In this essay for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Jose Manuel Vidal, who wrote a shorter version of this for his online column, calls Benedict XVI once more 'el barrendero de Dios' - literally 'God's sweeper' which is not every idiomatic in English. 'God's broom' sounds more appropriate, but then it turns the 'sweeper' into an inanimate instrument So maybe 'God's janitor' is the best compromise. Very much 'worker in the vineyard of the Lord'... Except that Benedict XVI is, of course, much more than just a janitor - rather, he is like those many remarkable saints like Padre Pio and Andre Bessette, who served as general factotum for menial tasks as well as spiritual counselor, preacher and healer of the larger community.
Benedict XVI:
God's janitor at work
by José Manuel Vidal
Translated from
April 19, 2012
He is 'God's janitor', and Benedict XVI does honor to his task. He has now been seven years as Pope wielding the broom of ecclesial purification. To sweep out the rotten apples of pederast clergy and incrusted bad habits from the hierarchy.
Zero tolerance for pederasts, and transparency in the Vatican's finances. These are the primary 'structural' changes made by Papa Ratzinger, while he has turned the Church towards the essentials of the faith - the faith that the Church offers to a troubled and sad world as certainty of hope and one that makes sense of the world.
The German Pope did not deceive anyone about his priorities. The cardinals elected him after he said at the Mass preceding the Conclave that two two great dangers to the Church today were relativism and the 'filth' within the Church herself, which he knows better than anyone.
Through his hands, as guardian of the orthodoxy of the faith, had passed for more than two decades the worst cases of the worst offenses that priests can commit - abusing the innocent. About those who harm the innocent, Christ himself had said, "better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Mt 18,6).
John Paul II's 'policeman' of the faith, who now holds the keys of St. Peter, inherited a boat in worse condition than even he had thought. Priestly pederasty was a guided missile aimed at the very credibility of the Church as an institution whose task is to generate trust among the faithful, many of whom entrust their children to the Church from their most tender years.
But that trust was shattered by unscrupulous priests, personified by the icon of Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, one of the 'new' ecclesial movements much touted by Rome, because it brought in many vocations as well as easy money. Benedict punished Maciel and placed his congregation under Vatican supervision while it is being re-established.
Cleaning up has not been easy. But the Pope has not wavered - despite all kinds of obstacles designed to block or trip him up. The system of covering up by bishops and of complicity with their abusive priests seemed almost incrusted into the soul of the hierarchy. Benedict has had to dismiss some bishops and send inspectors to local churches, and in the process, oppose residual resistances in the Roman Curia.
There was more grinding of teeth in the Curia, however, when Papa Ratzinger decided to straighten out the finances at the Vatican and impose transparency even on the 'Vatican bank' IOR. Coincidentally, rumors and documents started leaking out. Stories of petty palace intrigues took headlines and appeared to target primarily the Pope's Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone.
But the Pope of the brisk and firm steps is undaunted. He wants the Vatican to be included in the so-called White List of the European Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development, naming the countries that are leaders in counter-acting money-laundering and the funding of terrorism.
'Cleanliness', transparency and the search for the essential - without flourishes - those are the hallmarks of a Pope who was elected at age 78. He knew that he would not have much time before him. But it has not has been as short as most of his own electors had thought back in 2005 - when he was openly called 'the transitional Pope' in the media. But would he have the time he needs in order not to end up being a mere appendix to the extraordinary Pontificate of the great John Paul II?
[I hope that was a rhetorical question and not Vidal speaking through one of his inexplicable and idiosyncratic blind spots that can spoil his e ntire argument when they show up! No one in his right mind would say right now - after seven years of a remarkably productive Pontificate - that this Pontificate will be seen only as an 'appendix' of the previous one! I've avoided articulating it till now but I don't think even George Weigel will claim that Blessed JP2 did more in the first seven years of his Pontificate than his successor has done so far!]
But he is now starting the eighth year of his Pontificate. He is having sufficient time to stamp his imprint on the Church.
[There you are!] Without having to emulate or seek comparison with his 'beloved predecessor'. Without seeking glory nor to go into history for having been the first Pope to visit Beijing or Moscow.
The most cultured and intellectual Pope in the recent history of the Church has only sought to do his duty: to guide the barque of Peter with humility, and with the same humility, to offer the truth of God to the world. Fundamentally, and in a way that is almost unnoticed by anyone, Papa Ratzinger is trying to achieve that much-desired reform of the Church. In his own way.
He is convinced that it is more urgent to curb the crisis of faith in people than to devise structural reforms of the institution. And that is why, his reform aims to potentiate local Churches and re-evangelize no-longer-Christian Europe.
For the first goal, he has been personally choosing the bishops for each and all of the dioceses of the world with extreme care. Without delegating that tedious task to anyone. He wants bishops who are doctrinally secure, serious, disciplined, spiritual and uninterested in careerism. Sometimes, he gets them. But sometimes not.
To win back Europe for Christianity, the Pope's method is to preach actively and passively that faith is not at war with reason, that it is reasonable and consistent to be Catholic and to proclaim oneself as such in today's world. And above all, that the Christian faith brings profound joy and beauty without equal. And as such, it should continue to give meaning to the lives of men in the 21st century and to the history of the Old Continent.
Therefore, a re-foundation of Catholicism. The Gospel according to Ratzinger. A gospel that is conservative (it purges nothing from memory and does not reject the past) but moderate and meant to re-center the ecclesiastical pendulum.
With the liturgical reform of the Novus Ordo itself (no more guitars, and the use of some Latin and Gregorian chant), with the opening towards the Lefebvrians (who seem to be on the verge of rejoining the 'flock'), but also with new reliance on the classic religious orders (Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, Salesians and Redemptorists).
Nonetheless, residual inertia is great and the mechanism continues to creak. These is much fear in local Churches, as in Spain, where some theologians are denounced and persecuted. Taliban-like elements have managed to be embedded into the local church hierarchies and do not hesitate to use their power, even if they end up being more Popish than the Pope.
In any case, the rule of moderation has started. The Pope wants a Church that is joyous, beautiful, 'samaritan' and spiritual. Will he have enough time to achieve this? Will he have the necessary strength to continue with this gigantic task? If he felt he was no longer capable of the task, he would resign as he has said on a number of occasions.
But, for now, as he said very clearly to Fidel Castro last month: "I am old, but I can still comply with my duties".
Here is one of the most heartwarming tributes I have seen these days, written by the man who has been Opus Dei's spokesman in Italy for the past 40 years and author of two successful books on what one might call 'practical spirituality':
Thank you, Joseph, for 85 years
well-lived and seven years as Pope
by Pippo Corigliano
Translated from his blog
'Preferisco il paradiso'
April 16, 2012
Gratias tibi Deus, gratias tibi! Words that do not need translation. Thank you, Lord, for this Pope.
When he was elected, I placed the photo of little Joseph with his knapsack on my desk. It is not just a a most pleasant memory of a child but the photograph of his soul. It is the look of someone good and intelligent, affectionate and curious - as he turned out to be all his life.
His famously overcrowded university lectures as a young professor were moments of prayer - such was the participation of his listeners in the mystery of Jesus.
This Pope will probably be the only case in history to be remembered 'also' as Pope. Like his favorite theologian Augustine, whom we remember as 'also a bishop', Joseph Ratzinger has spoken of God to man today in just the right way. No one like him is as much aware of how much aversion there is to Christianity in contemporary dominant culture.
And to such an aversion, he has always responded calmly with the confidence of one who knows that a gram of truth weighs far more than tons of babble. His most famous book,
Introduction to Christianity, was written in the face of the gales of Marxism that, after 1968, threatened to contaminate theology itself.
[And did so notoriously in 'liberation theology'.] Not everything is politics. The Church was founded by Jesus, and not because an assembly raised their hands in approval.
In that book as well as in his two books on Jesus and his encyclicals, Joseph Ratzinger explains the contents of the faith with clarity and fascination.
So thank you, Holy Father, for your 85 years which have been so well-lived and for the seven years so far of a Pontificate that has illuminated us.
About the remark that history might well remember Joseph Ratzinger as someone who was 'also Pope', it's an interesting rhetorical twist. But the person Joseph Ratzinger and his work would never have the universal attention they now command had he not become Pope. And that is surely among the many reasons why God destined him to be Pope.
I've also always thought that the knapsack photo - indisputably the most famous and most reproduced photo of a child (other than Jesus) that there has ever been - was truly providential. Whatever the circumstances when and why it was taken - perhaps his first day going to a new school after the family had just made one of their many displacements -it has become literally and symbolically iconic, and one understands why Corigliano felt impelled to put it on his desk. It is a photograph of childhood innocence and sweetness, and all the good that God has inscribed in each of us before the world corrupts it, as did those heartless priests who shattered the innocence and lives of their victims.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/04/2012 18:08]