BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Vatileaks and how Benedict XVI
is seeking to restore calm
Interview with the OR editor
by Giacomo Galeazzi
Translated from the Italian service of

July 2, 2012

Professor Giovanni Maria Vian, you are the editor of L'Osservatore Romano, as well as a scholar of Christian history. Does the Vatileaks episode show that Joseph Ratzinger is a Pope under attack?
Benedict XVI does not run away from problems but faces them without fear. He is taking the high road. But from the very beginning, his image has been distorted. He was presented to public opinion as the Grand Inquisitor who was also German, a Panzerkardinal, a German shepherd dog.

Then as Pope, he has had to run an obstacle course set up for him such as the misrepresentation of the Regensburg lecture, his controversy over Bishop Williamson, the misunderstanding over his position regarding the use of condoms, and the 'perfect storm' regarding sexual abuse of children by priests.

In the Williamson case, the Pope demonstrated the way he works. He wrote a letter that resembles Paul's letter to the Galatians and was able to reverse the situation. He was not going to let his detractors nullify everything he has done to strengthen relations with the Jews. It amounted to a cry of pain for a representation of facts that was very far from reality.

How has the Pope reacted to Vatileaks?
He has not denied the problem but he has indicated that the episode has been used to describe a situation that is not real but painted in the darkest tones whereas almost all Vatican functionaries are loyal and honestly lend their services to the Pope and to the Holy See. This has also been pointed out by the Deputy Secretary of State, Mons. Becciu.

About the document leaks themselves, the Pope has assigned the determination of responsibility to a distinguished jurist like Cardinal Herranz and two other cardinals - Tomko and Di Giorgi - known for their great prudence.

So the Vatican is proceeding carefully and with scrupulous respect for juridical processes. These are three cardinals in their 80s who can no longer take part in a papal conclave, and so they are absolutely free before God and their own conscience. For this investigation, they answer only to the Pope.

What is the 'purification' being undertaken by Benedict XVI?
It is a renewal of the Church in continuity with the history of Christianity. Joseph Ratzinger has reiterated many times that the worst persecution for the Church is the sin among its own members. The greatest problems for the Church are not the external attacks but rather the human weaknesses of her own members.

That is why the Church must constantly renew herself. With historical and theological finesse, Benedict XVI has said that the strength of the Papacy comes only from the grace of God. And so he evokes the Gospel episode when Christ confirms primacy on Peter, announcing his coming Passion to him, and asking him to be prepared to follow his example.

So are there no plots against the Church?
Certainly, there are attacks from the outside, but if we look back at the 2000 years of Christianity, the situation today is much better even if the Church has to operate in a secularized if not specifically de-Christianized society.

The expression 'de-Christianize' was coined in 18th-century revolutionary France which sought explicitly to undo what had been done over time. They failed.

And are there media campaigns against the Church?
The outlook of the Church is not that of the mass media. It is not so much the media 'campaigning' against the Church as incomprehension, and a reciprocal difficulty in maintaining a reasonable dialog between the Church and the media. [The incomprehension happens to be for the most part intentional and ideologically motivated. Editors, commentators and reporters who do not share the Church's views use their prejudice to systematically block accurate reporting (much less fair) about the Church, starting with the fact that they don't care if the reporters they assign to cover the Vatican even bother to learn the basic facts about the Catholic Church or about the rites that they cover. For the wire services to constantly caption any picture of the Pope wearing a liturgical robe as 'the Pope at Mass' is insulting - they can't even be bothered to identify the event correctly? And yet in the past seven years that I have religiously followed reporting about the Pope, it happens again and again. And that's just the most elementary error they keep committing. If they can't be trusted about that, what can we trust them about? Plots and campaigns need not always be spelled out. They become obvious by repeated acts of omission and commission, with absolutely no sign that there is any intention of correction.]

Is the Church an enemy of modernity?
Absolutely not. The Church distances itself from modernity when modernity amounts to a-critical reason and irrationality. From the start of the modern age, the Church has had to face the recurrent attempt to raise reason to a divinity adverse to Christianity.

In fact, all of Christian tradition has sought the aid of reason. Among so many examples, there are two admirable ones - the theological architecture of Thomas Aquinas and the poetic transposition that Dante made of it in the Divine Comedy.

Modernity in itself has never frightened the Church unless it presents itself as an anti-religious system. Nor has the Church ever been an enemy of true science - science as knowledge not as an elaboration of secular dogma.