BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Famiglia Cristiana online has started to compile a dossier on Benedict XVI's renunciation, and one of the first contributions is this brief memoir by Vittorio Messori...

Joseph Ratzinger:
The gentle modest man
I've known for over 25 years
by Vittorio Messori
Translated from

February 19, 2013

More than 25 years ago in Bressanone, I met a person who is among the most courteous = even the most modest - that I have ever known.

My colleagues have asked me to recall at least how the first meeting came to be, an encounter more than a quarter-century ago with the man whose renunciation of the Petrine ministry has stirred up the sentiments of a billion and a half Catholics and caused worldwide uproar.

And they have asked me not to hesitate to "take a personal line'.

I do so willingly, but with some melancholy: The unexpected end of Benedict XVI's Pontificate also ends, for whatever it is worth, the central and most committed part of my professional life.

I am a bit uneasy at getting into autobiographical mode, but I agreed to do this because my little story is also tied in with the story of the group that publishes Famiglia Cristiana [Italy's most widely-circulated weekly magazine].

At the end of 1978, having left a city and a newspaper that I loved (Turin and La Stampa),I accepted the invitation of the unforgettable don Zilli to create a monthly religious magazine for Famiglia Cristiana, giving it a more committed name. In fact, nothing less than JESUS - said in the Latin manner, not English as I often hear it pronounced.

My meeting with don Zilli in Milan was due to the singular and unexpected success of my first book, Ipotesi su Gesù (Hypothesis on Jesus), which called attention to who I was, and which naturally did not displease me - a simple, quiet man who had been the editor of the cultural supplement to the daily newspaper (La Stampa) of the House of Agnelli.

The original editorial staff of the new monthly was originally limited to don Attonio Tarzia, the editor; myself, and a young but very competent secretary, Maura Ferrari. With don Toto (as his friends called him), I decided that the strong point of each issue would be a long, in-depth interview with the leading thinkers of the day - Christian of other faiths, agnostics or atheists - that would be called 'Dialoghi su Gesu' (Dialogs on Jesus).

After a few years, this gave rise to a book, that is still in the Mondadori catalog, entitled Inchiesta sul cristianesimo (An investigation of Christianity). Every month, I added the portrait of an authoritative thinker to my collection, but at a certain point, I started to have a dream: Since all of my inquiries revolved around faith, why not interview the man who, in the Catholic Church, was the guardian of orthodoxy?

Paul VI had profoundly renewed what had once been the Holy Office [of the Inquisition, as others might add]. To 'replace' the feared institution, he created the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

To lead it, John Paul II in his time called on the Archbishop of Munich, who had been a professor of theology, Joseph Ratzinger. I had read his Introduction to Christianity, which I appreciated as much as I came to appreciate the declarations and documents that he started to issue in his new Roman service.

I was gripped by an idee fixe: This Bavarian cardinal was the man who would put a grand finale to my series of testimonials to faith. The few to whom I expressed this thought looked at me with an ironic smile. Someone even advised me, a bit in jest, to take time off for rest and recreation because it was evident that I was delirious.

Don't you realize, they asked me, that despite the change in name, the CDF was still the direct heir of the Holy Office of the inquisitors, the only congregation in the Church whose archives were still hermetically sealed? That this institution had made secrecy and silence its very essence?

And yet, and yet... It came to pass that on the eve of Ferragosto (Assumption Day) in 1984, I found myself pacing in front of the main door to the major seminary in Bressanone awaiting His Rminence Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who had agreed to talk to me not for just a couple of hours but over a period of three days.

The project was no longer a brief interview for a newspaper, but a conversation across the board that would become a book to be published, obviously by San Paolo, if only because, my editor, don Toto, was among the few who did not think I was lunatic but did all he could to achieve what had seemed like a utopian goal.

So I was pacing in that little square in Brizen/Bressanone expecting the arrival of a limousine with SCV (Stato della Citta del Vaticano) tags. Instead, there came a Volkswagen with Regensburg plates driven by a good-natured man (whom I learned later was his brother), and out came a priest in the modest clergyman outfit of a parish priest, with a boyish face that was in stark contrast to his crown of hair which was already totally white. It was 'him'.

Three days later,I would be leaving that front door carrying in my suitcase some 20 hours of tapes that would agitate the entire Church through a book which continues to be reprinted in multiple languages, under the title Rapporto sulla Fede(Report on Faith, published in English as The Ratzinger Report).

Thus began a friendship that, although in an obviously discontinuous way, lasted through the years, which (except for our latest brief encounter - after a GA in St. Peter's Square) allowed me to deepen my knowledge of the man.

The man who had struck me right away as being the opposite of the 'black legend' that had been created about him. Instead of a fearsome Grand Inquisitor, I found a person who is among the most courteous and gentle, even downright shy, persons whom I have ever met.

Instead of a fanatical ideologue, I found a man ready to listen, to understand, to interpret in the best way what his interlocutor says, firm on the essentials but elastic on accessory matters.

Instead of a somber and severe priest, I found a person gifted with a pleasant sense of humour, ever ready to smile and to respond, with finesse, to any joke or punchline.

Instead of a man smugly ensconced in the past, I found a curious person who was informed not only about current studies in theology and philosophy, but about everything significant that was happening in the world.

Instead of a cardinal who had climbed his way to getting a red hat, I found a priest surprised at what had happened to him, who had accepted higher assignments only for love of the Church, and who spoke with some regret about his interrupted research and plans for books that had to be postponed indefinitely.

It would not be easy, in the ecclesial atmosphere of the time (mid 1980s) to convincingly present this image - the true one - of the presumed heir of the Inquisitors, who was moreover German and who had been mandatorily enrolled in the Hitler Youth like other boys his age in Nazi Germany.

Indeed, it was probably only after he had been elevated to the Papacy that the Church and the world started gradually to discover the authentic Joseph Ratzinger.

Many, a great many, discovering him, came to love him. And now, they respect his decision but they grieve at the prospect of not seeing him again and not to hear him repeat as he often has - lovingly and not menacingly - the truths that the Church announces.

Which seems to lead naturally to this beautiful reflection by convert and theologian Scott Hahn, whose presentations on EWTN about the Bible and the centrality of the word 'covenant' in man's relationship with God are truly riveting... It's a belated post but that does not make his testimonial any less compelling.

Benedict will always be there for us
by SCOTT HAHN


Like most Catholics, I woke on the morning of Feb. 11, 2013, to a
different sort of alarm.

Nothing in my past — indeed, very little in history — had prepared me for what I found in the news that day.

To many people, the Pope resigning seemed an impossibility, like a square circle.

But that wasn’t my particular problem. As a theologian, I knew it could be done. In fact, the conditions had been publicly rehearsed by no less an authority than Benedict XVI in interviews with the media.

A Pope’s resignation was not my problem. My problem was with this Pope resigning.

He has been part of my life since early in my adulthood. I discovered Joseph Ratzinger’s work while I was still a Presbyterian minister. His books were a secret pleasure, and they showed me (and later my wife, Kimberly) the way home to Rome.

As a Catholic, I was profoundly influenced by his biblical theology and his use of “covenant” as an interpretive key to unlock the mysteries of faith and the secrets of Scripture. I’ve written many books, but few authorial moments have pleased me so much as the day I presented the Holy Father with a copy of my book Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI.

On the morning of Feb. 11, and well into the evening, I found almost unbearable the thought of this man fading from my life.

And I felt this, I believe, in communion with millions of Catholics. He has always been there for us. He has always been present.

At the Second Vatican Council, he was there, and he played an active role, not as a bishop, but as an expert adviser to one of Europe’s most influential bishops. Young Joseph Ratzinger played an important role in the drafting of two key Council documents.

Through the 1960s, he was present as one of the world’s leading theologians. It was Joseph Ratzinger who emerged as the most articulate voice of the authentic teaching of the Council.

He never tried to steal the spotlight, but he was always there for us.

As a professor, he was there for his students, too. He was a theologian who raised up a generation of brilliant theologians. And he has remained a fatherly presence in their lives, extending his influence through their work and now through the work of their students as well.

It was a life he loved, but he gave it up when Pope Paul VI called him to be a bishop and then created him a cardinal.

While he had been a powerful presence to his fellow theologians, in the 1970s and 1980s, he became a universal Churchman — a presence for the whole Church, speaking plain sense at a time when nonsense abounded.

He was there for all of us, speaking up, with the gentleness of true authority.

He was always there for Blessed John Paul II. He was that ope’s most trusted adviser and his dear friend. Repeatedly, the Polish Pope refused the German cardinal’s resignation.

When John Paul went to glory, the identity of his successor seemed self-evident to the cardinals who met in conclave. Since then, Pope Benedict has been a presence in the world — a witness, a judge, a counselor. A father. Our Holy Father.

When I awoke on Feb. 11, the thought that he would no longer be there seemed unbearable.

Yet he will be there.

It’s not as if he’s retiring to the Cayman Islands to avoid the taxman. He’s retiring to a monastery to give the rest of his days to prayer — for us. For you and me.

As a theologian, I have a certain reverence for theology — the science of sciences, the science of God — and so I respect Pope Benedict’s accomplishments in the field we share.

As a Catholic, I honor the office of bishop as I should honor the persons of the apostles themselves.

How can I begrudge the man his decisive movement into the contemplative life, which is an anticipation of the life of heaven?

He will be there for us. He will be there for me.

I know what we’ll all be giving up for Lent this year. Yet I know it will be our gain.

The earlier Pope
who resigned to become a saint’

On April 29, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI did something rather striking, but that went largely unnoticed.

He stopped at the town of L’Aquila, which had been struck recently with a bad earthquake, and visited the tomb of an obscure medieval pope named St. Celestine V (1215-1296).

But the Pope did much more than say a brief perfunctory prayer.

Without a word of explanation, after several minutes of prayer, he removed his pallium from around his shoulders and placed it gently on Celestine’s glass-encased tomb. [Just a small correction for the record. He did not remove his pallium from around his shoulders because he wasn't wearing one - he was in his simple white papal cassock. But he had obviously thouht about what he was going to do because Mons. Gaenswein had the pallium ready - no less than the pallium invested on him at the Mas that inaugurated his Petrine ministry - the long version, replaced two years later by the collar version which he has worn since then.]

A pallium is a sacred garment, like a long, stiff scarf, which happens to be the primary symbol of the Pope’s episcopal authority as bishop of Rome. And he left it atop Celestine’s tomb.

Fifteen months later, on July 4, 2010, Benedict went out of his way again, this time to visit and pray in the cathedral of Sulmona, near Rome, before the relics of this same saint, Pope Celestine V. [Actually, Celestine's sarcophagus with Benedict's pallium was brought to Sulmona expressly for the Pope's Mass from the Basilica of Collemaggio near L'Aquila, its permanent home, where it escaped damage when the church roof and dome caved in during the earthquake.]

Few people, however, noticed at the time.

Only now, we may be gaining a better understanding of what it meant. Both acts were more than pious gestures.

More likely, they were profound and symbolic actions of a very personal nature, which conveyed a message that a Pope can hardly deliver any other way.

In the year 1294, this man (Father Pietro Angelerio), known by all as a devout and holy priest, was elected Pope, somewhat against his will [without his knowledge, in fact, since he had been living for a long time as a hermit in the mountain overlooking Sulmona], shortly before his 80th birthday. (Ratzinger was 78 when he was elected Pope in 2005.)

Just five months later, after issuing a formal decree allowing popes to resign (or abdicate, like other rulers), Pope Celestine V exercised that right.

And now Pope Benedict XVI has chosen to follow in the footsteps of this saint.

Celestine didn’t resign because he was a saint. He wasn’t a saint because he resigned. He resigned to become a saint.

Scott Hahn is the Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville and founder and president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.

I am sorry to have interjected some commentary in Prof. Hahn's little essay on Pope Celestine and Benedict, but I followed both events closely at the time they were taking place, so I am sure of my minor corrections.