c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) As the cardinal on the balcony meticulously spoke greetings in several languages and then the ceremonial “Habemus … ,” my stomach muscles tightened. With the word “Josephus,” my heart sank a bit. Not in anger or resentment, but in resignation. I was ashamed of being surprised _ of my naive optimism, hoping only on the basis of hope, rather than on evidence, that the church might take a progressive and more imaginative turn.

After all, the decision had a certain inevitability to it. As the late pope’s closest collaborator, Cardinal Ratzinger had, in effect, chosen nearly all of the voters who, in turn, would elect him. In his address before they entered the conclave, he told them what was expected of them, and they delivered. They prized order over imagination.

In the Manchester Guardian, Clifford Longley, who writes regularly for the British Catholic weekly The Tablet, observed that old men look back, they do not look around. The cardinals are old men, like me, and they must tend to think in terms of the slippery slope, the crack in the dike. So they saw the obligation of their final years as dike repair, lest the tsunami of 21st century secularism wash away their world.

I have always had a book by or about Joseph Ratzinger on my shelf. The first was his “Introduction to Christianity,” which I praised in Commonweal magazine. The book was based on his lecture notes as a seminary professor, when he was considered a forward-looking theologian. The other is John L. Allen’s biography, “Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith,” a balanced study that resists stereotyping and lists plainly the virtues and limitations of this mysterious man _ including the names of some of the church’s most brilliant theologians whose careers he has tried to crush.

So what do all those who had hoped for something different do now?

First, give him a chance. The College of Cardinals might be right in their assessment of what the church most needs right now. Perhaps there is a certain amount of Vatican housekeeping, which John Paul II has neglected in his travels, that needs to be done, and this in-house man can best accomplish it.

Since he is already 78, perhaps he may not plan to stay long. The pope whose name he chose, Benedict XV, lasted just eight years, 1914-1922. But one of Benedict’s main accomplishments was his attempt to call a halt to the intellectual civil war within the church between the traditionalists and the progressives. His great preoccupation was what he called the “useless slaughter” of World War I. Both sides at the time ignored his 1917 seven-point peace plan. Today we see World War I as an avoidable tragedy that destroyed whole generations of young men. Perhaps the spirit of Benedict will inhabit the German who has chosen him as a model.

There is no doubt about the new pope’s intelligence. Since he swung from center-left to right in reaction to the student revolution in 1968, he may still learn to read the signs of the times from a broader perspective and swing back _ though probably not on the sexual issues that may have a certain emotional grip _ to a more liberal stance. And I mean liberal in the traditional sense, as one open to change.

Second, while his selection may most disappoint American Catholic liberals, liberals are accustomed to living under the leadership of men who do not share their dreams. I had the blessing of growing up under the inspiration of Franklin Roosevelt, and I remember my disappointment in having to look up to Harry Truman, who did not really capture the public’s imagination until his gutsy victory in 1948.

Of course there is no parallel between the Vatican and the crimes and scandals of recent American presidents, but history illustrates that a just love of a nation or a church is not to be attached to the character or personality of the human beings who temporarily hold power.

As I understand him from his biography, the new Benedict is a quiet, almost shy man, and may bring a new public image with virtues of its own. My friend John Allen surprised me by writing that he could see himself going to Ratzinger as a spiritual director. He may be right.

Finally, disappointed Catholics and their ecumenical brothers and sisters owe it to the church and the world to not sit home and sulk. Genuine religious commitment comes not from looking at who’s in charge in Rome but in renewing one’s faith through the Gospels, through study and prayer, and through solidarity with fellow believers, including the hierarchy, who work for what Jesus taught: Love one another; care for widows, orphans and the poor; put down your swords; forgive; lay down your lives for your friends.

(Raymond A. Schroth, a Jesuit priest, teaches at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City, N.J.)

MO/RB/JL END SCHROTH