Benedict XVI on a visit to Bagnoregio (Italy) in 2009 (Giacomo Morini / Shutterstock)
Among the many write-ups on Benedict XVI following his death, we’ve selected several to highlight which focus on his contribution to the Church and current debates.
Radical thinker and believer
Peter Seewald, biographer of Benedict XVI and author of several book-interviews with him, published a profile on kath.net in which he highlights the historical figure.
“It is no coincidence that the British historian Peter Watson counts Benedict XVI among the German ‘geniuses’, right next to giants like Beethoven, Hölderlin and Kant. Among his contemporaries, there´s no match. Joseph Ratzinger already made history as an expert on the Vatican II Council. Without his influence, his courage to go against the grain, his guidelines for the renewal of the Church, Vatican II would not have been the same. As a guardian of the faith, he worked alongside John Paul II for a quarter of a century to ensure that the ship of the Church kept her course in the storms of our times.»
“Benedict XVI embodied a new intelligence in the knowledge and communication of the mysteries of the faith; but he did not only address a certain group of people. Rather, he knew how to reach both the intellectuals and the everyday faithful, and at the same time he defended the warm piety of the common people against the frigidity of the church’s scholars. He was convincing not only because of his discernment, but because of the authenticity that comes with living a life totally focused on following Christ. He could not live differently from what he taught. Joseph Ratzinger was not only a radical thinker, but also a radical believer who never allowed himself to be manipulated by the charges and positions he held. His great fight was having to resist, saving what was in danger of being lost. And get back what apparently had already been lost in the waves of destruction. He was not concerned with what was popular or with what the media wanted, but with what God wanted.
Depth and simplicity
A similar profile was written up in Tichys Einblick magazine by Peter Hahne, a Protestant, former television presenter and member of the German Evangelical Church Council.
“What will I remember about Benedict XVI? His three addresses during his unforgettable visit to Germany in 2011 were explosive from a political and ecclesiastical point of view. He stirred up friction between his opponents; Deliberate misinterpretations arose from within the church´s own ranks. The ‘elite’ and spiritually confused among our theologians and politicians went crazy: the clearest sign that he had hit the nail on the head. His greatest hardship was the German Catholic church´s decision to follow the suicidal path of the German Evangelical Church.”
The debate, in 2004, between Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, the brain behind the philosophy of 1968, is quite an intellectual milestone. (Peter Hahne)
“His preaching was theologically compelling and biblically unequivocal. And he was downright meek in his almost childlike trust in Jesus Christ. He combined simplicity and depth like virtually no other pope or scholar. Any Lutheran pietist can appreciate his trilogy on Jesus. Those who read it ‘secretly’ will believe they are reading one of the Fathers of the Church: it is totally centered on Jesus Christ and stays far away from meddling in present-day controversies. He counteracted – in an attractive, bright, highly intellectual and non-controversial way – the superficialities of the so-called theologians who preach from the pulpit. The debate, in 2004, between Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, the brain behind the philosophy of 1968, is quite an intellectual milestone. In the end, it was the Marxist who had to give in: ‘You Christians have resources that no one else can offer,’ he said.
Spanish theologian Olegario González de Cardedal also highlights in the Spanish newspaper ABC the importance of one of Benedict XVI’s interventions in Germany, specifically the one he made in Parliament, as well as others before secular institutions. Within these frameworks, the question of the foundations of civil society, the validity and threats to democracy, the replacement of a desire to know the truth for a desire for power as a consequence of widespread relativism were highlighted as threats to the person and a risk for society. What are the moral limits of man’s power? Can fundamental rights be defended without the cultivation of fundamental values? Has democracy reached a breaking point for having forgotten or denied its very foundation? These issues have been analyzed by Ratzinger in his conferences with intellectuals, such as the one in Munich with Habermas. Power and knowledge, science and politics are not enough to defend the humanity of each person and life in a society; the sacredness, transcendence and dignity of the human being are at stake.”
Defender of the Enlightenment
Brendan O’Neill, director of Spiked, emphasizes Benedict XVI’s defense of reason and human freedom.
He begins his article by recalling the campaign against Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK in 2010, promoted by the “new atheists” – Richard Dawkins, among others. “There was also a profound irony in this Benedict-bashing spectacle. Because this man they loved to hate, ‘Pope Ratzinger’, as they demeaned him, was a far keener defender of reason than they were. He was a more rigorous student of Enlightenment, too. And he did more than they ever will to challenge the real menace to truth in the 21st century – not religion but the ‘dictatorship of relativism’, as Benedict called it. There was more humanism in Benedict’s brave, often lonely battle against today’s tyranny of nothingness than there is in the New Atheists’ snotty rage against religion.”
“Perhaps Benedict’s most important insight was that this dictatorship of relativism represented a negation of the Enlightenment” (Brendan O’Neill)
“Benedict devoted his brilliant mind to doing battle with moral relativism. He viewed relativism, where the very ‘concept of truth has become suspect’, as the great scourge of our times. He railed against ‘the massive presence in our society and culture of [a] relativism which, recognising nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires’. He said that the cultural elites’ dismantling of truth, even of reality itself (witness transgenderism’s war on biology), might present itself as ‘freedom’ but it actually has severely atomising and authoritarian consequences. The postmodern assault on truth is pursued under the ‘semblance of freedom’, he said, but ‘it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own ego’.”
“Perhaps Benedict’s most important insight was that this dictatorship of relativism represented a negation of the Enlightenment. Too many right-wingers and ‘Trad Caths’ […] blame every ill on the Enlightenment”. En cambio, “Benedict knew better. What we are witnessing is a ‘radical detachment of the Enlightenment philosophy from its roots’, he said. Modern rationalists tell us that ‘man, deep down, has no freedom’, and also that he ‘must not think that he is something more than all other living beings’, Benedict noted. (…) Today’s supposed rationalists act ‘in total contradiction with the starting point of [Enlightenment thought]’, Benedict said.”
This praise of Benedict does not mean that O’Neill agrees with him in matters of faith. “No, I do not share Benedict’s belief in God. I am an atheist.” But he agrees with Benedict on his teachings behind reason. “This atheistic humanist, for one, found more to cheer in the reason espoused by that Pope of Rome than I did in the petty anti-religiosity of educated secularists.”
He took women seriously
Italian journalist and historian Lucetta Scaraffia, who was the director of the monthly women’s supplement of L’Osservatore Romano, highlighted in an article published in La Stampa that «Ratzinger’s relationship with women, a great problem for the Church in contemporary times, was characterized by courage and truth”. And she adds that «in the same new way Ratzinger interprets Marian devotion in his works, which offers a passionate defense of the central role of women within the Judeo-Christian tradition: ‘Omitting women in theology means denying creation and salvation history and therefore suppressing revelation’”.
“As a woman, he never treated me with the paternalism typical of the clergy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but listened to me with attention and respect” (Lucetta Scaraffia)
Benedict XVI, Scaraffia points out, stressed that men and women are equal in essence and dignity, and at the same time recalled «the function of the difference between the sexes as an opportunity for growth and expansion: ‘Man and women were created with a need for the other to that goes beyond themselves.’”
“I saw all this first-hand when I got to meet Pope Benedict personally and I can attest to it: as a woman, he never treated me with the paternalism typical of the clergy and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but listened to me with attention and respect. I still get emotional remembering it.”
Respect and a desire to listen
Other testimonies also highlight his attitude of respect and desire to listen to others were both clear characteristics of his personality.
Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, former prefect of Divine Worship, who met him at an international meeting of episcopal commissions on the Doctrine of the Faith, highlighted this in an interview for ABC. “He was exquisitely cordial. He paid full attention to each of the interventions and took into account every contribution.” He later summarizes: “He was a very warm man. Even theologians who had called for the Congregation to gather to discuss his teachings were amazed at the treatment they received. I remember a Spanish theologian, whom I won’t name, who was summoned for several controversies over his writings, and told me, after speaking with Cardinal Ratzinger: ‘What kindness, what sweetness and what clarity of thought. He speaks the truth without offending or scolding you, on the contrary, I have felt welcomed as a believer in the Church.’”
Mgr. Fernando Ocáriz, prelate of Opus Dei, also published several memories of his with Joseph Ratzinger on the institution’s website: “Since I met him personally in 1986, when I began to collaborate as a consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I was struck by his willingness to listen to everyone. I had the opportunity to be alone with him on many occasions, both for Congregational matters as well as others. In our meetings he was never the one to end a conversation, or let you know he had another matter he needed to attend to. The great consideration he took in hearing the opinions of others was edifying, even if sometimes they were different from his own. Different opinions could be expressed to him with complete peace of mind, and he did not get upset or flustered, even if the person bringing them up was much younger, or had far less education or experience. What really mattered to him was the truth.”
Spanish version by Lucia K. Maher