BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Shortly after Benedict XVI's apostolic and state visit to Scotland and England in September 2010, Vaticanista Paolo Rodari wrote this commentary on the five years of the Pontificate that had elapsed at that time. Rodari was writing for Il Foglio then, and he is now writing for the arch anti-Benedict, anti-Church media institution in Italy, La Repubblica. He has also just published the second Italian insta-book about Pope Francis, after that of Andrea Tornielli, with whom he co-wrote the book ATTACCO A RATZINGER which presented the major attack lines against Benedict XVI and an analysis of these. Apropos, Tornielli has been one of the great disappointments for me with the dawn of the new Pontificate because he has turned into one of the leading cheerleaders for Pope Francis, a choice to which he is completely and rightfully entitled, of course. But one cannot help thinking it also has to do with the fact that he came out with the first instabook on Pope Francis which has been translated into several languages by now. It explains but does not excuse his partisanship and his participation in the media's collective amnesia about Benedict XVI. Especially since years before, he also wrote an instabook on Benedict XVI... Nonetheless, here is Rodari's encomium of Benedict XVI back in 2010. Even if it concentrates only on Benedict XVI's 'style' rather than on the achievements of the Pontificate, it shows how the Italian Vaticanistas generally regarded the emeritus Pope before he became totally eclipsed by his predecessor in their consciousness... All the more striking because the style they once praised so much as a sign of Benedict XVI's personal humility is very different from the necessarily attention-getting because precedent-setting style of the new Pope whom they now celebrate as the singular example and epitome of personal humility and simplicity in the Papacy. I do not mean to deny Pope Francis all the admiration and adulation he is getting for any reason, right or wrong, but simply wish to invoke fairness from those who are reporting his Pontificate.

The triumph of the ‘shy’ Pope
Five years of public success that has perplexed his critics,
from a man who deliberately withdraws himself in order
to focus attention only on Christ and his message
by PAOLO RODARI
Translated from

September 26, 2010

After the charismatic triumphalism of Karol Wojtyla, the monastic modesty of Joseph Ratzinger. Two different styles that reflect different personalities. But two styles that have produced the same result: the enthusiasm of the faithful.

The crowds applauded John Paul II’s gestures, his effective catch phrases, his theatrical impulses, at times giving the impression that they ignored what he really said. But with Benedict XVI, they follow his homilies, they listen to his discourses, they seem to hang on every word with an attention that has amazed the experts and the analysts.

Thus it happened in England and Scotland on his recent trip. “Ratzinger impressed the public as a gentle and humble man who speaks kindly ,” wrote Richard Owens in the Times of London. “with profound messages that he conveys without having to raise his voice.” Owen, who was set to retire after decades of covering the Vatican, delayed his retirement for a few weeks after the surprise announcement of Benedict XVI’s renunciation. But his coverage of Benedict XVI – as it probably was of Cardinal Ratzinger – was always adversary, He hardly ever had a good word for him, and was one of the first to perpetrate the UK media’s claim that the Pope’s red shoes were custom-made by Prada, that his sunglasses were trendy Serengetis, and other such petty and false trivia designed to portray Benedict XVI as frivolous and addicted to luxury accessories.]

More than elsewhere, Benedict XVI’s style found its fulfillment in the United Kingdom – difficult as it is to imagine before the trip that many had already branded ‘the most difficult trip’ to be undertaken by the Pope [and for which they freely dispensed their usual predictions of embarrassing failure, given the poison and vitriol in the anti-Church and anti-Benedict propaganda that had dominated the UK media in the months since his visit had been announced. Remember that this took place immediately following a spring and summer during which the most powerful of the MSM institutions – AP, the New York Times, the Spiegel publications of Germany, the BBC and all of Irish media – did all they could, not just to lay the blame on Joseph Rtaiznger for the sex abuse scandals perpetrated by a tiny fraction of the world’s 400,000 priests and the negligence of their bishops, but even to link him directly to some such scandal in the past, in an effort to get him to resign!] , 100,000 persons in Hyde Park, the heart of London, took part in near-total silence in an hour of liturgy focused on the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

[Rodari fails to point out that this ‘miracle’ of silence in Eucharistic Adoration first took place among the million youth who attended the Prayer Vigil before the concluding Mass of the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, where Benedict XVI introduced the Adoration as the main feature of the Prayer Vigil, which in previous WYDs, had mostly centered around pep talks and testimonials, interspersed with music (often pop). That this had since been repeated in WYD Sydney with an assembly of 800,000, and in other occasions such as Palermo, Malta and Prague wherever Benedict XVI held an event for young people and with young people. Of course, in 2010, no one had expected or predicted the crowd of at least 1.5 million that attended a most dramatic Prayer Vigil in Madrid for WYD 2011, where the silent Adoration took place after a freak thunderstorm that drenched everyone, including the Pope himself, and the crowd of young people knelt in the mud for the liturgy. The first instance of media amnesia about Benedict XVI was the commentary that when the crowd in St. Peter's Square the night Pope Francis was presented to the world fell silent when he asked them to join him in praying for Benedict XVI, it was 'the first time a crowd that size had ever fallen silent in prayer'. Forget the WYD Adorations even - what about all the Masses celebrated there by Benedict XVI in which, following his example, silence was observed after the homily and after Communion?

What is the secret of Joseph Ratzinger? What is his communications strategy? Just one. Which is not having any. He said so himself during the flight that took him from Rome to Edinburgh ten days ago. He was asked by Fr. Lombardi, on behalf of one of the newsmen on the flight, what Catholics could do to make the Church ‘more attractive”?

Benedict XVI’s reply: “A Church that seeks above all to be attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for herself, she does not work to increase her numbers and in doing so, to increase her power. The Church is in the service of Another, not for herself in order to make herself ‘stronger’, but to make accessible the announcement of Jesus Christ, the great truth and great power of love and of reconciliation that always come with the presence of Jesus Christ”.

This is the secret of Joseph Ratzinger, for many the ‘Panzerkardinal’, for others, ‘God’s Rottweiler’, now PoHe does not wish to ‘attract’ anyone to himself. Rather. He always steps back in order to keep the Other in center stage. This is a style that is distinctly his. Notwithstanding the thousand and one communications strategies often churned out and adopted by various ecclesiastical organisms, from the Roman Curia to the national bishops’ conferences and to particular dioceses, Benedict XVI has managed to impose his style with overwhelming authoritativeness.

His style is moderate, especially with crowds. Because every public event seems to become liturgy, for him. Indeed, outside of his Masses, his catecheses and his benedictions, Benedict XVI is a minimalist.

“The Pope should notproclaim his own ideas, but must constantly link himself and the Church to obeying the Word of God,” he said when he took possession of the Cathedral of Rome, the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, on May 7, 2005.

That is a criterion that is also his program of governance. He does all he can not to call attention to himself - center stage is never him, but ‘the essential’, namely, Jesus Christ and his living presence in the sacraments of the Church.

The first months of his Pontificate left analysts of all things Vatican at a loss for words. The crowds wuo came to his Wednesday General Audienfes and Sunday Angelus were twice as large compared to the those for John Paul II in the latter years of his Pontificate, according to statistics released by the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household. .. [In fact, they were larger than the peak numbers registered during the Wojtyla years in 2000, the year of the Great Jubilee (marking the start ofr the third millennium of Christianity. One must also note that these figures are based mostly on the number of tickets that the Prefecture gives out for ticketed events, and of arbitrary estimates for the Angelus. The actual numbers are always much bigger.)].

Benedict XVI never makes gestures for effect, nor does his hammer home phrases in the manner of slogans, much less does he eoncourage applause nor acclamation. He comes to public events for the primary purpose of celebrating a liturgy and/or teaching. Even his program on apostolic trips is reduced to the minimum, almost as if avoiding anything superfluous, anything beyond the absolutely essential.

St. Peter’s Square, October 16, 2005. Benedicyt XVI has an audience for Roman children who have just received or are about to receive their First Communion. It was an unusual program, in that he would answer some questions from the children first, and then, lead them in Eucharistic Adoration. [Although the event was certainly one of the most memorable of his Pontificate because Benedict XVI showed once and for all his unique ability to express the essentials of the faith even to children without ‘dumbing down’ the message one it, it has escaped my attention till now that it was the second massive Eucharistic Adoration he had led, after Cologne in August 2005. Introducing children under 10 to a liturgy that had pretty much been abandoned by the Church since Vatican II. Surely, its re-introduction to active Church use is one of the most significant of Benedict XVI’s liturgical reforms.]

At the Vatican, some were skeptical about the program. “Quite a risk after years of youth assemblies that resembled pop music festivals more than a church event”.

The Pope arrived at Piazza San Pietro onschedule, entering in the Popemobile through the Arch of Bells. The children applauded and changed his name. The Pope acknowledged their greeting. Then he got off the Popemobile and onstage/ And he began to speak. Little by little, the crowd fell silent. The Pope was teaching them theology.
A boy asked him: “My catechist told me that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. How? I do not see him”.

The answer: “Yes, we do not seehim, but there are so many things we do not see but which exist and which are essential. For example, we do not see our own mind. But we all have a mind…”

After that Q&A, the silence became total as the Pope proceeded to the Eucharistic Adoration. He knelt in front of the Eucharist – and everyone seemed to look beyond him – in the direction he was looking. In less than half an hour, he had captured the complete attention of an assembly sui generis – 100,000 children. An occurrence that recalled WYD 2005 in Cologne. Once the Holy Father knelt before the Eucharist, the entire assembly of young people fell silent and fell to their knees themselves. A surreal silence followed that was uneasy only for the commentators on tadio and TV who did not know what to do about their ‘dead air’ – and it was to last for almost an hour.

Twenty months since Benedict XVI was elected Pope, he had become an international ‘case study’ for the mass media. White Star, a publishing house affiliated with the Ntional Geographic Society, published Benedetto XVI, l’alba di un nuovo papato Benedict XVI: The dawn of a new Papacy), by the great Italian photographer Gisnni Giansanti [who died two years ago] and Jeff Israely, Rome bureau chief for Time magazine. The book had a single purpose: to study the ‘Ratzinger case’, the reason for the success of the ‘Panzerkardinal’ who became the Successor of Peter.

Israely wrote: “The gestures of his predecessor had impressed the world. But Benedict XVI makes news with the power of his language. His words do not represent a mere intellectual exercise but are a manifestation of his own faith and humanity. The message becomes visible in the messenger”.

Around the same time, the Vaticanista of L’Espresso, Sandro Magister, wrote: “John Paul II dominated the scene. Benedict XVI offers the faithful his bare words, but is always careful to callattention only to that Someone who is beyond him.”

Perhaps it is a singular case. But one must note that in the accounts of the UK newspapers for days after the departure of the Pope, two words were most often used – success and nostalgia. The Pope’s success with the crowds: 250,000 who lined up along the Mall and the streets leading to Hyde Park for the Prayer Vigil and that Adoration with at least 100,000 faithful, was no small thing in highly secular London.

Nostalgia for his presence, as expressed by Anna Arco, then an editor at Catholic Herald, who said she was suffering from PPD – post-papal depression. Perhaps in the gigantic accumulation of articles written about Benedict XVI’s four days in the United Kingdom, there was no better way to measure the pastoral, ecclesial, spiritual and human success of the Pope’s visit.

A popular success that surprised the Pope himself, who described the visit in his report to his General Audience afterwards, that it was ‘a historic event’.

Antonio Socci wrote in Libero: “Ratzinger is not a person who uses words casually. .He explained it was historic because it had upset all predictions.” And Damian Thompson wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “The British have seen things as they are” - they saw the Pope, they heard him, and they were conquered.

There is an enigma about the crowds that Benedict XVI attracts during his trips outside Italy. An enigma in which the British are the latest protagonists. The latest to do what? To be converted ro Benedict’s side. Always predicted by the media to fail when he undertakes a trip abroad, he immediately proves them wrong the minute he arrives at his destination.

He simply wins the people over. People whom, if we were to believe the advance notices, would seem to be most hostile to him. And yet this is an enigma that keeps being replayed. A mystery that is promptly reenacted. [Rodari chooses to see ‘enigma’ and ‘mystery’ where there is none. It seems like a defense mechanism to gloss over the iron obstinacy of the media in refusing to acknowledge – despite all evidence to the contrary – that Benedict XVI has a way with crowds (nothing obvious because he is not by nature a ‘crowd pleaser’) just by being himself. It is as if he had to prove all over to them, the media, each time he made a trip abroad, that yes, the crowds are there for him, not so much for Benedict XVI but for the Pope, whoever he is, but those who come also ‘discover’ Benedict XVI for who he is and for the message he brings.]

His trips abroad have always upset the direct predictions made beforehand, even in the most unlikely places – Turkey in 2006, the United States asnd France in 2008, Israel and Jordan in 2009. But always, it is his daring that has been most striking.

In Germany in 2006, in his now celebrated Regensburg lecture, he showed that the ultimate root of religious violence was the idea of God totally detached from reason. Controversy arose. [but not because of his analysis, which the mass media completely ignored, but because he quoted a Byzantine emperor telling a Muslim scholar that the history of Islam was, in effect, linked to violence as a means of imposing the religion.] Winds of fanaticism and protests swept across the Muslim world.

Benedict XVI seemed defeated. [HOW??? The wave of protests lasted no more than two weeks – because it had been, to a large extent, artificially created, to begin with. He promptly offered an apology for any offense caused by his citation of a medieval emperor, and the ambassadors of all the Muslim states who had relations with the Holy See were summoned to Castel Gandolfo where the Vatican sought to straighten out the misdirected protests. Besides, less than a month later, he visited Turkey where his unprogrammed visit to the Blue Mosque in the company of Istanbul’s Grand Imam, with whom he stood silently in prayer, became an iconic moment for inter-religious relations that won over even the most hostile elements of the Turkish press.]

But it was thanks to that lectio magistralis that today, among leading Muslim moderates, there are voices calling for the equivalent of an Enlightenment in Islam, such as there had been in Christianity in the past few centuries. It was thanks to that lectio magistralis that there are the beginnings of a Muslim-Catholic dialog based on what the two religions have in common.

Benedict ‘s words tend to wound initially. His thinking strikes at the heart of contemporary society. By wounding, he also staunches that which he considers false. That is why his words linger – they don’t just pass away. [No one seems to think so, now, in a wave of collective willful amnesia that would have the past eight years either completely eradicated from memory or remembered only – and falsely – for being everything that is the unfavorable opposite of the new dispensation.]

Just last spring, at the General Audience, he compared the present situation of the Church to the period it underwent after the time of St, Francis. Even then, he recalled, there was a current in Christianity that invoked the era of the Spirit’ by which they meant a new Church with no hierarchy, no precepts, no dogmas. Something similar to what is invoked by Vatican II progressivists and even thoser who want a Vatican III as a ‘new beginning and rupture’. But a new beginning towards what? [SPEAKING OF BEING PROPHETIC...]

The outcome of all such movements, in the end, has simply been to create schools of mediocre thought, with few new converts to their cause, since after all, what they advocate already exists in many of the Protestant churches: abolition oF celibacy for the clergy, ordination of women priests, liberalization of sExual morals, a Church governance without the Petrine primacy.

To all of which Papa Ratzinger opposes a new way of governing the Church, illuminated by prayer [as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bovanenture advocated] . He speaks of faith. Of God. Of Jesus Christ. Of the Church in the world, in society, in the public square. Of faith in the everyday life of everyone, with its private and personal significance but also its public relevance.

He does not seek the consensus of society. He does not bow to the fashions and caprices of the world. He accepts the challenge of bringing the world the sword of the Gospel. And that is why he conquers ultimately. What he says remains.

Of course, there are those who react badly to his words, as so many media tempests during his Pontificate have demonstrated. There are those who blame him personally for all the sex abuses committed by priests and wish to arrest him for ‘crimes against humanity’. But there are those who allow themselves to be wounded by his words and begin to follow his message. And there are intellectuals who wish he would cease to speak at all, as we saw when the physics professors of La Sapienza University protested his scheduled address to open the academic year in 2009 .

But there are others – such as his audiences at Regensburg University, at the College des Bernardins in Paris, at Westminster Hall in London - who are able to overcome any initial skepticism or indifference to rise to their feet and applaud him after they have heard what he has to say.

These are Benedict XVI’s most sophisticated audiences. An audience that is specifically his. Different from the crowds of the faithful. Persons drawn from the secular worlds of culture and science – who all end up applauding the well-considered reflections of this theologian who became Pope.

“From God’s Rottweiler to the best and most-loved Pontiff” was the ttitle of an Op-Ed column by the conservative Ross Douthat in the New York Times at the peak of the media campaign seeking to force Benedict XVI to resign over the issue of sex-offender priests. It is a positive opinion shared by not a few Anglophone intellectuals during the worst days of the Pontificate [when the one person in the Church who was responsible for finally doing something about a problem that had arisen in the decades following Vatican II was being inexplicably and perversely blamed for it!]

Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker, after recalling Martin Luther amd the current crisis of culture in the Church, had words of praise for Benedict XVI [I missed that, and I must look it up!]

Also in those days, sixty French intellectuals =- philosophers, authors. university professors, artists, newamen and assorted personages – circulated and published an open statement in support of Benedict XVI. Names like Jean Luc Marion and and Remi Brague of the Institut de France [to which Joseph Ratzinger belongs, having been elected in 1992 to take the seat vacated by the death of Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, this prestigious honor destined to be one of those that will remain unique to him in the history of Popes] to less obvious ones like mathematician Laurent Lafforgue and actor Michel Lonsdale.

Ratzinger speaks to the masses of regular folk as well as to intellectuals. He has no communications strategy. Yet he says something to each ot them . He addresses their most intimate existential concerns. He has no communications strategy. He is only concerned with the truth, the truth of what Jesus Christ came to earth to achieve.

A few years ago, a book entitled Ratzinger professore was published by journalist Gianni Valente, who recounts the years of study and teaching by Ratzinger from 1946-1977 as remembered by his students and colleagues. It reiterates the fact that ffrom the very beginning, Joseph Ratzinger easily captured the attention of his students – and quite a few outsiders attracted regularly to his lectures.

How? One ex-student says, “He would recite the lecture he intended to give over the dinner table with his sister Maria, an intelligent woman who had never studied theology, and if she liked it, he considered it a sign that it would be effective”.

Another one said: “The lecture halls he used were always packed to capacity, and his students adored. him. His language was beautiful and simple. It was the language of a man of faith”.

Professor Ratzinger never flaunted academic erudition nor did he use the oratorical tones favored by professors in his time. He presented his lectures plainly, with language of limpid cimplicity even for the most complex of questions. Many years later, he would say of his work: “I never sought to create my own system, my own particular theology. Specifically, it was simply because all I wanted to do was to think with the Church, and this meant, above all, with the great thinkers of the faith”.

His students perceived through his lectures not just that they were receiving academic knowledge but that they were entering something great – the heart of the Christian faith itself. And that was the secret ‘formula’ of the young professor of theology who proved to be such a magnet to students.

It has remained the secret to his auccess as Pope: never to make himself the center of attention but always and only the living heart of the Christian faith – Jesus, Son of God.

Which leads to his most important ‘secret formula’: the lack of any communications strategy. Because Benedict XVI is not seeking consensus.