ROME – Popes are no longer crowned with a bejeweled tiara, but there will be plenty of majesty in St. Peter’s Square today when Pope Benedict XVI receives the “ring of the fisherman” and the pallium – a simple white woolen stole – that symbolize his accession to the Throne of St. Peter.
The ceremony of investiture is expected to draw about half a million of the faithful.
The new pope normally delivers a homily, and if it is anything like the one then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered at the mass that preceded last week’s conclave, the broad outlines of his agenda will begin to take shape. But what kind of pope will Pope Benedict be?
How will this reserved academic, who has spent the last 24 years splitting hairs with theologians, try to fill the shoes of the extroverted Pope John Paul II, a poet and actor who saw the world as his stage?
Some clues can be found by studying past pontificates, examining the new pontiff’s personal history and listening to the men who chose a shy, brilliant and sometimes controversial 78-year-old German to lead the world’s 1 billion Catholics.
Among the cardinal-electors who spoke to journalists, the word that recurred was “continuity.” Clearly, the cardinals want as much continuity with the epic reign of Pope John Paul as possible, and so they went straight to the man most closely identified with the doctrinal thinking of the late pope.
To critics, this is seen as a disappointing and probably futile attempt to preserve Pope John Paul’s papacy under glass.
They note that in his declining years, Pope John Paul delegated much of his authority to Ratzinger, personal secretary Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz and a few other senior cardinals. What was lacking during those years was the spark of creative genius that so brightly illuminated the early years of his pontificate. Only Pope John Paul himself could provide that.
But others point out that even when Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, served as Pope John Paul’s loyal doctrinal enforcer, he was his own man.
“Ratzinger criticized John Paul II on many points, even ones that most distinguished his pontificate,” Sandro Magister, a respected Vatican analyst, wrote in an online newsletter. “He didn’t even go to the first interreligious meeting in Assisi (Italy) in 1986. He saw in this an obfuscation of the identity of Christianity, which cannot be reduced to other faiths.”
According to Magister, Ratzinger voiced disapproval of the many mea culpas Pope John Paul issued on behalf of the Catholic Church to other faiths, and the “endless succession of saints” he created.
Another big clue about the course Pope Benedict is likely to steer can be found in the name he has chosen.
“St. Benedict? The founding father of Christian Europe. To me, it’s a way of saying we’re not giving up on Western Europe,” said the Rev. John Wauck, a professor at the Santa Croce Pontifical University in Rome.
The crisis of faith in Europe is another area where the new pope is likely to differentiate himself. Although Pope John Paul, the first Slavic pope, was disturbed by the a la carte approach to the faith taken by many Catholics in Western Europe and North America, he viewed the problem from a decidedly Eastern European outlook. He hoped that the religiosity of his native Poland would somehow rekindle the faith in the affluent countries of the West. It never happened.
“John Paul II grew up in a place where the church was persecuted but flourishing, where the seminaries were full,” Wauck said. “Ratzinger has a better understanding of the Western European sensibility. I think he probably has a much keener sense of what’s ailing the Western soul.”
But what about souls in Latin America, Africa and Asia?
The Rev. Mark Francis, superior general of Clerics of St. Viator, a missionary order with priests in 15 countries, said that because of the new pope’s reputation as a Vatican insider whose point of view was largely European, much of the initial reaction among the priests of his order and the Catholics they work with in far-flung lands was disappointment.
He predicted that there would be a temporary loss of momentum for the church outside the developed world, if for no other reason than Pope Benedict does not have the kind of outsized personality that would allow people to establish a personal connection with him, and he is not likely to travel as much.
“Latin Americans want to identify with the pope as a father,” Francis said. “The doctrinal stuff in Latin America is not a problem. It’s how he presents himself.”
But Francis said a pope like Benedict XVI with a less dominant personality could help to create a healthier church in the developing world, one that takes its cues less from Rome and more from local leadership in tune with the needs and culture of the faithful.
“The local bishops are going to have to take on more responsibility for animating the church,” he said.
A sense of how Pope Benedict’s pontificate might play out can also be gleaned from earlier pontificates.
This is the third time since 1939 that the conclave chose a cardinal seen as the “natural” successor to the man who preceded him.
Pope Pius XII was the first instance. As a former papal nuncio to Germany and Vatican secretary of state, he appeared to be the right man to navigate the church through the shoals of the approaching war. The other was Pope Paul VI in 1963. Although he was archbishop of Milan at the time, he had long experience in the Roman curia and was seen as the perfect choice to continue the reforms of Pope John XXIII. Although they were very different men with different legacies, their pontificates were similar: cautious, constricted and uncreative. On the other hand, when the conclave took a leap of faith and made the unexpected choice, it gave the world Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, considered the modern era’s two greatest popes.
Popes John XXIII and John Paul II were pastoral bishops who ran archdioceses while Pope Pius XII and Pope Paul VI were mainly Vatican bureaucrats with limited pastoral experience. Pope Benedict, who spent four years as archbishop of Munich before coming to the Vatican in 1981, is a little of both.
The critical difference, Wauck said, is that Pope Benedict is German.
“That’s huge,” he said. “It means Ratzinger is not a creature of the Roman curia the way some Italians are. He’s a professional theologian, the former bishop of Munich. He wasn’t brought up on the inside and groomed for the job.”
When he was elected Tuesday and took the name Benedict, he predicted a short pontificate for himself. He referred to Pope Benedict XV, the pope during World War I, whose reign lasted little more than seven years.
“I, too, hope in this short reign to be a man of peace,” the new pope told the cardinals, according to Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George.
After the long pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the cardinals may well have wanted an older man whose pontificate would be shorter.
Wauck said that while Ratzinger represented a safe choice, the cardinals also just “spent three weeks together … looking at some of these younger cardinals who will have to succeed Ratzinger.”
Last week’s conclave, he said, “may function as preparation for a more adventurous choice next time.”
Tribune correspondent Steve Kloehn contributed to this report.
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