c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) On April 19, 2005, the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square cheered wildly as Pope Benedict XVI appeared on the papal balcony, the successor to Pope John Paul II.

Conservatives were heartened because they felt the newly elected pope shared their views and would continue the legacy of John Paul. Although liberals applauded the selection, many expressed deep concerns about Benedict’s record as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.

More than a year later, neither group feels about Benedict quite as it did that evening in Rome when white smoke appeared from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney for the first time in 27 years.

For Benedict, it is generally agreed, has been surprising as pontiff, largely steering clear of controversy in leading the Catholic world during his first year. Today, liberals seem less wary of him than they were, conservatives somewhat less thrilled with him.

His approach is different from John Paul’s, church observers agree.

“When you compare him with his predecessor, who took the Vatican by storm and the world by storm, this is a much more low-key papacy to date,” said Chester Gillis, theology chairman at Georgetown University.

John Paul would commonly stay after papal audiences to greet people, and would invite Vatican guests to morning Mass in his private chapel. Benedict meets far fewer people after audiences and celebrates morning Mass with his private staff, said the Rev. Anthony Figueiredo, assistant professor of systemic theology at Seton Hall University.

“John Paul was a great charismatic leader, he wanted to meet everyone, to go out. He was much younger (58) when elected and able to do that,” said Figueiredo, who has been a personal assistant to both popes at bishops’ meetings. “Benedict goes back to the old way. One understands that. He’s 79.”

That the successor to John Paul would be less charismatic surprises no one. But given Benedict’s stature and history as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, many church observers expected he would press orthodoxy and speak out against secularism and relativism as he did in a homily the morning the papal election began.

“He has not realized the fears of more progressive, reform-minded Catholics. And he has certainly not fulfilled the hopes of his most jubilant supporters on the day of his election last April,” said the Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at Notre Dame University who was a persistent critic of John Paul’s conservative policies.

To a casual observer, the most notable trait of Benedict is his relative reserve compared to his charismatic, globe-trotting predecessor. True, Benedict, a lifelong theologian and academic, has received crowds warmly, and was popular at World Youth Day in his native Germany last August.

Still, the biggest surprise about Benedict’s first year, many said, is that he has not been more controversial.

His first major writing was not a treatise against secularism, relativism or same-sex marriage but a well-received letter on Christian love. He picked San Francisco Archbishop William Levada, who is considered a centrist, for his old job at the Vatican.

He met with a liberal theologian, Hans Kung, who was famously barred three decades ago from calling himself a Catholic theologian. While some hoped he would appoint conservative archbishops as soon as possible, he has not replaced moderates like Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, even though they are of retirement age.

He allowed free discussion on controversial topics like priestly celibacy at a major bishops’ meeting last fall, something John Paul had not allowed at previous “synods.” He reached out to the Society of St. Pius X, a conservative group that rejects church reforms of the Second Vatican Council. And, while under Benedict’s rule the Vatican published a high-profile “instruction” designed to keep gay men out of seminaries, the document was not forceful as some had feared.

No one suggests Benedict has changed his conservative outlook. But some criticism has come from unlikely sources. In February, a leading Catholic conservative in America, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, wrote of a “palpable uneasiness among those who greatly admired Cardinal Ratzinger and were elated by his election as pope.”

Neuhaus cited Benedict’s appointment of Levada, saying Levada had not done enough to press Catholic moral doctrine “in a city commonly called the gay capital of the world.” Levada’s replacement in San Francisco, George H. Niederauer, also came in for criticism.

Other commentators say it was only to be expected that Benedict would have a different approach as pope than as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His former title included dogma enforcement; his current one includes trying to unite the Catholic Church, church observers said. “Some of the right wing wants to see him be more strident or more upfront about certain issues,” Gillis said.

“His low-key presence doesn’t mean he hasn’t offered some support to these people in a general manner, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be the `out-front guy’ on these issues.”

Many church observers expect more high-profile activity from Benedict in his second year, such as reforming the Vatican bureaucracy. He plans to travel to Poland, Germany, Spain and Turkey this year, and will have to consider, in coming years, several important archbishop appointments in the United States.

“I don’t think he sees himself as simply a `caretaker pope,”’ Gillis said. “Over time he’ll have his opportunities to really make structural changes that will cause long-term differences in the church.”

MO PH RNS END DIAMANT

(Jeff Diamant covers religion for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)