'No alternative to Benedict XVI'
Interview with Sandro Magister
by Eusebio Val
Translated from
November 5, 2010
La Vanguardia, the fourth largest newspaper in Spain, is a Barcelona-based Spanish daily, along with El Periodico de Catalunya. Other Barcelona newspapers are in Catalan.
Sandro Magister is one of the most prestigious and respected of Vatican correspondents. Trained in theology, he has covered Catholic events for the past 40 years. He writes for
L'Espresso magazine, and ten years ago, he established the site
www.chiesa as a quadrilingual Web platform for his
L'Espresso articles.
On the eve of Benedict XVI's visit to Santiago and Barcelona, he analyzes the key points of Benedict XVI's Pontificate.
What has surprised you about Benedict XVI?
The extreme simplicity with which he expresses his vision. This is a Pope who has put everything into his words. Books are an important way for him to reach the public directly, without intermediaries, and to be understood fully. When he delivers his homilies, those who are present [or who watch him on TV] can hear him, but few others, who, even then, may only get it in fragments. But he is certainly a Pope who has known how to drive home his messages.
You would say a success...
I believe so. The surprise is that this intellectual Pope is so much more appreciated and better understood by regular folk than by so-called intellectuals. As far as public opinion is concerned, at least the dominant opinion in the media, he has been subject to intense criticism. But it is not shared by the wider public. As a theologian Pope, one would think he would be difficult to understand, and yet he is much better understood in substance by simple people.
Why do you say that?
Based on some rather obvious evidence. All his trips, for instance, have been preceded by much sharp polemics which strike at him as a person even, and by forecasts that the worst setbacks will happen. But he has always proven such forecasts wrong. From the moment he arrives, he commands attention, respect and a surprising popularity with the public. The visit to the United Kingdom was remarkably successful.
What is the status of Catholicism today?
Not particularly shining. And this Pope knows that very well. There are few persons in the world who have such a direct and analytical perception of the world than Benedict XVI.
Before he became Pope, he worked in the Roman Curia for over two decades, during which he met and spoke with
every bishop who came to Rome. Of course, they saw the Pope, but it was mostly just for a formal exchange of greetings.
But before or after seeing the Pope, they called on Cardinal Ratzinger - and he listened to each one of those 5,000 bishops that the Church has around the world [who are required to visit Rome once every five years for these ad limina visits], getting from them information and analysis on their respective dioceses.
That is why he has an extraordinarily precise overview of the general state of the Church in every nation. As Pope, he has used this knowledge well - and it is obvious.
[He also continues to meet the visiting bishops individually, before addressing each group altogether.]
But Europe is a fundamental concern for him...
Yes, in large measure. He has always been very aware of the decline of Christianity precisely in the continent where it had been a most extraordinary phenomenon, one that shaped Europe itself. That is why one of his major objectives is to reawaken Europe's sense of its Christian identity, which is now greatly threatened and even lost.
One other element to highlight is that Benedict XVI is convinced that the Church, instead of giving orders, must make institutional changes itself, that her members must be re-educated, that Catholics must reconstruct their own culture. And he knows that cannot be done quickly, much less by command. But that it can come about by insistent, continuing and methodical teaching, particularly directed to the clergy.
He is convinced that the Catholic clergy should undergo some kind of spiritual rebirth. That is why he keeps talking about purification. And why he sees the problem with pedophile priests as proof that the Church urgently needs this purification and spiritual renewal.
He is 83 now. Is he a transitional Pope?
I've never seen him as a transitional Pope. By the very way he was elected, he cannot be considered transitional. He was elected on the fourth ballot, having had the most votes from the start - that is a Pope who was wanted by those who who elected him, a Pope who is loved for who he is and what he represents. Not a transitional Pope at all.
But he is not young...
No, but curiously, in spite of his advanced age, there have been no elucubrations in the world media about a successor. There have been no bets placed on papabili. No one behaves as though the Church were on the verge of another conclave! And that is due in large part to the fact that he is seen to be in good health. And the incredible regularity of his routine - that's not a Pope who is about to leave the scene.
Do you think the next Pope will follow his line?
I believe so, yes. Because in the Church today, there is no alternative way - nor are there competent persons who could embody such an alternative. The same way there was really no alternative when he was elected. The opposing faction was incredibly weak. If one could consider the liberal progressive wing associated with Cardinal Carlo maria Martini as the alternative, well, as far as we know, he got less than 10 votes at the Conclave.
There was no alternative 'plan' for the Church then, and much less today! Yes, Benedict XVI has met resistances, but they have been disordered and confused, and they do not represent a coherent plan. There is no Plan B for the Church today - only that which Benedict XVI is carrying out, with all the strength he has.
It must not be forgotten that he can have many more years before him, just like Leo XIII who was also elected at an advanced age but lived to be 92, and had a long Pontificate that was rich with initiatives.
PAPA RATZINGER:
Father of the Church
by CARDINAL JULIAN HERRANZ
Translated from
November 5, 2010
Spanish Cardinal Herranz (born 1930) is the highest ranking Opus Dei prelate in the Catholic church and was one of the canon law experts in John Paul II's Pontificate. Until 2007, when he retired, he was president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. ABC is Spain's third largest newspaper of record, after El Pais and El Mundo, and is generally conservative compared to the ultra-liberal El Pais.
Benedict XVI comes as a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela. And on this trip, he also manifests his special affinity with the Apostle: "From James the Greater, we can learn many things: the promptness with which he responded to the call of the Lord, even when he asks us to abandon the 'boat' of our human certainties, his enthusiasm in following Christ through the paths which he shows us, his readiness to bear witness with such valor" (Benedict XVI, 5/21/06)
These are apostolic traits that summarize quite well the pastoral ministry of Joseph Ratzinger, this modern Father of the Church - let me dare to call him this.
I make the analogy because the present circumstances of the Church and the world, and the characteristics of Benedict XVI as a person and of his work, make him closely akin, in both the intellectual and pastoral dimensions, to the early Fathers of the Church (Basil, Athanasius, Augustine, to name a few) who, by their rich teachings and governance of the Church interpreted the signs of their times with special clearsightedness, and contributed decisively to saving the faith and its orthodoxy, the harmony between reason and faith, and the values of civilization.
In this sense, I would like to comment on three great pastoral challenges to the Pontificate of Benedict XVI:
The first has to do with the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council and the so-called post-Conciliar crisis. There was a period of dramatic confusion in wide sectors of the Church:
- Tendencies to 'update' theology by marginalizing the divinity of Christ;
- A temporal interpretation of the Gospel message, reducing the mission of the Church to socio-political ends;
- A secular reading of the priestly identity and mission, along with its lifestyle, leading to a serious hemorrhaging by defections;
- Liturgical experimentation which was often anarchic and desacralization, etc.
On the other hand, some groups have clung to a reductive traditionalism that has included opposition to Rome.
Joseph Ratzinger has opposed those two extreme positions, first as Cardinal, particularly in 1985 with the famous
Rapporta sulla fede [published in English as
The Ratzinger Report], which has been rightly called 'a historically prophetic denunciation', and now as Pope, who jealously guards the unity of the faith and communion in the Church.
"No one can deny," he told us in the Roman Curia around Christmas 2005, "that in vast areas of the Church, the implementation of the Council has been somewhat difficult", and after citing words by St. Basil after the Council of Nicaea, he specified: "On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture'... On the other, there is the hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in continuity..."
But the clarity with which Joseph Ratzinger faced another great challenge was not so much after St. Basil, the monk-bishop of Cappadocia, but after St. Augustine, who with his
City of God disengaged the destiny of Christianity from the politico-cultural fate of the decadent Roman Empire.
It was on April 18, 2005. In his homily at the Mass that preceded the Conclave, in referring to the cultural and moral degradation of wide sectors of society, he told us cardinals:
How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents..., how many ways of thinking... Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.
Thus, while John Paul II had specifically opposed the 'totalitarian utopia' of justice without freedom that characterized Communism and Nazism, Benedict XVI opposes the 'relativist utopia' of freedom without truth, namely, without values and objective truths to protect.
In the socio-political context, relativism is a sign of cultural and anthropological decadence, since a democracy without values, which relativism causes to lose its own identity, is a decadent democracy, which could easily degenerate into open or insidious totalitarianism" (Address, 10/1/2005).
But Papa Ratzinger, like the early Fathers of the Church, is not a man who simply points out errors or dangers: he teaches that Christianity is the encounter with the Word incarnate, with Christ, who reveals to man not just the mystery of God also that of man: the supreme dignity of his nature and eternal destiny.
Thus, without 'doing politics', he proposes a society in which the harmony of faith and reason is the measure of true humanism, and where a healthy concept of secularity - which respects the dignity of man and his inalienable rights, including freedom of religion and of conscience - can overcome secular fundamentalism, which is hostile to the familial, social and cultural relevance of Christianity, and of religion in general.
From secularist fundamentalism to Islamic fundamentalism, which is the third great challenge that Benedict XVI has faced in a dialogal and constructive way - in the famous lecture at the University of Regensburg in September 2006, his trip to Turkey afterwards, and most recently, in the Bishops' Synodal Assembly on the Middle East.
His repeated affirmation that "not to act according to reason is contrary to the nature of God" and that "every religion must respect the dignity of man" helps to understand that the act of faith has to be a free and reasoned act, never imposed by violence - not by the physical violence of terrorism nor by the violence of civil laws that do not respect freedom of worship and of conscience.
Ultimately, it is about the encounter "between faith and reason, between illustration and religion", and about entering into a dialog among Christians and Muslims that starts from mutual respect of personal dignity, which helps to promote 'common values like peace and human life; and opposing the dictatorship of positivist reason which excludes God from the life of the community".
May the Apostle St. James intercede for these intentions!
`
The folowing essay gives us, among other things, more information about Joseph Ratzinger's previous trips to Spain:
The German Pope who loves Spain and
is concerned that she has become secular
by Jose Manuel Vidal
Translated from
Nov. 4, 2010
Benedict XVI has a 'special preference' for Spain, says the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, a man not given to hyperbole. And when he says 'special preference', he means that Papa Ratzinger is fascinated by Spain - for what she was (hammer of heretics and evangelizer of the New World), for what she is (the laboratory for secularism), and for what she can be in the immediate future (a trial ground for the new evangelization of once Christian nations).
Olegario González de Cardedal is one of the few Spanish theologians who can claim to be a friend of the Pope - a friendship that was forged in academic halls and the rarefied heights of theological study.
Oelgario was the first to invite him to Spain back then, and was his guide in Avila and Salamanca, and in Ibiza where they visited with another former professor from the Salamanca, today the Bishop of Almeria, Adolfo González Montes.
Professor Gonzalez recalls: "Joseph Ratzinger came to Spain for the first time in 1989, then again in 1993, to lecture at the theology courses I was giving in the University of Madrid. He has had the misfortune of being 'captured' by by some who point to him as the representative of the orthodoxy they espouse, and those who began and obstinately perpetrated the caricature of the Panzerkardinal, the Inquisitor alone in his ivory tower, scourge of liberation theology and prime mover of the Church's war against modernity".
From El Escorial
[that formidable Renaissance fortress-palace-monastery of Charles V and Phillip II, where the University of Madrid - known locally as the Complutense - holds its summer courses], he visited the Valle de los Caidos
[Valley of the Fallen, the memorial complex built by Franco to honor those who died in the Spanish Civil War], with Gustavo Villapalos, who was then the rector of the Complutense.
Returning to Madrid. Villapalos says Rtazinger told him that he found the monastery at the Valle de los Caidos more interesting than the one at El Escorial and even most of those had visited elsewhere in Europe, because of "the originality of its concept and its spirituality".
On the other hand, in seven trips to Spain before this weekend, he had never been to Barcelona or Compostela. And yet, his personal coat of arms, as cardinal and as Pope, prominently features a golden scallop, symbol of the pilgrim as well as a traditional symbol of the Chistian faith.
In 1998, he was given a doctorate honoris causa by the University of Navarra , and he availed of that visit to Pamplona to present his memoir
Mi vida at a news conference where he said that "one does not dialog with crime" and spoke about the need for a new awareness to combat terrorism from the point of view of Christian humanism.
Twice he came to Murcia. In 2002, to preside at Holy Mass in Caravaca de la Cruz, inaugurating the preparatory year to the Jubilee of teh Holy Cross, and to close a Christological Congress organized by the Universidad Catolica de San Antonio of Murcia.
At that time, he said at a news conference that "a united Europe should not only be an economic and political entity, but one that has spiritual foundations", and that t"he Christian faith continues to be the criterion for the fundamental values of the continent, which in its turn had given rise to those of other continents".
Two years after, he returned to Murcia give a lecture at the university - and a few months later, he was elected Pope.
But more than just the Spanish landscape and history, what this Pope knows best about our land are our great mystics and saints. Benedict XVI is a consummate expert on Saints Augustine and Bonaventure, who were the subjects of his academic dissertations, but he is also a profound admirer of the Spanish mystics. Especially St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, whose works constitute supreme spiritual nourishment for him.
[NB: John Paul II was also a special devotee of John of the Cross, who was the subject of his doctoral dissertation.] Perhaps because his life as a Catholic intellectual has always been guided by spirituality and truth. Indeed, his episcopal motto is 'Cooperators in the truth'.
And so, Spain is a land known and loved by this Pope. And a nation that is of great concern to him particularly. It is not by chance that His Holiness is travelling to Compostela and Barcelona on his second trip to Spain since he became Pope.
In 2006, he visited Valencia for the Fifth World Encounter of Families. And in August next year, he will visit Madrid to preside at World Youth Day. Which makes three visits in five years. More than he has made to his native land where he has been twice.
Our ambassador to the Holy See, Francisco Vazquesz, rightly noted: "We have the honor of being the country most visited by our present Pope, which is a privilege as well as a sign of special attention".
And basically, a sign of great concern. Because Catholic Spain of the sledgehammer faith and spiritual reservoir of the West for centuries has become secularized at great strides imposed by law in recent years.
The numbers speak for themselves and are implacable. At present, only 72% of Spaniards identify themselves as Catholic compared to 80% in 2002, but only 14% go to Mass (down from 20%). Moreover, half of those below 25 have turned their backs on the Church, which is also losing its grip on the rites of passage - the 'social sacraments' of marriage and baptism. In 2009, for the first time, there were more civil marriages in Spain than Church marriages.
But, as always, the data can be read two ways. Against the negative figgures, the bishops choose to look at the more positive picture - which is that every Sunday, some 8-10 million Catholics go to Mass, a total of militant faithful that far outnumbers the combined membership of the country's various political parties, labor unions and members of football clubs!
What most preoccupies Rome is not the low proportion of observant Catholics but the inexorable drift of a nation which just a decade ago was, with Italy, Ireland and Poland, the most fundamentally Christian of the European nations, and which has now become the militant vanguard of secularism.
In the words of tbe Pope's minister of culture, Cardinal-designate Gianfranco Ravasi: "Before this, when one spoke of a secular nation par excellence, one meant France, but for some time now, Spain has become number-1 in the ranking". Even if he did not say so, he obviously meant the Spain of Jose Luis Zapatero
[who came to power in 2002].
In the eyes of the Church, the leader of Spain's Socialist government has converted Spain into the symbol of secular Europe and of the continent's moral degradation. In a worsening situation, which, in the words of Cardinal Rouco Varela, Archbishop of Madrid and president of the Spanish bishops' conference, "has seen five years now of the new law on matrimony inscribed in the Civil Code, which no longer recognizes and protects matrimony as the traditional union of man and woman, and which has seen this year the approval of a new law that represents a serious step back in the protection of the unborn"
[legalized abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy].
And the Archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Lluis Martínez Sistach, drives home the point, saying that "the situation of Spain is a cause of pain to the Holy Father" with the new abortion law on top of legalizing same-sex marriage.
The Vatican fears the contagion of Zapatero's political moves, especially on the nations of Latin America, where various nations have already approved same-sex marriage and many are preparing to decriminalize abortion.
Although relations have been smoothed out between Spain and the Vatican lately, thanks to the work of Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, the Foreign Minister until recently, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, and the Amassasdor to teh Holy See, Francisco Vázquez, the battleground remains the same.
And certainly, the Pope will address this basic conflict in his messages during the brief visit. As always, proposing rather than imposing, Benedict XVI will affirm loud and clear the Church's defense of the family and of life from conception to natural death - the themes, as Fr. Lombardi underscored, "that most keeps us apart".
That is the theme of Papa Ratzinger's crusade, along with the recovery of Europe's Chrtistian roots. One of his priorities is calm constructive dialog with those who have lost the faith or who have abandoned it. That is to say, with those who daily add to the ranks of the indifferent.
Given the opportunity to be heard, he can certainly convince them of the benefits faith can bring to the daily personal, social and cultural life of the nations of Europe, because as he likes to day, "God gives everything and takes away nothing". On the contrary, the modern world loses much in its silent apostasy, living 'as if God did not exist".
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/11/2010 11:43]