Thanks to Lella's blog, which she has re-baptised to
for pointing me to this excellent article.
Analysis:
Where is Benedict XVI's
Pontificated headed?
The chief religion editor of Le Figaro says the Pope opens
a true space for debate in meeting sensitive issues head-on.
by Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from
December 22, 2009
This a-mediatic Pope knows exactly where he wants to go.
Is 2009 the worst year so far of Benedict XVI's Pontificate? Not according to the Pope, who on Monday morning, calmly reported to the Roman Curia on a year that was loaded with controversy.
Around Christmas time every year, the Pope and his closest co-workers meet to exchange Christmas greetings. It has become an occasion for him to speak about Church policy in general, a report he prepares himself, writing it out by hand.
And the meeting is never anodyne! It was the setting he chose to announce in December 2005 his interpretation of the Second Vatican Council - not one of 'rupture' but reconciled with the Tradition of the Church.
He made no reference Monday to the successive media storms that marked this year for the Pope: the Williamson case in January; the AIDS controversy as he began his first trip to Africa in March; and this weekend, his go-ahead for the beatification process of Pius XII. Without forgetting the excommunication of persons connected to an abortion performed on a 9-year-old rape victim in Brazil
[strangely, this made media 'waves' only in Brazil and France - although the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith eventually had to step in to straighten out the controversy generated in the Vatican newspaper itself, due to the hasty condemnation of the local Brazilian bishops by the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the OR's refusal to give equal space to the bishops to respond.]
Without dealing with these matters, Benedict XVI chose to look at the pastoral implications of his three trips abroad in 2009 - to Africa, the Holy Land and the Czech Republic.
Far from stirring up confrontation, he dwelt on the spirit of 'reconciliation' that should animate the Church and every Christian. A spirit of reconciliation which, he says, can bring peace
[because it is a pre-condition for true peace]. And it can change the world because it has 'political' consequences.
The problem is that many, both within and outside the Catholic Church, do not share this peaceable state of mind.
During the past twelve months that have
darkened [I am not sure the term is objective or appropriate!] the image of the Church, Catholics continue to be troubled. Some are angry or disappointed. Some are uneasy even if there are many who faithfully support the Pope.
[How can any individual make such judgments using the terms 'some' and 'many' to refer to a Church with 1.2 billion members? No one is in a position to quantify who among those 1.2 billion are angry, disappointed, and uneasy - or how many faithfully 'support the Pope'. And any such judgments only reflect the journalist's subjective extrapolation of his own state of mind and that of the circles he moves in. Just as I choose to believe there are hundreds of millions of 'simple faithful' like me who believe and follow the Church, however imperfectly with our human limitations, but nonetheless with true faith']
In any case, it must be noted, once and for all, that this Pope charts his own course.
[which, as he said in his Inaugural Mass homily, is to do as God wills.]. He will never allow himself to be influenced by media pressure.
[Nor by other pressures, such as the militant Jews, from the outside, and dissident prelates and Catholic lobbies on the inside.]
Proof was his surprise decision on Saturday, to open the way for Pius XII's beatification along with that of John Paul II.
The historical debate over Pius's Pontificate has been head-on, and ultra-sensitive, in the context of Catholic relations with the Jews. But Benedict XVI knows what he needs to do.
After sufficient reflection
[and an internal supplementary investigation into the historical record available at the Vatican], the German Pope decided to go ahead in the matter of Pius XII -
when everyone had thought he would simply leave it to his eventual successor to deal with the problem!
Rome has a colorful expression to describe this kind of a problem: 'patata bollente', which is weakly translated in French [and in English as well] as 'hot potato', since it is in fact, a boiling issue.
But this decision to place Pius XII"s cause back on track shows above all that this
a-mediatic Pope knows very well where he wants to go.
The Pius XII 'case'. like the other 'cases' or 'affairs' (Regensburg, the opening to the Lefebvrians, the approach to AIDS) - is not just the stuff of sporadic headlines. They stir up real social debates which are fundamental, serious and even violent.
In this sense, Benedict XVI obliges his interlocutors to intellectual honesty. And that is, without a doubt, his best asset.
Of course, everyone has the right to disagree with him, but his position is always clear. And he presents these positions himself before the tribunal of the public - without demagogery, without ambiguity, and without any false diplomacy.
Three years since the crisis that followed the Regensburg lecture, the perception is that relations between the Church and Islam have never been so good - because the controversy had led to
a dialog of truth.
Might it be that the virtue of this demanding and disquieting Pontificate is to provoke a clear and well-reasoned debate which obliges a review of a priori positions that are often too simplistic?
Guenois has captured the gist of Benedict's singular leadership, and has spelled it out with what I find to be surprising intellectual honesty on his part, something I have stopped trying to expect from the media in general. May there be more like him!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/12/2009 19:37]