What a fitting Valentine's tale this is for all Benaddicts!
Joseph Ratzinger:
Thirty years in Rome
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from the 2/15/12 issue of
Thirty years ago, on February 15, 1982, it was made public that John Paul II had released Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from the pastoral governance of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising, and that in fact, on November 25, 1981, he had named the 54-year-old Bavarian cardinal to be the Prefect of the premier dicastery of the Roman Curia, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Thus, continuing to serve another three months as Archbishop of Europe's second largest diocese, it was not till February that Cardinal Ratzinger would come to Rome to take up his new post.
He had come here first in twenty years earlier, in 1962, to attend all four sessions of Vatican II till 1965 as a theological consultant to one of the leading actors in the Council, Cardinal Joseph Frings, Archbishop of Cologne.
After that, the brilliant German theologian came back to Rome several times, especially after 1977, when he was named Archbishop of Munich and created a cardinal one month later by Paul VI in his last consistory.
In the first conclave of 1978, after Paul VI died, Cardinal Ratzinger began a personal friendship with the then Archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyla, and in the second conclave, contributed to the latter's election, convinced, as he wrote in 2004, that "he was the Pope for the present hour" in the history of the Church.
A few months later, John Paul II called him to Rome to ask him to be the Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, but Cardinal Ratzinger said he did not think it right to leave his Archdiocese after only two years.
But John Paul II wanted him in Rome, so in February 1981, he informed the Cardinal that he intended to name him Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, although he did not manage to overcome the cardinal's objection to leaving Munich until the autumn of 1981.
After arriving here in February 1982, Joseph Ratzinger would never again leave Rome except for official trips and short visits back home.
With the passage of years and his desire to return fulltime to a life of study which he always felt to be his calling, John Paul II asked him to stay on as head of the CDF, as well as his primary theological adviser.
Thus, for a quarter century, the two men held the Church together from Rome - tertio millennio adveniente, into the third millennnium - as the men of our time made a transition towards the secular age: accompanying mankind and bearing strong witness that God is near, as the true followers of Jesus have maintained through the centuries, despite all the sins and human imperfections present in the Church.
And then in 2005, much more was asked of Joseph Ratzinger when he was elected Pope in one of the shortest Conclaves in modern times, an election he had not sought in any way, but which he accepted with the simple serenity that impresses anyone who has ever been near him even for a moment.
"I don't know anything about him, but he has kind eyes", said an old Roman woman at the time.
And in the seven years of his Pontificate so far, Benedict XVI has conveyed every day, not only to the faithful, that which he said in 2006 in Munich, in front of the Mariensauele, the pillar in honor of Mary. Citing St. Augustine's interpretation of a psalm, he said he was like a pack animal laboring for a peasant to whom he felt very near, as he feels near our Lord Jesus, and because of this, he fears no evil.
One also reads this feeling of total trust in God in his valuable 1997 autobiography in which he recounted the first 50 years of his life.
Today, 30 years since the start of the Roman period of this gentle pastor, who does not retreat from the attacks of wolves, we already have a clear profile of a mature Pontificate which will take its place in history, dissipating stereotypes that are hard to die and presenting a sharp contrast to the irresponsible and unworthy actions of his opponents.
Critics and detractors who are caught up in the media uproar, inevitable but not disinterested, providing an opportunity for that purification that the Church always needs.
A Pontiff of peace who wishes to revive the flame of God's primacy, Benedict XVI is perfectly consistent with his personal history. One marked by a broad outlook, which during his three decades in Rome, has always sought to have universal breadth and has spurred his work of innovation and purification, pursued with courage, tenacity and patience, well aware that by night the enemy continues to sow bad seed.
And so the Pope tirelessly urges continuous renewal -
ecclesia semper reformanda, a Church ever
re-forming - confident that the holiness of the Church shall never be obfuscated for as long as, in listening to the Truth, the People of God remain close to the one Lord.
Benedict XVI's remarks at the Mariensauele in Munich on Sept. 15, 2006, bear re-reading:
I hope you will allow me to recall on this occasion a few thoughts which I set down in my brief memoirs with regard to my appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising. I was to become, and did become, the successor of Saint Corbinian.
From my childhood I was very much taken with the story that a bear had attacked and killed the horse on the saint was riding across the Alps. Corbinian severely scolded the bear and he punished him by loading him down with all his baggage and making him carry it all the way to Rome. So the bear, carrying the baggage of the saint, had to go to Rome, and only there was he allowed by the saint to go free.
In 1977, when I had to face the difficult choice of whether or not to accept my appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, knowing that it would take me away from my usual work at the university and mean new work and new responsibilities, I had to do a lot of reflecting.
And precisely then I remembered this bear and the interpretation of verses 22 and 23 of Psalm 73 that Saint Augustine, in a situation much like my own and in the context of his own priestly and episcopal ordination, had come up with and later set down in his sermons on the Psalms.
In Psalm 73, the Psalmist asks why in this world good things often happen to bad people, while bad things happen to many good people. And he goes on to say: “I was foolish in my thinking, I stood in your presence like a dumb beast. But then I entered the sanctuary and I understood how even amid my troubles I was close to you and that you were always with me”.
Augustine loved this Psalm and often made reference to it, seeing in the words “I stood in your presence like a dumb beast” (in Latin, iumentum) a reference to the beasts of burden used in North Africa to work the land.
In this iumentum he saw an image of himself as a beast of burden for God, someone burdened by his responsibility, the sarcina episcopalis(episcopal burden). He had chosen the life of a scholar and God had called him to become a “beast of burden”, a sturdy ox drawing the plough in God’s field, doing the heavy labour assigned to him.
But he came to realize: just as the beast of burden is very close to the farmer, working under his direction, so I am very close to God, because thus I serve him directly for the building up of his Kingdom, the the building up of his Church.
With these words of the Bishop of Hippo in mind, I have found in Saint Corbinian’s bear a constant encouragement to carry out my ministry with confidence and joy – thirty years ago, and again now in my new task – and to say my daily “yes” to God: I have become for you a beast of burden, but as such “I am always with you” (Ps 73:23).
Saint Corbinian’s bear was set free in Rome. In my case, the Lord decided otherwise. And so I find myself once more at the foot of the Mariensäule, imploring the intercession and blessing of the Mother of God, not only for the city of Munich and for my beloved Bavaria, but for the universal Church and for all people of good will.
In the last lines of MILESTONES (written in 1997), Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, poignantly, thinking of himself as Corbinian's bear and the psalmist and Augustine's beast of burden: :
In the meantime I have carried my load to Rome and have now been wandering the streets of the Eternal City for a long time. I do not know when I will be released, but one thing I do know: that the exclamation applies to me too: "I have become your donkey, and in just this way I am with you".
Benedict XVI as the 'donkey working in the vineyard of the Lord'. If I were a cartoonist, I would start drawing daily cartoons using the image!
Joseph Ratzinger, Roman
30 years ago, he came to Rome to work -
Who knew he would be elected Bishop of Rome?
Translated from
February 14, 2012
Thirty years have passed since the former Archbishop of Munich-Freising came to live in the city which would see him chosen as Successor to Peter.
Thirty years later, Piazza della Città Leonina 1, in the popular but 'papal' neighborhood of Rome, Borgo Pio, is still the private address of Joseph Ratzinger. No one has moved into the apartment.
[Perhaps the Vatican, which owns the building, wants to keep the place as a historical site, since Benedict XVI is the first Pope in a long time to have actually lived in Rome before becoming Pope. None of the Italian Popes were Roman, except Pius XII who lived in Germany in the years before he was elected Pope and did not appear to have an immediate family by the time he became Pope.]
This was his residence starting from shortly after he arrived in Rome on February 15, 1982, to take up his new position as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Joseph Ratzinger lived in this apartment, 'in the shadow of St. Peter's Dome' as Romans would say, for the next 23 years. He became a discreet but familiar presence in the neighborhood.
Every morning, like clockwork, he walked from his apartment to the Palazzo del Sant'Uffizio, on the farther side of the Bernini Colonnades, to carry out his very sensitive job as Prefect of the CDF.
John Paul II had named him to the position on November 25, 1981.
But he did not immediately move to Rome. According to the man who was his private secretary from 1984-2003, Mons. Josef Clemens, the cardinal only "left his pastoral administration of the Archdiocese of Munich" that February 15 thirty years ago. Not knowing, obviously, that Rome would become his permanent residence.
Today, Benedict XVI can look out on the Eternal City from his papal apartment but he can no longer walk its streets. In the borgo near the Vatican, his presence is still felt, and Rome had become his city even before he became its Bishop.
Clemens says that when the Cardinal first arrived in Rome from Munich, "the apartment at Piazza della Citta Leonina was not ready - they were still renovating it, and so for a short while, he lived at the Collegio Teutonico. It was not until April that he moved into the building" which is just off the Porta Angelica, one of the gates to the Vatican.
His name was never shown on the buzzer box for the building, but he soon became a familiar figure in the neighborhood, walking around in a black beret. He patronized most of the shops in the area, and he had his favorite restaurants. He walked comfortably and anonymously among residents, tourists, pilgrims and ambulant vendors populating the always busy streets of Borgo Pio.
He would go to Cantina Tirolese on via Vitteleschi, which people thought was his favorite restaurant because it served Bavarian food and a hot chocolate drink that be loved. Or to Passetto di Borgo, at Borgo Pio 60, where he enjoyed Roman dishes.
One could also find the cardinal browsing the bookstores in Via della Conciliazione. He frenuented the Libreria Leoniana on Via dei
Corridori to check out the latest publications in theology and philosophy.
But his Rome was not limited to the Vatican and his neighborhood. He felt a special bond with the eastern suburban parish of Casalbertone, because the Church of Santa Maria Consolatrice was his titular Church from 1977 to 1993.
He developed an intimate relationship with the parishioners, whom he visited frequently to say Sunday Mass. As Pope, his first pastoral visit to a Roman diocese was to Santa Maria Consolatrice.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/02/2012 15:46]