He will be remembered as
'Benedict XVI the Great'
Translated from the Italian service of
March 15, 2013
“Benedict XVII has left us teachings which will last in time" and his humility "makes me say he will be remembered as Benedict XVI the Great, as it has been said of John Paul II".
The statements come from Mons. Barthelemy Adoukonou, the Beninese secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, who was a doctoral student of Prof. Joseph Ratzinger in Regenburg.
[He was a protege of Benin's Cardinal Bernard Gantin, who was one of the five cardinals along with Joseph Ratzinger named by Paul VI in his last consistory in May 1977. Adoukonou was a luncheon guest of Professor Ratzinger and his sister Maria at their home in Pentling, to celebrate his successful defense of his doctoral dissertation, the day the news was formally announced that Paul VI had named the professor to be the Archbishop of Munich-Freising. Later, in the Curia, Cardinal Gantin who was older than Cardinal Ratzinger, would become dean of the College of Cardinals. His decision in 2002 to retire to Benin led to Cardinal Ratzinger becoming the Dean of the college.]
Mons. Adoukonou reflected on the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, saying he confronted with clear ideas "the dominant and widespread mentality of our time in the liberal post-modern states which has led to a rejection of God... or at least, to live as if God does not exist".
He pointed out that Benedict XVI always kept dialog open even with non-believers, citing the Court of the Gentiles initiative launched by the Pontifical Council on Culture, at the suggestion of Benedict XVI, as a 'luminous' example of such dialog.
He said that Benedict XVI's Magisterium always affirmed that man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, cannot be 'formatted', and that each individual's God-given freedom is not synonymous to arbitrary conscience.
He looks forward to the new Pontificate continuing with the initiative which has created "a climate favorable to appreciating the rationality of the Christian faith", thus helping "to solidify a common front among believers and non-believers against wars, violence and injustice".
On Benedict XVI's legacy, Mons. Adoukonou said: "His greatness lies in his surprising capacity to imitate Christ in obedience to the will of God... and that he has gone very far in his imitation of Christ".
It's very touching that Mons. Adoukonou sees this 'imitation of Christ' in Benedict XVI, and expresses it as such, because that is the goal that Joseph Ratzinger has always held up - for the faithful to 'be saints' and for priests to truly be 'in persona Christi' (the role model for this, as Benedict often said in the past, being Francis of Assisi who has been called an alter Christus and who, he underscores, was not even a priest). It is an exhortation he could not have made so frequently and so often without living it himself in his personal life. Even if he was never reported to have hours-long prayer sessions at which he would prostrate himself as John Paul II did, the persons who know him have always readily testified that he is a holy man, and the first testimonials that cardinal-electors gave shortly after the 2005 Conclave cited his holiness as one of the principal criteria for selecting him.
Some time in June 2006, I translated excerpts of an interview that Cardinal Julian Herranz, then president of the Pontifical council for Legislative Texts, gave to OGGI magazine, and posted it in the PRF thread REMEMBERING JOHN PAUL II - because the first part of the excerpt was about John Paul's final weeks of suffering... but he also talked about how the cardinals chose the successor to John Paul:
We came to agreement quickly. It was curious to read the speculations in the papers. Like, they will chose a Latin American Pope because most Catholics today live in South America. Or, it will be a colored Pope because Asia and Africa are the continents of the future. Seemingly plausible reasons, but exceeded by our reasons, which went to the heart of the problems that the Church needs to confront.
There is Islamic fundamentalism in Asia and Africa, but also the dictatorship of relativism in the West, where most people now live as though God did not exist. We took account of these, much more than any geopolitical analysis.
The choice of Ratzinger was easy.
He had intellectual legitimacy: He is the Church’s best theologian.
He had institutional legitimacy: For more than 20 years, he headed the most important of the Roman congregations.
He had Roman legitimacy: He has fit perfectly into the context of this city.
He had Wojtylian legitimacy: We wanted to insure continuity.
And finally, mystical legitimacy: Ratzinger is a lover of Christ, as was Wojtyla.
Another Spanish bishop, Mons. Cipriano Calderon Polo, emeritus Vice-President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, who lived in the same building as Cardinal Ratzinger, said: "I was telling one of the German nuns who does some work for him that he would now have to move out his entire library, because he's not going anywhere without his books!"
Asked what he thought would be the themes of this Papacy, Mons. Polo, who once edited the Spanish edition of Osservatore Romano, answered:
"With him, Christ will be at the center of everything, of the Church. That place will not be occupied by the Pope or by anybody else. He will be a simple, humble, engaging and holy Pope, because he is a truly exceptional human being."
Here is one of the fine artices written about Benedict XVI just hours after his election:
Servus Servorum Dei:
The self-effacing modesty
of Pope Benedict XVI
by Christopher Levenick
The Weekly Standard (US)
04/19/2005 9:00:00 PM
WHAT CAN WE LEARN of Benedict XVI from his first appearance? Much can be gleaned from a first impression, and the eyes of the world are always upon the newly elected Bishop of Rome when he takes his first steps out onto the loggia to address the crowds, urbi et orbi.
Benedict's predecessor instantly communicated his magnetic personality, and, with the exclamation 'Be not afraid', sounded the clarion call of his pontificate.
The first keynote of Benedict's papacy was one of utterly self-effacing modesty.
The most sophisticated theologian to ascend to the papal throne in fifteen centuries disarmingly referred to his indisputable gifts as "insufficient instruments." The latest successor to St. Peter appraised himself "a simple, humble worker in the Lord's vineyard."
This is no newfound humility; the statements are in perfect keeping with the man. When he was appointed archbishop of Munich-Freising, for instance, Ratzinger added two new symbols to the episcopal coat of arms - both of which were intended to underscore his unworthiness.
The first symbol was a shell. According to legend, St. Augustine was one day walking along a beach, grappling with the mystery of the Trinity, when he came across a child who was playfully pouring seawater into a shell. That, Augustine instantly realized, was precisely his problem: the human mind could no more comprehend the mystery of God than the shell could hold the waters of the sea. Ratzinger thought the account pertinent to his own theological work, which always acknowledged "the greatness of the mystery that extends farther than all our knowledge."
The other symbol that he added to the coat of arms was a bear. It comes from a legend told of St. Corbinian, the founding bishop of Freising. While Corbinian was traveling to Rome, his horse was set upon and torn to shreds by a bear. Corbinian rebuked the bear, and ordered it to carry his pack to Rome. The repentant bear did as he was told. And therein Benedict saw something of himself: He too was to be a beast of burden, called to the service of the Lord.
Perhaps the new Pope's most noteworthy decision was to adopt the name Benedict. Before the announcement, it was widely rumored that, if elected, he would take either the name Boniface (after St. Boniface, the Apostle to the Germans) or Leo (after Pope St. Leo IX, a great Germanic saint, whose feast day, incidentally, is April 19).
Instead he settled on the name Benedict. Comparisons were immediately made to Benedict XV (1914-1922), a Pope who labored in vain to bring the carnage of the First World War to an early and just conclusion.
That may be, but the decision probably reflects a deeper spiritual sensibility. Saint Benedict of Nursia is, after all, one of the most important figures in the history of Roman Catholicism. From Benedict, the Western empire first learned the ascetic rhythms of the monastic life. Monasticism first emerged in the East with exemplary figures such as St. Antony and St. Pachomius. But it fell to Benedict to assemble the first communities in Latin Christendom dedicated to the pursuit of spiritual perfection. His disciples were to live simply, working with their hands and praying at regular intervals throughout the day. Theirs was a rigorous vocation, one of utter self-abasement, of withdrawal from the world for the sake of the world.
Many will no doubt balk at calling Benedict XVI humble. To the contrary, they insist, he is an arrogant, uncompromising hard-liner. Such complaints usually refer to his having been tasked - for almost 25 years - with the thankless job of patrolling the boundaries of Catholic theology.
Bishops have, of course, long wrestled with theologians; as early as 1277, Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, was compelled to restrain university theologians from replacing Christ with Aristotle. Though this tension between authority and inquiry is actually quite creative, in an age that smirks at the idea of objective truth, it struck critics as needlessly heavy-handed.
It was a burden that Ratzinger bore, dutifully and patiently, in the service of the Church. He pleaded with John Paul II, begging permission to retire so that he could at last return to the quiet academic life he left in Regensburg. As he writes in his memoirs, Benedict XVI finds much consolation in Psalm 72:23:
ut iumentum factus sum apud te et ego semper tectum.
Unlike most modern translations, the new Pope follows Augustine's rendition: "A draft animal am I before You, for You, and this is precisely how I abide with you." Like Augustine, he sees himself as a "good, sturdy ox to pull God's cart in this world."
Benedict XVI will probably not carry the papacy with John Paul's seeming ease. His pontificate will rather be a steady shoulder to the plough, the work of an unassuming servant, a servant of the servants of God.
Finally, to get back to Mons. Adoukonou's citation of Benedict XVI's 'imitation of Christ': Much is being made today about the 'symbolism' of the name Francis in that Francis of Assisi's teaching contributed to a reform of the Catholic Church in the 13th century. Which makes most people tend to forget that the first great reformer of the Church who came from the ranks like Francis, and not from the Church hierarchy, was St. Benedict, who by instituting 'ora et labora' monasticism in the Western world, also saved Western civilization, i.e, Christian civilization, from being engulfed and eradicated by pagan barbarians. But just as Francis was later to put Christ at the center of everything, Benedict famously said, "Never put anything before Christ".
I have remarked once before on this Forum that, next to St. Augustine, St. Francis was probably the saint that Benedict XVI referred to most during his Pontificate. Besides the memorable discourses on Francis when he visited Assisi in 2007, and various references on other occasions when he sought to rescue the Saint of Assisi from the popular idea of him as no more than the 'patron of ecology' or the model of the 'poor mendicant friar', Benedict dedicated a catechesis to him on January 27, 2010,
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100127...
in which he begins by speaking of Francis's famous experience in the Church of San Damiano:
Three times the crucified Christ came to life and said to him: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins." This simple event of the Word of the Lord heard in the church of San Damiano hides a profound symbolism.
Immediately, St. Francis is called to repair this little church, but the ruinous state of this building is a symbol of the tragic and disturbing situation of the Church itself at that time, with a superficial faith that does not form and transform life, with a clergy lacking in zeal, with the cooling off of love; an interior destruction of the Church that also implied a decomposition of unity, with the birth of heretical movements.
However, at the center of this Church in ruins is the Crucified and he speaks: he calls to renewal, he calls Francis to manual labor to repair concretely the little church of San Damiano, symbol of the more profound call to renew the Church of Christ itself, with his radical faith and his enthusiastic love for Christ...
He says later on:
t has been said that Francis represents an alter Christus, that he was truly a living icon of Christ. He has also been called "the brother of Jesus". Indeed, this was his ideal: to be like Jesus, to contemplate Christ in the Gospel, to love him intensely and to imitate his virtues. In particular, he wished to ascribe interior and exterior poverty with a fundamental value, which he also taught to his spiritual sons.
The first Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5: 3) found a luminous fulfilment in the life and words of St Francis. Truly, dear friends, the saints are the best interpreters of the Bible. As they incarnate the word of God in their own lives, they make it more captivating than ever, so that it really speaks to us. The witness of Francis, who loved poverty as a means to follow Christ with dedication and total freedom, continues to be for us too an invitation to cultivate interior poverty in order to grow in our trust of God, also by adopting a sober lifestyle and a detachment from material goods.
It is very uncharitable to interpret Benedict XVI's use of his predecessors' liturgical garments, pectoral crosses, bishops' chairs and other accessories as acts of personal vanity or worldliness - and as if this made him less holy, less humble, less simple - rather than what it was: a bow to tradition nad continuity based on the fact that the Church honors God by rendering its 'best' to him by way of worship. By the logic of the detractors, a 'humble Pope' should therefore refuse to say Mass in St. Peter's Basilica or the Sistine Chapel, and other such reductio ad absurdum.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/03/2013 14:06]