A Pope Focused on Changing His Church, Not the World

c. 2006 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ On any given week, the oval contours of St. Peter’s Square swell with tens of thousands of banner-waving pilgrims, gathered to hear Pope Benedict XVI preach in a monotone, high-tenor voice. The German pontiff does not have the commanding presence of his Polish predecessor, John Paul II, […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ On any given week, the oval contours of St. Peter’s Square swell with tens of thousands of banner-waving pilgrims, gathered to hear Pope Benedict XVI preach in a monotone, high-tenor voice.

The German pontiff does not have the commanding presence of his Polish predecessor, John Paul II, but his message of conservative values and fundamental truths resonates on the cobblestones.


Benedict has decisively brought the papacy back to Rome after decades of globe-trotting under John Paul. The shift is aimed at building a spiritual and political base of true believers by focusing on the internal life of Catholicism.

In other words, after nine months on the job it’s apparent Benedict is not out to change the world. He’s out to change his church.

Whether addressing the issue of gays in the priesthood or meditating on the difference between love and lust in his first encyclical, released Wednesday (Jan. 25), Benedict has made church governance his priority.

“The 26 years of (John Paul) was a rich and complex stew, but they created various tensions and problems,” said the Rev. Cosimo Semeraro, secretary of the Vatican Committee on Historical Science. “Now is the time to get selective and deal with issues that touch the core of Christian identity.”

Benedict’s effort to follow John Paul’s global legacy with a period of Catholic purification is apparent in many of the administrative changes he has recently made. For example, he has:

_ Appointed American Archbishop William Levada, a prelate noted for his front-line experience in the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, to succeed him at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

_ Clamped down on the Franciscan friars for conducting unorthodox prayer sessions and massive anti-war protests at the site of St. Francis of Assisi’s tomb.


_ Issued a controversial “Instruction” barring those with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies from entering the priesthood.

_ Rebuked the Neocatechumenal Way, a Catholic renewal movement, for taking license with the Vatican’s liturgical norms for worship.

But Benedict’s respect of church tradition and history is not just reflected in his management. You can literally see it as an expression of style and personality.

He does not set trends, as John Paul did, but resurrects them, donning crimson mantles and Santa-like headgear in a throwback to the popes of medieval and Renaissance times.

“He is the successor of John Paul II, but he is his own man,” Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington said during a recent visit to Rome. “He’s very thoughtful. He’s very prudent. He’s not going to try to imitate his predecessor.”

In his recent encyclical, Benedict chose to set the tone of his papacy with a meditation on love _ Christianity’s most basic virtue.


“Purification and growth in maturity are called for,” the pope wrote without mentioning any of the condemnations on contraception and homosexuality he authored as John Paul’s righthand man and defender of Vatican doctrine.

“Love is indeed `ecstasy.’ Not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey,” he wrote. Erotic love, he said, “needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting pleasure but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence.”

According to Alberto Melloni, a church historian at the University of Modena, Benedict’s love letter will disappoint cardinal electors who thought they were getting a gun-slinging Clint Eastwood when they elected a doctrinal prefect as pope.

“He’s not saying `Make my day!’ to anyone,” Melloni said. A call for purity, Melloni said, does not necessarily involve a purge. Instead Benedict is “like a decanter,” Melloni said.

“You pour in John Paul’s teachings and let them settle.”

Melloni believes the encyclical’s soft touch could alter debate within the church from a tone of conflict to one of introspection. Unlike John Paul’s first encyclical, Benedict’s “Deus Caritas Est” (God Is Love) does not offer a controversial treatise on the state of the world and role of the church within it.

John Paul’s “Redeemer of Man” foreshadowed his outward challenge to Soviet communism and modern culture; Benedict’s love letter represents an inward look at the church’s founding principle.


“It is very touching. He is in tune with the church,” said the Rev. Jacob Srampickal, a Jesuit professor of communications at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Srampickal said the encyclical provides a timely lesson to ordinary Catholics by grounding Catholic doctrine in human emotion rather than rule-making.

“What is love?” asked Srampickal. “Benedict is telling people very clearly how it should be lived out.”

In a rare interview with Polish radio in October, Benedict said he aimed to explain and clarify the doctrines he helped develop under John Paul rather than multiply them.

“My personal mission is not to issue many new documents, but to ensure that (John Paul’s) documents are assimilated,” he said.

Some voices in the Catholic Church, however, question whether Benedict’s latest reflections on love speak to the needs of an increasingly diverse church.


“His letter describes in considerable detail several facets of God’s love, which the church intentionally chooses not to extend to LGBT (gay) persons,” said Debbie Weill, executive director of Dignity, a Catholic gay rights group.

While Benedict has firmly defended church teaching on sexuality, there have been signs that the man famously dubbed “God’s Rottweiler” by the media may be softening in his approach.

For example, Benedict has:

_ Met with his longtime archrival, the dissident theologian Hans Kung.

_ Taken the unconventional step of allowing open discussion during an October synod of bishops.

_ Repeatedly called for unity among Christian churches.

And then there is his presence in the square. The cardinal portrayed as rigid and fearsome has transformed into a pope who delights the faithful, his people, his church.

“Did you ever think that Cardinal Ratzinger would pick up babies and kiss them and all that?” asked Chester Gillis, a professor of theology and Catholic Studies at Georgetown University. “He has learned quickly that that is what you do.”

MO/PH END RNS

Editors: To obtain file photos of Pope Benedict XVI, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject (Benedict XVI). Check “exact phrase” for best results.


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