BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

I think the title to this blog entry by Magister is inappropriate because it assumes there are 'beans to spill' about the Pope - in fact, what the article reveals is the interviewee's deep prejudice, if not malice, against Joseph Ratzinger and conservatives in general. The incidents he cites are not at all the kind of 'beans' one spills or needs to spill!


German ex-Nuncio
'spills the beans' on the Pope
Translated from

March 2, 2010


“De bello germanico”. A Germanic war has been declared by the recently retired Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium and Luxembourg, who has unleashed unseemly criticism of the Holy Father in an interview given to Il Regno

[the Bologna-based bimonthly journal of the Dehonian fathers of the Institute of the Sacred Heart].

Now retired to a convent in Rothenburg, German Archbishop Karl-Josef Rauber [born 1934 in Nuremberg, first named Nuncio in 1982] indulges in polemics against the Pope which is unusual for someone who until recently had served as his ambassador. [And highly questionable, to say the least, and probably unheard of! His age does not excuse him in any way.]

His criticisms of Joseph Ratzinger go back in time. In his judgment, Ratzinger took to wrong turn - too conservative by far - when he was a professor in Regensburg, and he, Rauber, was in charge of his communications with Rome. [What would Prof. Ratzinger have had to do with Rome at the time? that would have required Rauber's intervention? And how does Regensburg figure at all in hisdecision to be 'conservative' - something he had made clear since after the Council when, along with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, et al, he split from the Concilium progressives (Kueng, Rahner et al) to set up Communio?]

Things became 'worse', in Rauber's view, when he was Nuncio in Switzerland. He claims now that Cardinal Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 'denounced ' him four times to the Secretariat of State for having publicly criticized priestly celibacy and spoken badly of other bishops. [And he should have been reported for those! - if only for conduct unbecoming a Nuncio! Apparently, Rauber's backbiting goes back a long way, too.]

But his greatest objection to Joseph Ratzinger is something quite recent: the Pope's nomination of the conservative Bishop Andre Leonard of Namur to succeed the progressive Cardinal Gotfreed Danneels as Archbishop of Malines-Brussels.

Rauber claims that Leonard was not in the terna [list of names] that he, as Nuncio in Belgium, had recommended to Rome. Not in the first, nor in the second, because in his opinion, Leonard was 'not at all suitable' for Brussels, where his, Rauber's, preference was an auxiliary bishop of Danneels.

But, he points out, 'from on high' they decided on Leonard. In other words, that it was Benedict XVI himself who stepped in to promote Leonard, "unmindful that this would displease many, including the King of Belgium". [Not only is Rauber's criticism of Leonard's selection out of bounds - regardless of the recommendations made by the local Nuncio, it is still the Pope who has the exclusive personal prerogative to name bishops- but for him to drag in the King of Belgium into the picture is total disrespect for the King. Besides, this is no longer the pre-modern Papacy when papal appointments to bishoprics required the consent of the local monarch!]

In 2009, Rauber risked being declared persona non grata by the Belgian government as a consequence of Benedict XVI's statement on condoms and AIDS. [The 'risk', if any, clearly was not for himself as Rauber, but because he was the Pope's ambassador. However, since it was only the kneejerk-reacting, ultra-liberal and scientifically ignorant grand panjandrums of the Belgian Parliament who issued a resolution condemning the Pope's statements, where was the risk to Rauber? Acceptance or rejection of ambassadors is not the prerogative of Parliaments anywhere - in the case of monarchies, it rests with the sovereign.]

However, in recounting this, Rauber avoided saying at all whether he sided with the Pope or not. [Coward! Conduct unbecoming not only for a Nuncio or ex-Nuncio, but for a priest and for a decent man!]

Of course, Rauber also recalls that he had a difficult life under Cardinal Andelo Sodano when the latter was Secretary of State, and therefore, his direct superior. For having criticized the nomination of an ultra-conservative Swiss bishop, he says Sodano 'punished' him by sending him to Hungary. [Rauber is an equal-opportunity weasel! Again, how dare he criticize a bishop's appointment because he is 'ultra-conservative' in his opinion? It's not his decision at all to make. The slap at Sodano is ultimately a slap at John Paul II. And he insults Hungary by considering it a 'punishment' to be assigned there from Switzerland!]

He also owns up to making some errors himself - once in Switzerland, and then in Hungary. He says that he once recommended for the post of the Military Ordinary in Hungary two men who later got entangled with women. [Hear, hear! Doesn't say much of Rauber's judgment, does it? Nor of the Hungarian bishops, if this kind of conduct takes place at their level!]

But he claims he made up for this in Switzerland when he recommended a name that he claims Papa Ratzinger did not favor but whom he finally appointed. [If it is true that the Pope 'did not favor' the man but appointed him nonetheless, does that not prove that the Pope's appointment of bishops is not based on personal liking alone but on a genuine judgment of merit and suitability?]

He claims that bishop is Kurt Koch, who "has shown himself to be excellent". To the point, Rauber underscores, that Koch is speculated on now as the Pope's leading candidate to succeed Cardinal Walter Kasper as president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. [PDouble points for the Pope if this is true!]



I tried to look up the original article online, but although the current edition of Il Regno lists a bewildering array of articles, I cannot find the interview among them. What would have motivated the magazine to feature such an article at all! Is this a way for the Dehonians to get back at Benedict XVI?

Early in his Pontificate, he took the unusual step of temporarily halting the beatification of their founder, Leon Dehon, who had been scheduled for beatification April 24, 2005, a schedule set before Benedict XVI became Pope.

He did this because some French historians pointed out that Dehon had written strong anti-Semitic texts available to everyone, and the French government had said it would not send a representative to the beatification. It is not known whether John Paul II was made aware of this.

Benedict XVI ordered a high-ranking panel to review Dehon's writings, but there has been no word about the status of Dehon so far. Some background for this is available on www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/15/AR2005061502...

As for Rauber himself, a Bavarian, he appears to typify all those German bishops and clergy who never liked Joseph Ratzinger because he preaches and practices orthodox Catholicism, not their ultra-liberal do-as-you-please brand.]