sexual abuse of children in his congregation in 1976, with allegations stemming back to as early as 1943 and new victims coming forward to report stories of abuse as late as the mid-1990s; and Bishops Joseph Keith Symons and Anthony J. O’Connell of Palm Beach, Florida, the first confessing to the sexual abuse of five boys within his congregation, while his replacement, O’Connell, who was installed in 1999, tasked with healing the community, resigned three years later after admitting he had abused a seminary student in the 1970s, revealing that the victim was paid a legal settlement of $125,000 by the church in 1996, three years before O’Connell was appointed to Palm Beach by Pope John Paul. Archbishops were not unrepresented in this gallery of evil. Archbishop Juliusz Paetz of Ponzań, Poland, was accused of the abuse of teenage seminarians in his diocese by ignoring letters from victims and their advocates, and was permitted to resign without investigation; Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, exposed by the Boston Globe in 2001, resigned for ignoring evidence of decades of sexual abuse by numerous priests in his archdiocese, moving them from parish to parish rather than removing them from the church, and was thereafter rewarded by John Paul II, who appointed him archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore—Law even gave an address during the 2005 conclave.
John Paul’s succession to the papacy coincided with a time of great decline within the Catholic Church, with attendance falling dramatically in Western countries (offset only by increases in Africa and Asia) and men abandoning the priesthood (laicization) in record numbers. During his fifteen-year reign, Pope Paul VI granted more than thirty-two thousand requests for laicization, and his successor was determined to put a stop to this practice and remind priests that the vows they had taken were a sacred lifelong commitment and near unbreakable, except in cases of illness or infirmity. John Paul immediately froze all pending applications when he took office and in 1980 began a complete overhaul of canon law. The resultant 1983 Code of Canon Law now stipulated that applications would be considered only if they came directly from priests over the age of forty and would be granted only to those who had already entered into a marriage or had children, and to those who claimed they entered the priesthood not of their own free will.
Most crucial, however, was the removal of provisions previously afforded to diocesan bishops through which they could request the laicization of priests within their ministries, with or without the priest’s consent, for example, in the cases of sexual abuse. As Nicholas P. Cafardi, professor and specialist in canon law, points out, “It is truly ironic that, just as the clergy child sexual abuse crisis began to mushroom in the mid-1980s, the bishops in the United States (and throughout the world, for that matter) lost … highly effective ways to deal with priests who had sexually abused children.”
Many Catholic commentators have asked the awful question: Did the declining numbers of priests have any influence on John Paul II’s reluctance to remove abusive clergy? Speculation aside, the perceived persistent secrecy and lack of resolution surrounding the Vatican’s handling of the sexual abuse crisis meant many followers began turning their backs on a church they felt was completely disconnected from the modern world, and this consequently became the legacy of the papacy of John Paul
II.
This has resulted in Cardinal Ratzinger’s twenty-four-year tenure at the CDF being tainted by association. But exactly what responsibility should be borne by Ratzinger for such a catastrophic mismanagement of a global scandal?
A RELUCTANT ENFORCER?
When attempting to delve into the psyche of Joseph Ratzinger, it is difficult to penetrate the fortress of privacy surrounding his own true feelings. There is evidence, however, that makes one confident that his time as prefect of the CDF did not fill him with great happiness.
After ten arduous years of enforcement, in 1991 Ratzinger suffered a cerebral stroke that affected his left field of vision. Having always had concerns regarding his own health, the sixty-four-year-old cardinal now asked John Paul to release him from his duties as prefect and allow him to return to Germany to resume his writings. His request was denied.
A year later, in 1992, Ratzinger was again hospitalized and required stitches after his head was cut open on a radiator when he blacked out in his rooms. Rather than allowing him to step down, John Paul “rewarded” him with yet more responsibility, elevating him to the prestigious rank of cardinal bishop—there are only ever six selected from within the College of Cardinals and these are the only cardinals eligible to become either dean or vice dean of the college—in 1993 and assigning him the Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni, located just outside Rome.
Five years after making his first request, Ratzinger once more asked the pope for dispensation to resign his post and return to Germany. He was again met with refusal and, two years later, another promotion, this time to vice dean of the College of Cardinals, a vice president–like role assisting the dean. In 2001, after another five-year interval, seventy-five-year-old Ratzinger made a last appeal to the now-ailing pontiff. Again his request was refused by John Paul, who, perhaps sensing the end was nigh, wanted his most loyal of servants with him in those last years. Ratzinger was “rewarded” for his service in 2002, when he was elected as dean of the College of Cardinals.
The Catholic Church reveres its martyrs and the exemplary suffering they have borne for their beliefs. Ratzinger proved no different when probed about his reluctance to accept high office and his numerous attempts to resign. Instead of complaining that he had never wanted such responsibility in the first place and would rather have been tucked up in Bavaria leading a life of quiet scholarship, he always brushed off such suggestions (with the exception of his “falling guillotine” comment) and insisted that he follows where God leads him. And it is precisely this air of unquestioning obedience, combined with his involvement in the abuse scandal and controversial output as prefect of the CDF—for example, he described homosexuality as a “strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil” and once called Buddhism an “auto-erotic spirituality” that seeks “transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations”—that has led to the predominant characterization of him as a relentless and aggressive inquisitor.
When considering all the facts and speculation, two things are clear. One is that Ratzinger truly wished to return home to Germany and live out the end of his days writing in solitude; the other is that his reputation upon the conclusion of his twenty-four years as chief inquisitor was far from favorable, and of this he would have been acutely aware. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that after his election as pope, in 2005—at a time when the church was facing one of its greatest crises—the inner conflicts he had already faced did not dissipate when the trust of God and his peers was placed in him to lead the church. They would only intensify under the pressure, continuing to haunt him and driving him down a path no one could have ever expected.
4
THE RELUCTANT POPE
At the age of seventy-eight, it was clear to both Pope Benedict XVI and the cardinals who would now serve under him that his papacy would not be a lengthy one. But it might be a safe one, providing continuity.
After twenty-six years of John Paul II’s theatrics, his outreach, his travel, travel, travel, the church needed to rest, regroup, and take stock. Ratzinger would be housekeeper in chief: steady, predictable, and able to reassert, protect, and strengthen ancient doctrine. In short, he would make sure that overdue reforms remained overdue.
In the days following his election, the new pope candidly—to a fault, some might say—admitted that as the tally of votes had increased in his favor and he understood that the “guillotine was coming closer and was meant for me,” he had prayed to God to spare him this burden. He had felt that “up until now my life’s work was done and that the years ahead of me would be more restful,” and that there were many candidates who were “younger, better, stronger, and have more élan” than he. His prayers went unanswered.
Now, when the new but very old pope found himself in the spotlight, his impulse was to retreat. As David Gibson notes, “Five days after his stunning election as pope, on the Sunday morning when Joseph Ratzinger was supposed to be introducing himself to the world as Benedict XVI, the new pontiff was instead confounding everyone around him by doing everything possible to disappear into the background.” In stark contrast to his publicity-savvy predecessor, Benedict attempted to hold his inaugural mass inside St. Peter’s Basilica, because, as he explained to the master of ceremonies in charge of the event, “there the architecture better directs the attention toward Christ, instead of the pope.” He was advised against such a move, not least because it would exclude the vast crowds expected to arrive in Vatican City on April 24.
When denied the privacy he craved, John Paul’s successor fell back on what he knew best: tradition. During his inaugural address on April 25, Benedict spoke of the strength he needed from the church and her followers, asking them to “pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves” as he embarked on a task which “truly exceeds all human capacity.” The mass proceeded with formal Gregorian chants, classic polyphony, and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. The contrast with the folksier and more familiar feel of the past twenty-six years was seen as a confirmation of how Vatican II would continue to be interpreted under his rule and as a strong “advertisement for ressourcement by returning to traditions from more than a millennium ago.”
It was not just musical traditions that were revived. The bookish Cardinal Ratzinger had been transformed overnight into the sartorially opulent Pope Benedict XVI, presenting himself in only the best that the papal wardrobe could provide. The internet was ablaze when the newly nicknamed “Prada Pope” stepped out in a pair of natty red leather loafers and an ermine-trimmed red velvet cape known as a mozzetta that had not been worn by a pope since Paul VI, in the 1970s. During his first papal Christmas, he donned yet more red velvet with ermine trim in the form of a camauro—a hat, not dissimilar to that of Father Christmas, popular with popes in the twelfth century—prompting headlines such as “SANTA POPE” WOOS VATICAN CROWDS and POPE DELIGHTS CROWDS WITH SANTA LOOK. Gone were the days of walking the streets of Rome in the traditional cardinal’s cassock: Was it possible he might have even begun to enjoy his new role?
While his evident passion for fashion was unexpected, Pope Benedict’s inaugural address merely revealed much of what was already known about his appetite for glorious liturgy. He held back key details when outlining his intentions as leader of a church in crisis and stated only that his “real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord.” These sentiments may have served him well in his role as prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when he was shielded from any real challenges thanks to his symbiotic relationship with John Paul II, but the office he inherited in 2005 had been wholly redefined by his predecessor and he had become more Bishop of the World than Bishop of Rome. With the pope, rather than Jesus Christ, now seen as the face of the church, Benedict’s stating that he wished to revert to traditional church principles during his homily suggested that he was attempting to manage the exp
ectations of the faithful … and the media.
BENEDICT AND THE “DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM”
The greatest threat to Catholicism perceived by Pope Benedict was from what he called in his last speech before election a “dictatorship of relativism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines relativism as a philosophical concept in which “the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to the moral standard of some person or group of persons.” It is understandably anathema to the Catholic Church’s adherence to absolutism, in which there is only one truth. Benedict believed that the faithful should strive to live by the unwavering moral standards of the church and its teachings, not that the church should update its views on such controversial moral issues as contraception, marriage, and homosexuality to sustain its position in the modern world.
This belief that truth, in the Christian sense, was under threat—by what Benedict described in 1999 as “the dissolution of law through the spirit of utopia … [where] the real and ultimate source of law becomes the idea of the new society: which is moral, of juridical importance and useful to the advent of the future world”—was, on the other hand, considered by many to be positive progress toward greater freedom and human rights. But the new pope remained fearful that if the “dictatorship of relativism” were allowed to remain, people would forget the concept of sin and become detached from the morals of God:
The majority determines what must be regarded as true and just. In other words, law is exposed to the whim of the majority, and depends on the awareness of the values of the society at any given moment, which in turn is determined by a multiplicity of factors.
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