Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation surprised the Church and shocked the secular world. No one would ever have thought about it save the trusted few.
Various reactions flowed in after such a historic step down. British Prime Minister David Cameron, while sending his best wishes to the Holy Father said: “He has worked tirelessly to strengthen Britain’s relations with the Holy See. His visit to Britain in 2010 is remembered with great respect and affection. He will be missed as a spiritual leader to millions.” Benedict’s XVI compatriot, German chancellor Angela Merkel, praised the Pontiff’s decision. “If the Pope himself, after thorough reflection, has come to the conclusion that he does not have the strength any more to carry out his duties, then [he] has my utmost respect.” Furthermore, she commented, “He is and remains one of the most significant religious thinkers of our time.” In a statement released on 11 February, the day of the Pope’s resignation announcement, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti expressed his “profound respect for Pope Benedict’s decision,” which he deemed it as “great and unexpected.” Mr Monti added: “I am sure that [the Holy Father’s decision] been inspired by the desire to serve the Church to the end and to ensure that in the future it may have a strong leadership.”
The Catholic Church has and continues to be blessed by Pope Benedict’s enduring legacy. The German Pope has been a faithful interpreter of Vatican II. Joseph Ratzinger was a man of the Council par excellence, first as theological adviser to Cardinal Frings of Cologne, later on as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and finally as the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of Saint Peter. Pope Ratzinger understood that Vatican II was not a revolution that should modernize the Church but rather a Council that initiated an evolution whose purpose was to make the Church a more apt vehicle for the bearing of the Christian message to an increasingly secularised world.
The second contribution the Pope made was to instil in the Church what I would call an “affirmative orthodoxy”. As soon as the panzer Cardinal was elected to the papacy, the anti-Catholic press immediately portrayed him as “God’s Rottweiler”. Nevertheless, Joseph Ratzinger’s gentle, sweet, pious and tempered spirit took many by surprise. The new Pope greatly emphasized divine love. In fact, his first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est,” is an excellent profound exposition on the subject. Benedict purposely endorsed an affirmative orthodox approach in his wise and erudite execution of the Petrine ministry. He zealously promoted what the Church says yes to rather than what she says no to, namely the God who is love and who passionately wants the human project to flourish. The key word that nicely and powerfully captured Benedict’s original programme was joy.
How many times did the Italian word “gioia” featured in all his speeches and writings? If, as Saint Irenaeus of Lyon said in the third century, that “Gloria Dei homo vivens”, in other words, “the glory of God is the human being fully alive”, then for Benedict XVI Christian joy is certainly the spiritual cause for God’s glory in and through the human person!
The final contribution this great Pope made was his insistence on viewing reality from a ‘Christ-centred’ perspective. From his early days as a young professor of dogmatic theology and adviser to Cardinal Frings, Joseph Ratzinger urged that the Church should turn away from a very rationalistic and deductive neo-scholastic approach to theology and opt instead for a much more patristic and biblical orientation. For Ratzinger, Jesus Christ is the source of revelation and the very life of his mystical body, the Church. As Benedict XVI, Ratzinger lovingly embraced Vatican II’s stance that “Christ ... fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes § 22). Moreover, the apex of his pastoral and academic life is found in his three-volume study on Jesus Christ, which he wrote recently.
This is the healing legacy of Benedict XVI.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
SAN GWANN