Pope Benedict XVI, Auschwitz, and the Nature of Anti-Semitism

For comprehensive coverage of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Poland, I refer you to American Papist's "The Great Poland Post of 2006".

On Sunday, May 28, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI walked in silence under the iron gate bearing the Nazi slogan, "Arbeit Macht Frei," or "Work Makes You Free," and into the concentration camp of Auschwitz:

As church bells rang in the southern town of Oswiecim -- the Polish name for Auschwitz -- a solemn Benedict, his hands clasped in prayer, walked in silence the 200 metres to the execution wall wedged between prisoner blocks 10 and 11, where the Nazis summarily shot thousands of prisoners.

His face grave, Benedict stood a few moments in prayer, removing his hat before bowing solemnly and placing a bowl containing a lighted candle before the grim wall.

The pope then greeted a line of 32 camp survivors waiting to meet him. Some grasped his hands warmly, some knelt to kiss his papal ring, many seemed eager to thank him for visiting the camp.

Benedict clasped the hands of the first survivor waiting in line, a woman, wearing the striped scarf that Polish political prisoners wore at the camp.

An elderly Polish man kissed the pope on both cheeks, a gypsy survivor of the camp pressed the pope’s hand to his lips.

Henryk Mandelbaum, 83, wearing the distinctive striped cap of the Sonderkommando -- Jewish prisoners who emptied the gas chambers where their fellow Jews perished -- kissed the papal ring.

(German-born Pope Benedict XVI in Auschwitz, by Denis Barnett. European Jewish Press May 28, 2006.

Afterward, Benedict visited the cell which housed the Polish Catholic martyr Maximilian Kolbe, executed in 1941 after taking the place of a prisoner sentenced to die by starvation, and recognized as a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1982. He also paused for reflection next to the line of 22 plaques at Birkenau's International Monument to the Victims of Fascism, established between former crematoria II and III, where -- in German -- he prayed for peace and reconciliaton.

According to the Deutsche-Welle, Pope Benedict "shattered a taboo in the often-blighted relationship between Christians and Jews by using his native German language" to pray for Jewish-Christian reconciliation:

Throughout his four-day pilgrimage to Poland, a sentimental tribute to his predecessor and mentor John Paul II, Pope Benedict has avoided speaking German, aware that the older generation still regard it as the language of the old oppressor. But, the paper continued, the choice of German in Auschwitz was a deliberate gesture — a recognition that he had come to the camp not just as the Head of the Roman Catholic Church, but as a German and as an individual.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Few places on this earth rival the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as a testament to "man's inhumanity to man" -- a pervasive symbol of terror, genocide and the incomparable abomination of the Holocaust. According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Website (auschwitz.org.pl), it is "the site of the greatest mass murder in the history of humanity":

Auschwitz functioned throughout its existence as a concentration camp, and over time became the largest such Nazi camp. In the first period of the existence of the camp, it was primarily Poles who were sent here by the German occupation authorities [...] political, civic, and spiritual leaders, members of the intelligentsia, cultural and scientific figures, and [members of the resistance movement]. Over time, the Nazis also began to send groups of prisoners from other occupied countries to Auschwitz. Beginning in 1942, Jews whom the SS physicians classified as fit for labor were also registered in the camp.

From among all the people deported to Auschwitz, approximately 400,000 people were registered and placed in the camp and its sub-camps (200,000 Jews, more than 140,000 Poles, approximately 20,000 Gypsies from various countries, more than 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and more than 10,000 prisoners of other nationalities).

Over 50% of the registered prisoners died as a result of starvation, labor that exceeded their physical capacity, the terror that raged in the camp, executions, the inhuman living conditions, disease and epidemics, punishment, torture, and criminal medical experiments.

Beginning in 1942, Auschwitz began to function in another way. It became the center of the mass destruction of the European Jews. The Nazis marked all the Jews living in Europe for total extermination, regardless of their age, sex, occupation, citizenship, or political views. They died only because they were Jews. After the selections conducted on the railroad platform, or ramp, newly arrived persons classified by the SS physicians as unfit for labor were sent to the gas chambers: the ill, the elderly, pregnant women, children. In most cases, 70-75% of each transport was sent to immediate death. These people were not entered in the camp records; that is, they received no serial numbers and were not registered. This is why it is possible only to estimate the total number of victims.

Historians estimate that among the people sent to Auschwitz there were at least 1,100,000 Jews from all the countries of occupied Europe, over 140,000 Poles (mostly political prisoners), approximately 20,000 Gypsies from several European countries, over 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and over ten thousand prisoners of other nationalities. The majority of the Jewish deportees died in the gas chambers immediately after arrival.

The overall number of victims of Auschwitz in the years 1940-1945 is estimated at between 1,100,000 and 1,500,000 people. The majority of them, and above all the mass transports of Jews who arrived beginning in 1942, died in the gas chambers.

This was the third time Pope Benedict had visited Auschwitz and the neighboring camp at Birkenau -- on June 7, 1979, Benedict, then archbishop of Munich-Freising, was among those bishops who accompanied Pope John Paul II on his visit. He returned a year later, "with a delegation of German bishops, appalled by its evil, yet grateful for the fact that above its dark clouds the star of reconciliation had emerged."

Pope Benedict's Birkenau Address

A translation of Pope Benedict XVI's address at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is provided by Zenit News Service. It is, as the rest of Benedict's addresses, worth reading in full -- particularly before the selective, sound-byte presentations of the media.

Just as his predecessor came as a son of the Polish people, said Benedict, "I come here today as a son of the German people. For this very reason, I can and must echo his words: I could not fail to come here.":

I had to come. It is a duty before the truth and the just due of all who suffered here, a duty before God, for me to come here as the successor of Pope John Paul II and as a son of the German people -- a son of that people over which a ring of criminals rose to power by false promises of future greatness and the recovery of the nation's honor, prominence and prosperity, but also through terror and intimidation, with the result that our people was used and abused as an instrument of their thirst for destruction and power.

Yes, I could not fail to come here. On June 7, 1979, I came as the archbishop of Munich-Freising, along with many other bishops who accompanied the Pope, listened to his words and joined in his prayer. In 1980, I came back to this dreadful place with a delegation of German bishops, appalled by its evil, yet grateful for the fact that above its dark clouds the star of reconciliation had emerged.

This is the same reason why I have come here today: to implore the grace of reconciliation -- first of all from God, who alone can open and purify our hearts, from the men and women who suffered here, and finally the grace of reconciliation for all those who, at this hour of our history, are suffering in new ways from the power of hatred and the violence which hatred spawns.

A German pope addressing the horrors of National Socialism and the Holocaust is a ripe subject for controversy and misunderstanding, so it is no small wonder that not all in Benedict's worldwide audience were satisfied by his words.

The New York Times' Ian Fisher (A German Pope Confronts a Nazi Past May 29, 2006) criticized Benedict for his failure "[to] beg pardon for the sins of Germans or of the Roman Catholic church during World War II," and for "[laying] the blame squarely on the Nazi regime, avoiding the painful but now common acknowledgment among many Germans that ordinary citizens also shared responsibility."

Fisher's sentiment is echoed by the German newspaper Der Speigel (German Silence in Auschwitz May 29, 2006), which notes that Benedict's characterization of Germans as recipients of Nazi exploitation "will probably be associated with him for a long time to come."

Writing for LifeSiteNews.com, Peter J. Smith interprets the Pope's portrayal of his people in a different light, more as a recognition of what Germany truly lost in succumbing to the worldly promises of National Socialism:

Although John Paul and Benedict experienced the horror of the Nazi ideology, each experienced it from different perspectives, and at Auschwitz these perspectives are united. John Paul experienced the most violent effects of the atheist ideology forged by Hitler, as a clandestine young seminarian in Krakow, where the omnipresent stench of burning flesh from Auschwitz-Birkenau constantly reminded Poles of the death sentence that the Nazis had ordered for the whole people. However, Benedict, who was conscripted forcibly into the German army, and then deserted as a teenager saw from the inside the forces that carried away his countrymen from faith in God to a faith in man that embraced death and wrecked terrible havoc on the world.

The European Jewish Press noted Mixed reactions to Pope's Birkenau speech by Jewish leaders. On the one hand, Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, found the "accent . . . on the absence of God and not on the silence of man and its responsibilities" problematic, as his characterization of the German people as more the victim "and not on the side of the persecutors."

On one other hand, Israeli Ambassador David Peleg praised the Pope's recognition of the distinctiveness of the Holocaust:

"The most important sentence in the speech is that ’the rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people, to cancel us from the register of peoples.'"

"This is a strong sentence to come from the pope in Birkenau. I think it’s important to remember that in the place where he spoke, 95 percent of those who were murdered -- more than one million people -- were Jews."

And Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich -- whom the EJP notes was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack only the day before he intoned the Kaddish at the ceremony with Benedict at Birkenau -- praised the speech as "a great moment in the process of reconciling" Jews and Christians."

Although he said the pope "could have said things a bit more strongly ... his mere presence here was very important. It was a cry against anti-Semitism."

Giuseppe Laras, president of Italy's rabbis, stated on Vatican Radio that "this visit is a warning to humanity and a word of hope and consolation for all those who suffered." (Jewish Leaders Reflect on Pope's Auschwitz Visit, May 29, 2006).

And US Rabbi Benjamin Blech described the Pope's visit as "historic for all Jewish people and for the world":

Asked if the pope should have apologised for crimes committed by Germany’s Nazis, Blech said: "His very presence here is an apology. It speaks volumes."

Neither was Blech disturbed, as some Jews had been, over Benedict’s decision to recite a prayer in German at Birkenau. "The pope’s presence speaks a universal language," he told Agence France Presse.

I found the citation of Blech interesting, and perhaps something more than a coincidence: Rabbi Blech happens to be author of If God is Good, Why is the World so Bad?, a popular book on theodicy conceived as a Jewish corrective to the classic work by Rabbi Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. The two rabbis in their own way respond to the question the Holy Father posed in his own address: Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil? (See Blech on Blech Jewsweek Sept. 25, 2003).

* * *

In the Der Speigel article I cited above, Alexander Smoltczyk bemoaned Benedict's uttering "not a word about anti-semitism" -- that he had chosen to speak "about metaphysics" rather than guilt.

Reading the text of Benedict's address, however, it is hard not to see a more stinging rebuke and condemnation of those who persecute the Jews, or a clearer recognition of what anti-semitism truly is, especially as it was manifested in the horrors of Auschwitz:

Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid. If this people, by its very existence, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone—to those men, who thought that by force they had made themselves masters of the world. By destroying Israel, they ultimately wanted to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith and to replace it with a faith of their own invention: faith in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful.

Benedict's words called to my mind the closing thoughts of Fr. Edward Flannery, in his classic study The Anguish of the Jews. In his final chapter, on "The Roots of Anti-Semitism," Fr. Flannery states:

. . . antisemitism is at its deepest root a unified phenomenon and from all angles an anti-religious one. In the pagan racist, it is rooted in a revolt against the acceptance of a transcendental or divine moral order that would limit human freedom,a nd focuses on the Jews as the historical source of moral order. In the Christian, it derives from the same source, but channels the revolt against Christ, the Jewish God who brought the Jewish concept of God's reign to all nations.

In the perspective of this twofold subliminal revolt the data of history -- the contrasting forms of antisemitism and its inexplicable permanence -- acquire a measure of coherence and consistency. The positive side of the phenomenon, the attaction the Jews and Judaism have wielded as bearers of God's word among the nations, and the anti-God impulse in the depths of human consciousness and culture are joined in permanent enmity and conflict. Antisemitism is as much a subjective as an objective fact, as much a conflict within a person as among persons. . . .

According to Fr. Flannery, "the sin of anti-semitism contains many sins, but in the end it is a denial of Christian faith, a failure of Christian hope, and a malady of Christian love."

Contemplating the horrors of Auschwitz and the inscriptions of the victims -- Jew, Polish, German, Russian -- the world is confronted by the diagnosis of our Holy Father, and with his prescription as well:

. . . in the words that Sophocles placed on the lips of Antigone, as she contemplated the horror all around her: My nature is not to join in hate but to join in love."

Related Coverage

• Pope Benedict's Auschwitz Prayer, by Jeff Israel. Time May 29, 2006:

  he sight of a German Pope crossing into the death camp beneath the infamously false Nazi sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Will Set You Free), is arguably the most striking image of Benedict’s 14-month-old papacy. Walking alone with his hands clasped in front of him, an utterly grim expression fixed across his face, the 79-year-old pontiff entered as both the leader of the billion-strong Roman Catholic Church, and a World War II-generation German citizen.

• Joseph Bottum (First Things "On The Square" May 29, 2006):

  It’s as though nearly everyone wants to use the Holocaust for something: to advance some modern political purpose or thicken some contemporary moral claim. The temptation is almost overwhelming—and understandably so, for Auschwitz truly is a lesson, and it seems to demand that we apply that lesson, here and now. It seems to demand that we change our lives, here and now.

  In itself, that ought to be a warning. The examples are endless: A few decades ago, the anti-Western Soviets declared that the Nazi death camps demonstrated Communism’s superiority to the bourgeois West; a few years ago, a popular anti-Christian historian wrote a book claiming that the Holocaust proved that organized Christianity must dissolve itself. If the Holocaust merely confirms you in the stands you already have, then you haven’t learned the lesson of the Holocaust.

• Attempting to slay God was Auschwitz's greatest evil, pope says , by John Allen Jr. National Catholic Reporter reporting on Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Poland May 25-28.
• Pope’s Auschwitz visit unifies faiths, even as Poland battles anti-Semitism, by Dinah A. Spritzer. JTA [Global News Service of the Jewish People]. May 29, 2006.
• Missed Opportunity - Piotr Kadl?ik, chairman of the Union Of the Jewish Communities in Poland, had attempted to arrange for Benedict to bless Poles who received the title “Just Among the Nations” during his visit to the monument for the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising -- such was not to be, as the papal motorcade passed quickly by (just long enough for a a sign of blessing. (European Jewish Press Report).
• Survivor braves Auschwitz return BBC News. May 25, 2006. Coverage of one survivor's return to Poland -- and memories of Auschwitz.
• Auschwitz-Birkenau. Photos by Alan Jacobs.
• Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. "A Chronological Exploration of the Largest Mass Murder Site in History", by PBS Television.

Pope Benedict and the Jews - Related Links

Any criticism of Pope Benedict's address at Auschwitz-Birkenau can only be examined in relation to the ongoing witness of the life, words and actions of Pope Benedict to date:

• Papal Reprimand for Catholic Radio, by Jan Puhl in Torun. Der Spiegel May 2, 2006. (On the Vatican's efforts to rein in the Polish Catholic radio station Radio Maryja for anti-semitic / xenophobic commentary.
• Pope, meeting with Rome rabbi, expresses worry over fresh anti-Semitism Associated Press. January 17, 2006. (Meeting with Rome's chief rabbi, Benedict expressed concern over outbreaks of anti-semitism in Europe).
• Jewish-Catholic Ties Advancing, Says Benedict XVI: Receives a Delegation From Simon Wiesenthal Center Zenit. November 14, 2005.
• Benedict XVI Proposes Increased Dialogue With Jews Zenit. August 19, 2005. - "In his visit to the synagogue of Cologne, Benedict XVI expressed his concern regarding a resurgence of new signs of anti-Semitism and racism."
• Pope Benedict and Father Leon Dehon, Against The Grain June 25, 2005. On Pope Benedict's decision to halt the "fast track beatification" of French priest Father Leon Dehon (1843-1925) due to allegations of anti-semitism, prompting a formal inquiry by the Church.
• Pope Benedict and the Jews Against The Grain April 26, 2005. A study of Pope Benedict's thought on the subject until the time of his election.
• Pope Benedict XVI, Child of Abraham , by Rabbi David Rosen, nternational Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee. Beliefnet.com.

Pope Benedict XVI Roundup!

Benedict XVI's First Year

On April 27, 2006, Pope Benedict used his Wednesday general audience as an opportunity to reflect on the first anniversary of his pontificate:

How quickly time passes! A year has already elapsed since the cardinals gathered in conclave and, in a way I found absolutely unexpected and surprising, desired to choose my poor self to succeed the late and beloved Servant of God, the great Pope John Paul II. I remember with emotion my first impact with the faithful gathered in this same square, from the central loggia of the basilica, immediately after my election.

That meeting is still impressed upon my mind and heart. It was followed by many others that have given me an opportunity to experience the deep truth of my words at the solemn concelebration with which I formally began to exercise my Petrine ministry: "I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone" (L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, April 27, 2005, p. 2).

And I feel more and more that alone I could not carry out this task, this mission. But I also feel that you are carrying it with me: Thus, I am in a great communion and together we can go ahead with the Lord's mission. The heavenly protection of God and of the saints is an irreplaceable support to me and I am comforted by your closeness, dear friends, who do not let me do without the gift of your indulgence and your love. I offer very warm thanks to all those who in various ways support me from close at hand or follow me from afar in spirit with their affection and their prayers. I ask each one to continue to support me, praying to God to grant that I may be a gentle and firm Pastor of his Church. . . .

Courtesy of the Vatican, you can watch video of Pope John Paul II's funeral, the Conclave, and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. . . . Ratzenfreude, anyone?

* * *

Catholic bloggers, pundits and the world continue to assess the one-year anniversary of Benedict XVI's pontificate and his election on April 19, 2005.

In our April 2006 Benedict Roundup, we took a look at some rather mediocre (hence, disappointing) reviews by the likes of Stephen Crittenden, John Cornwell and Hans Kung -- with USA Today's Eric Lyman distinguishing himself by being able to mention JPII and B16 in the same paragraph without succumbing to the urge to lambast John Paul II's teaching on sexuality. This time around we'll see what some of our Catholic pundits and members of St. Blog's Parish have to say.

• Is B16 nasty enough?, by Michael Liccione (Sacramentum Vitae April 20, 2006):

  The Pope appears unlikely to clean house by showing the door to unruly family members. As I've often suggested before, demographics are at least as likely to winnow the chaff as juridical measures and would be far less costly. Instead, Benedict proposes the true, the good, and the beautiful; he calls the false, the evil, and the ugly by their right names; and he invites all, by example as well as word, to conversion of heart. Unlike some of my fellow conservative Catholics, I've come to believe that, for the moment at least, that's about as nasty as he needs to be.

• One year later, by Amy Welborn (Open Book April 19, 2006):

  That day a year ago is impossible to forget. It was thrilling and mystifying. Why were we all so fascinated, even the secular media? I was watching one of the nets and an anchor said, "I'm getting chills" - it's sobering, really, to think about it - that the election of a Pope could produce so much interest in what we thought was such a cynical world. . . .

  Great recollections of that amazing day, together with some great memories from her readers.

• Remarking on the tendency of many pundits to note that the Pope turned out to be not what they had expected -- which is to say, a far cry from his former incarnation as "God's Rottweiler," Guy Selvester (Shouts in the Piazza) wonders "Who is different?"

• " Pope and Abbot", by Christopher Ruddy. America Vol. 194 No. 19. May 29, 2006:

  . . . If his pontificate remains embryonic, a clear portrait of the man has begun to emerge: Pope Benedict the abbot. If John Paul II was above all a witness, carrying the truth about Christ and humanity to all peoples and places, I suggest that Benedict can be summed up as an abbot concerned with leading his community to a deeper encounter with God through prayer and service. Where John Paul was a “sender,” concerned primarily with the church’s mission, Benedict is a “gatherer,” concerned primarily with its communion.

• Pope Benedict made it into Time Magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World", with contributions by Jeff Israely (The Pope's First Year: How He Simplified His Role) and Peggy Noonan (Pope Benedict XVI: The New Pontiff Finds His Voice):

  This is God's Rottweiler? John Paul's enforcer? The man who bluntly told the Cardinals last year that they must clean the stables of the "filth" that had entered the church? According to those who have followed the work and life of Joseph Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict—this is the real him: the teacher, the thinker, the ponderer of deepest meanings.

  See also Time's impressive Photo Essay: The Pope's First Year.

• Benedict XVI, One Year Later: What’s New, by Sandro Magister. L'Espresso April 18, 2006:

  Among the novelties he has introduced during his first year as pope – which comes to completion this Easter week – there is one that Joseph Ratzinger has a special fondness for. So much so that has repeated it several times.

  It is the practice of public discussions in question and answer format. Benedict XVI arrives and greets those present, but doesn’t speak from a prepared text. He simply fields questions. And he responds to each of them, spontaneously. . . .

  Magister posts the text of five answers to the five questions posed to him by the young people in St. Peter’s Square on April 6, and links to other "spontaneous Q&A sessions" -- with priests of the diocese of Rome, on March 3, 2006; children who had received first communion, in St. Peter’s Square on October 5, 2005; and priests of the diocese of Aosta, July 25, 2005.

• Zenit News Service has published numerous interviews with various members of the clergy and the press, on their impressions of the Pope's first year, including journalist Marco Tosatti of the Italian newspaper La Stampa, on "Benedict XVI's Analytical-Rational Style" April 24, 2006; Salesian Sister Marcellina Farina of the Educational Sciences Auxilium on "Benedict XVI and the Dignity of Women" (April 25, 2006) and Bishop Luigi Negri on "Benedict XVI's Greatest Strength" (May 7, 2006).

• Habemus Papam! - a nice photo presentation from Argent by the Tiber.

• Pope Benedict XVI's Rookie Year?, by Mark Brumley (Insight Scoop ) -- a convenient roundup of "the deluge of articles" from the mainstream media.

• Assessing the first year of Pope Benedict XVI - ReligionLink.org provides a helpful "cheat sheet" for pundits covering the issue, with an overview of the major events and issues in B16's first year, a list of the books on Benedict XVI published during his first year, and a contact list of Catholic pundits and talking heads.

• Finally, an appraisal of Benedict's First Twelve Months by Lee Hudson Teslik of the Council on Foreign Relations turns out to be (unintentionally) amusing/disturbing, assessing Benedict's pontificate with chief attention given to the Church's stance on contraception and condom-use in Africa.

In Other News . . .

• By way of the Houston Catholic Worker, May-June 2006 issue comes Benedict's Deus Caritas Est: The Way of Love in the Church's Mission to the World, by David Schindler, Dean and Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology, Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family (Catholic University of America).

  

• From the March 2006 issue of 30 Giorni [30 Days], Tradition and freedom: the lectures of the young Joseph, by Gianni Valente, on "the first years of Professor Ratzinger’s teaching in Bonn and Münster, as remembered by his students":

  In his autobiography Ratzinger depicts the first months of teaching in Bonn as "a feast of first love". All his students from that time well remember the undergraduate grapevine that made them crowd to the lessons of the enfant prodige theologian. The scholar of Judaism Peter Kuhn, who was to become assistant lecturer under Professor Ratzinger in the years of teaching at Tubingen, says:

  "I was then a twenty-year-old Lutheran. I was attending the Evangelical Theological Faculty, after following the lessons of Karl Barth in Basle. I knew the Bavarian Vinzenz Pfnür, who had followed Ratzinger straight from Freising. He told me: listen, we have an interesting professor, he’s worth the trouble of listening to, even if you are a Protestant. At the first seminar, I thought immediately: this man is really not like the other Catholic teachers I know."

  In his manuscript Horst Ferdinand goes on:

  "The lectures were prepared down to the millimeter. He gave them by paraphrasing the text that he’d prepared with formulations that at times seemed to fit together like a mosaic, with a wealth of images that reminded me of Romano Guardini. In some lectures, as in the pauses in a concert, you could have heard a pin drop"

  The Redemptorist Viktor Hahn, who was the first student to “doctor” himself with Ratzinger, adds:

  "The room was always packed, the students adored him. He had a beautiful and simple language. The language of a believer".

  What was it that so gripped the students in those lessons given out in a soft, concentrated tone, without theatrical gestures? It’s clear that what the young professor had to say was not of his making. That he was not the protagonist. "I have never sought," Ratzinger himself explains in the book-interview The Salt of the Earth, "to create a system of my own, my own particular theology. If one really wants to speak of specificity, it’s a matter simply of the fact that I set myself to think together with the faith of the Church, and that means thinking above all with the great thinkers of the faith."

• The March 2006 issue of the Communion & Liberation periodical Traces includes a special section on Deus Caritas Est, reprinting the encyclical in full along with several supplements: "The Splendor of Charity", commentary on the second part of the encyclical by Massimo Camisasca (see also his commentary on part I: "The Humanity of Faith"); "Gratuitousness in action", a collection of comments from C&L members inspired by the encyclical; From Evangelization to Education, by Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. (Thanks to Fred of Deep Furrows).

• Vocation in the mystery of the Church, May 7, 2006. A Penitent Blogger posts the Message of the Holy Father for the 43rd World Day of Prayer for Vocations, accompanied by some appropriate and moving images.

• Pope Benedict XVI, Mozart and the Quest of Beauty, AD2000 Vol 19 No 3 (April 2006). "His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence." Mark Freer, organist and choirmaster for the Latin Mass at Holy Name Church in Adelaide, Australia, discusses the classical composer held in mutual esteem by Benedict XVI, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Benedict's brother Georg.

  This past April, a "visibly happy" Pope had the opportunity to enjoy a Saturday evening concert featuring music by his favorite composer, courtesy of the mayor of Rome. The program featured arias from Le nozze di Figaro and Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail, after which the Pope spoke briefly on the subject. Kath.net reported the story, and Closed Cafeteria's Gerald Augustinus provides a translation.

• Benedict XVI and Islam, by Samir Khalil Samir, SJ. AsiaNews.it April 26, 2006:

  While the Pope is asking Islam for dialogue based on culture, human rights, the refusal of violence, he is asking the West, at the same time, to go back to a vision of human nature and rationality in which the religious dimension is not excluded. In this way – and perhaps only in this way – a clash of civilizations can be avoided, transforming it instead into a dialogue between civilizations.

  

• "Everyone needs love. Everyone desires love. But not everyone understands love. In fact, love is probably the most misunderstood subject in history. . . ." Thanks to Ignatius Press, this problem can be remedied by the publication of a Deluxe Hardcover Collectors' Edition of Deus Caritas Est.

  Why a deluxe HARDCOVER edition of the encyclical? -- American Papist has the answer.

• German Pope having an impact on his native land Catholic World News. April 27, 2006. Passauer Neue Presse interviewed German journalist Peter Seewald (best known for his book-length interviews with the Pope, Salt of the Earth and God and the World). The article was published on Kath.net and CWNews provides a translation for those of us ignorant of our Holy Father's native language. =)

  Seewald shares his thoughts on Benedict XVI's teaching style:

  Ratzinger has found a quite distinctive, very subtle style. Reserved, calm, almost shy, and yet he very firmly goes his own way. There is an air of meekness that you recognize from the Gospels. The new Pope makes himself little-- and gives the impression of being that much greater, and as a result his office is all the more accessible. In a certain way Benedict is a born teacher, and what he has started with his new school of faith may be the greatest catechesis since the time of the apostles.

  and goes on to comment on the Pope's effect on Germany, including the Protestant reaction. See also: Germany Sees Benedict XVI Differently Now Zenit News, May 4, 2006. (On a humorous note, Gerald Augustinus posts some photos of Pope Benedict sweets, made in Marktl am Inn, his birthplace).

• Canonization and the emerging Benedict XVI, by Dr. Edward Peters. In The Light of the Law April 27, 2006:

  Benedict XVI's letter to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints seems to me to be one of the most important things he's done to date. It certainly shows the clearest difference between him and John Paul II to emerge so far. Benedict XVI could have communicated his concerns about the beatification and canonization process in a simple telephone call; instead he wrote a short treatise on the topic. The world was meant to take notice. . . .

• This year marks the 450th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, and the 500th anniversary of the births of his closest companions, St. Francis Xavier and Blessed Peter Faber. On April 22nd, 2006 -- "the feast of Mary, Mother of the Society, marking the day in 1541 when the three saints and the other original members of the Jesuits took their solemn vows in Rome" -- members of "The Company of Jesus" gathered in St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the historical event. [Source: Catholic News Service April 19, 2006]. Mark Mossas, SJ (You Duped Me, Lord) posts the text of Benedict's address to the Jesuits following the Mass.

• Bilder : Bildergalerie Pontifikalamt 1999 in Weimar mit Kard. Ratzinger (heute Papst Benedikt XVI.) Participation of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger at a Tridentine Mass in Weimar. 1999.

And on a Lighter Note . . .

• Dancing IPope Commercial. In the words of American Papist: "It had to happen."

• Vatican official warns against people posing as pope's organist, by Cindy Wooden. Catholic News Service. May 19, 2006. Consider yourself warned.

Pope Benedict XVI on 'Church and State'

The relationship between church and state and their proper jurisdictions have figured heavily in the remarks of Pope Benedict in the first year of his pontificate, as well as in his very first encyclical Deus Caritas Est. The Holy Father has advocated "a healthy secularism of the state," yet he has defended the legitimate role of religion in the moral and cultural development of the nation and the Church's role as a voice of moral conscience, reminding the state of its obligations to the common good.

Writing in his former capacity as Cardinal, the Pope has stated "the Christian is always Someone who seeks to maintain the state in the sense that he or she does the positive, the good, that holds states together." At the same time, in a lesson rooted in his childhood experience of National Socialism, he has commented on the dangers of a totalitarian state -- a state which presumes itself to be "the whole of human existence [and] the whole of human hope," insisting that "the first service that Christian faith performs for politics is that it liberates men and women from the irrationality of the political myths that are the real threat of our time."

What follows is a brief compilation of some of our Holy Father's remarks on this pertinent issue:

Pope Benedict and Alexis de Tocqueville

A Tocquevillian in the Vatican, by Dr. Samuel Gregg.^* According to Dr. Gregg, the publication of Deus Caritas Est reveals not only the influence of St. Augustine upon Benedict, but that of the nineteenth-century French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville:

Upon being inducted into the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France in 1992, then-Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America has always made a strong impression on me.”

Describing Tocqueville as “le grand penseur politique,” the context of these remarks was Ratzinger’s insistence that free societies cannot sustain themselves, as Tocqueville observed, without widespread adherence to “des convictions éthiques communes.” Ratzinger then underlined Tocqueville’s appreciation of Protestant Christianity’s role in providing these underpinnings in the United States. In more recent years, Ratzinger expressed admiration for the manner in which church-state relations were arranged in America, using words suggesting he had absorbed Tocqueville’s insights into this matter.

What has this to do with Deus Caritas Est? The answer is that Benedict XVI has taken to heart Tocqueville’s warnings about “soft-despotism.”

* * *

Recently added to the archives of Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club we find two earlier writings of Cardinal Ratzinger:

• Biblical Aspects of the Question of Faith and Politics A homily that was delivered on 26 November 1981 in the course of a service for Catholic members of the Bundestag in the church of St. Wynfrith (Boniface) in Bonn. (LewRockwell.com):

  Christian faith has destroyed the myth of the divine state, the myth of the state as paradise and a society without domination. In its place it has put the objectivity of reason. But this does not mean that it has produced a value-free objectivity, the objectivity of statistics and a certain kind of sociology. To the true objectivity of men and women belongs humanity, and to humanity belongs God. To genuine human reason belongs the morality that is fed by God’s commandments. This morality is not some private affair; it has public significance. Without the good of being and doing good there can be no good politics. What the persecuted Church laid down for the Christian as the core of its political ethos must also be the core of any active Christian politics; it is only when good is done and recognized as good that a good human social existence can thrive. To bring to public acceptance as valid the standing of morality, the standing of God’s commandments, must be the core of responsible political activity.

• Why Church and State Must Be Separate excerpt from "Theology and the Church’s Political Stance" in Church, Ecumenism and Politics (NY, Crossroads, 1987). Ratzinger notes that "the origin and the permanent foundation of the Western idea of freedom" lies in the "separation of the authority of the state and sacral authority":

  From now on there were two societies related to each other but not identical with each other, neither of which had this character of totality. The state is no longer itself the bearer of a religious authority that reaches into the ultimate depths of conscience, but for its moral basis refers beyond itself to another community. This community in its turn, the Church, understands itself as a final moral authority which however depends on voluntary adherence and is entitled only to spiritual but not to civil penalties, precisely because it does not have the status the state has of being accepted by all as something given in advance.

  Thus each of these communities is circumscribed in its radius, and on the balance of this relation depends freedom. . . .

  Benedict goes on to suggest something which might be brought to bear on the recent attempt to establish constitutional democracy in the Middle East and the necessity of preserving the Christian foundations of Europe:

  The modern idea of freedom is thus a legitimate product of the Christian environment; it could not have developed anywhere else. Indeed, one must add that it cannot be separated from this Christian environment and transplanted into any other system, as is shown very clearly today in the renaissance of Islam; the attempt to graft on to Islamic societies what are termed western standards cut loose from their Christian foundations misunderstands the internal logic of Islam as well as the historical logic to which these western standards belong, and hence this attempt was condemned to fail in this form. The construction of society in Islam is theocratic, and therefore monist and not dualist; dualism, which is the precondition for freedom, presupposes for its part the logic of the Christian thing. In practice this means that it is only where the duality of Church and state, of the sacral and the political authority, remains maintained in some form or another that the fundamental pre-condition exists for freedom.

  Where the Church itself becomes the state freedom becomes lost. But also when the Church is done away with as a public and publicly relevant authority, then too freedom is extinguished, because there the state once again claims completely for itself the justification of morality; in the profane post-Christian world it does not admittedly do this in the form of a sacral authority but as an ideological authority – that means that the state becomes the party, and since there can no longer be any other authority of the same rank it once again becomes total itself. The ideological state is totalitarian; it must become ideological if it is not balanced by a free but publicly recognized authority of conscience. When this kind of duality does not exist the totalitarian system is unavoidable.

* * *

Some Remarks in the First Year of Pope Benedict XVI's Pontificate

• Back in September 17, 2005, Zenit News Service published an article on Benedict XVI on Religion and Public Life, which included his June 2005 remarks to Italian President Carlo Ciampi on church-state relations.

• On October 17, 2005, in a letter to the president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera (with whom he co-authored Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam), Pope Benedict expressed his support for a "healthy secularity of the state" -- or that which guarantees "to each citizen the right to live his own religious faith with genuine freedom, including in the public realm" and includes "a commitment to guarantee to all, individuals and groups, respect for the exigencies of the common good, [and] the possibility to live and to express one own religious convictions."

  The full text of the letter can be found here.

• On November 19, 2005, Benedict XVI conveyed the Catholic Church's respect for civil authority:

  Benedict XVI explained to the bishops of the Czech Republic that in her work of evangelization, the Church doesn't seek to meddle in the sphere of public authority.

  "The Christian community is a grouping of people with their own rules, a living body that, in Jesus, exists in the world to bear witness to the strength of the Gospel," the Holy Father told the bishops in Rome for their five-yearly visit.

  "It is, therefore, a group of brothers and sisters who have no goals of power or selfish interest, but who joyfully live the charity of God, which is Love," he added.

  "In such a context, the state should have no difficulty in recognizing in the Church a counterpart that in no way prejudices its own function at the service of citizens."

---

Dr. Samuel Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family within the Pontifical Lateran University. He is author of several books on Catholic social doctrine including Challenging the Modern World: Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the Development of Catholic Social Teaching (2003) and On Ordered Liberty (2003), a critique of 'the liberal tradition' in its many forms.

Pope Benedict Roundup - Easter 2006, a Birthday and a One Year Anniversary

An occasional roundup of news, articles and commentary on Pope Benedict XVI

On April 16, 2006, Pope Benedict celebrated Easter services in Rome, marking the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ:

• From the Vatican website, a recap of Holy Week 2006 -- including the Holy Saturday homily of Pope Benedict XVI, in which he discusses the question: "Of what exactly does this "rising" consist? What does it mean for us, for the whole world and the whole of history?"

  The crucial point is that this man Jesus was not alone, he was not an "I" closed in upon itself. He was one single reality with the living God, so closely united with him as to form one person with him. . . . His own life was not just his own, it was an existential communion with God, a "being taken up" into God, and hence it could not in reality be taken away from him. Out of love, he could allow himself to be killed, but precisely by doing so he broke the definitiveness of death, because in him the definitiveness of life was present. He was one single reality with indestructible life, in such a way that it burst forth anew through death. . . . His death was an act of love. At the Last Supper he anticipated death and transformed it into self-giving. His existential communion with God was concretely an existential communion with God’s love, and this love is the real power against death, it is stronger than death. The Resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love which dissolved the hitherto indissoluble compenetration of "dying and becoming". It ushered in a new dimension of being, a new dimension of life in which, in a transformed way, matter too was integrated and through which a new world emerges.

  Benedict described the Resurrection as "a qualitative leap in the history of 'evolution' and of life in general," pointing the way toward a new life in Christ that is already "continuously permeating this world of ours, transforming it and drawing it to itself."

  This event manifests itself in the sacrament of Baptism, which is more than an act of "ecclesial socialization," of receiving people into the Church."It is also more than a simple washing, more than a kind of purification and beautification of the soul," said Benedict: "It is truly death and resurrection, rebirth, transformation to a new life":

  But what then happens with us? Paul answers: You have become one in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28). Not just one thing, but one, one only, one single new subject. This liberation of our "I" from its isolation, this finding oneself in a new subject means finding oneself within the vastness of God and being drawn into a life which has now moved out of the context of "dying and becoming". The great explosion of the Resurrection has seized us in Baptism so as to draw us on. Thus we are associated with a new dimension of life into which, amid the tribulations of our day, we are already in some way introduced. To live one’s own life as a continual entry into this open space: this is the meaning of being baptized, of being Christian. This is the joy of the Easter Vigil. The Resurrection is not a thing of the past, the Resurrection has reached us and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also hold on to one another’s hands, and we become one single subject, not just one thing. I, but no longer I: this is the formula of Christian life rooted in Baptism, the formula of the Resurrection within time. I, but no longer I: if we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a programme opposed to corruption and to the desire for power and possession.

• At morning Mass in St Peter's Square, Benedict XVI returned to the ancient rite of the Resurrexit, used by Popes since the 1100s but only recently (and sporadically) restored; the ritual reinforces Peter's role as witness of the resurrection. [-- "Benedict, Witness of the Resurrection", Rocco Palmo, Whispers in the Loggia]

• Pictures from Rome, Good Friday 2006, courtesy of American Papist.

  

• Also from the Vatican website is Pope Benedict's Urbi Et Orbi Message ["to the city of Rome and the world"], in which the Holy Father reiterated his call to peace with specific attention to Darfur, Iraq, Israel and Palestine -- with respect to the latter, he affirmed both Israel's just right to exist in peace and expressed wishes that the international community would assist the Palestinian people . . . to build their future, moving towards the constitution of a state that is truly their own."

  Also, in a somewhat veiled statement that might allude to Iran's pursuit of nuclear power (and persistent threats made by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Israel and Britain), the Holy Father also drew attention to "international crises linked to nuclear power":

  . . . may an honourable solution be found for all parties, through serious and honest negotiations, and may the leaders of nations and of International Organizations be strengthened in their will to achieve peaceful coexistence among different races, cultures and religions, in order to remove the threat of terrorism.

  Benedict closed his message with a call to all nations to attend to that which is (or ought to be) the sum of every life:

  May the Risen Lord grant that the strength of his life, peace and freedom be experienced everywhere. Today the words with which the Angel reassured the frightened hearts of the women on Easter morning are addressed to all: “Do not be afraid! ... He is not here; he is risen (Mt 28:5-6)”. Jesus is risen, and he gives us peace; he himself is peace. For this reason the Church repeats insistently: “Christ is risen - Christós anésti.” Let the people of the third millennium not be afraid to open their hearts to him. His Gospel totally quenches the thirst for peace and happiness that is found in every human heart. Christ is now alive and he walks with us. What an immense mystery of love! Christus resurrexit, quia Deus caritas est! Alleluia!

• The Risen SON: Easter Sunday - a timely quote from Ratzinger's Behold, The Pierced One, courtesy of the blog Eagle & Elephant; also, from pazdziernik, an excerpt from God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life on Tearing of the Temple Veil, from a talk at the Chrism Mass April 2,1980 in Munich.

• The Pope's Easter, by Daniel Henninger. Wall Street Journal April 14, 2006. The WSJ editor reflects on the Holy Father's stance against "the excesses of secularization and radical Islam.":

  If we still hold that the news reflects reality, we would be led to believe that Christians enter these final three days of Holy Week preoccupied with whether to credit the new Gospel of Judas that the hallowed National Geographic Society delivered unto the world this month, and whether to attend the imminent film version of "The Da Vinci Code,". . . My guess is that on this Easter Pope Benedict XVI, the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, feels he has larger fish to fry.

Happy Birthday, Pope Benedict XVI!

Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006 also marked the 79th Birthday of our Holy Father.

• Blogger 'New Catholic (Rorate Cali) posts Canon Georg Ratzinger's birthday message to his brother.

• And according to IOL.com, Pope got a chocolate surprise for his birthday as well:

  Pope Benedict XVI received a piano-shaped chocolate cake on Monday, prepared by students of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei for his 79th birthday on April 16, reporters witnessed.

  Benedict's fondness for the piano was noted when he had one installed in his quarters in the Vatican after becoming pope last April 19.

• Send Pope Benedict a birthday e-card, courtesy of William H. Sadlier, Inc. (Via Argent by the Tiber.

The Pontificate of Benedict XVI - 1st Year Anniversary

Also this week, the media turned its attention to the one-year anniversary of the Holy Father's pontificate, providing the opportunity for many a "talking head" and respective "men in Rome" to, er, do a little pontificating themselves.

• John Allen, Jr.: "The Last 12 Months" of Benedict XVI "Word from Rome" National Catholic Reporter March 31, 2006. As Allen wisely notes,

  Benedict is a supple thinker, and unpacking his approach on any given question requires nuance. Because his points of departure are the 2,000-year tradition of the church, coupled with his own judgments about the character of people under consideration, rather than the ideological categories of secular politics, his decisions will sometimes strike the outside world as surprising and out of character. Nor has his direction over the first year been entirely uniform, as if one can generalize from a single document or papal act to explain everything else.

  All this, however, constitutes an "insider" perspective, crafted from the point of view of devotees of the papacy and of Vatican politics. Generally speaking, that's not what secular media outlets are after. What they want to know is, in the "biggest picture" sense possible, what are the most striking or surprising aspects of Benedict XVI's first year, and what do they teach us about where things are going?

  It is in response to the latter inquiry that Mr. Allen directs his attention, organizing his reflections under five headings: "What Hasn't Happened" (a draconian crackdown on heresy along the lines of The Inquisition - "one would hear a great flushing sound across the Catholic world as all the dissidents and liberals were washed out of the system"); "Who's Paying Attention?" ("Papal aficionados", yes; "average Catholics", no); The Dictatorship of Relativism:("The beating heart of his pontificate can be expressed in three core concepts: truth, freedom and love. Truth, as the pope sees it, is the doorway a human person must walk through in order to be really free, meaning free to realize one's full human potential; and love is both the ultimate aim of freedom, and the motive for which the church talks about truth and freedom in the first place; Tough Love (with Islam, that is -- "Benedict XVI clearly wants good relations with Islam . . . yet he will not purse that relationship at the expense of what he considers to be the truth"); Benedict the Teacher ("Benedict is shaping up as a great teacher . . . [with] a remarkable capacity to express complex theological ideas with clarity and simplicity").

  Reaction to Allen's column from the ecumenical blog Mere Comments.

• Vatican vetter: The Benedict XVI File, in his own words Kansas City Star April 15, 2006. Bill Tammeus also interviewed John Allen Jr., in which the journalist repeated some of his earlier appraisal as well as some observations about the state of the Catholic Church in America:

  I think sociologically there is no Catholic Church in the United States. What you have are multiple Catholicisms. And the question really facing Benedict, as far as the American church is concerned, is how do you bring those tribes into conversation"

  and interreligious relations

  "Benedict clearly is committed to continuing the dialogue with other religions. On the other hand, I would say that Islam is actually one of the few areas of contrasts between Benedict and John Paul"

  and -- on a sadly comical-but-true note, the prospects of schism:

  The schism in the Catholic left is a multiphase process. First there’s an internal schism, where you just walk around cursing people and (ticked) off at authority, even though you’re going to church on Sunday.

  Then you self-select to be in a “progressive” parish, therefore reinforcing you in that choice, and you become even more alienated. Then what a lot of these people do is to spin off into another religious community, like becoming an Episcopalian.

  The Catholic right, when it goes into schism, it announces it. It finds a bishop.

  

• Faithful to the core, by Stephen Crittenden. The Australian April 15, 2006. According to Crittenden,

  "Benedict appears to have slammed on the brakes and even to be swerving off in a different direction entirely from his predecessor. . . . Anybody who thinks Benedict is a continuation of John Paul II is completely wrong. The former cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is a proper conservative. John Paul was neither a liberal nor a conservative but a revolutionary. And somehow, despite the biggest crowds and the biggest funeral in history, he has left the church exhausted and prostrate.

  Crittenden sticks to the same tortured hermeneutic of his February 2006 reading of Deus Caritas Est, proposing that Benedict is in part cleaning up the "damage" of Pope John Paul II's heavy-handed enforcement of the Church's moral teachings (see (Stephen Crittenden, Charles Curran, Rocco Palmo on 'Deus Caritas Est' Against The Grain February 2, 2006). As he did then, Crittenden again proposes that in Benedict's penning of Deus Caritas Est, "that soft splash you just heard at the back of the boat was Theology of the Body being tossed overboard, when just 12 months ago it was the focus of an entire Catholic academic industry."

  Crittenden goes on to speculate that Benedict's election was the result of a "deal" brokered with the progressive bloc "that [Benedict] would undertake to rule from the centre in a renewed spirit of collegiality with his brother bishops . . . In short, that he would bring to a close the age of Karol Wojtyla and an end to revolutionary Catholicism," -- a deal reflected in Benedict's cracking down on ecumenical movements close to his predecessor (ex. the Neo-Catechumenical Way). Crittenden suggests that Benedict's commitment to collegiality and unity will inevitably bring him into conflict with "the U.S. Catholic Right":

  The Wojtyla papacy thrived on . . . division, and the American Catholic Right supplied the venom and neurosis. John Paul II was their definite champion and they were able to zoom off to Rome to get whatever they wanted, especially in the later years. They always considered Ratzinger to be one of their supporters and they cheered at his election. But it is by no means certain that his view of the church and the world is the same as theirs.

  

• Challenging Crittenden's portrayal on B16's pontificate as one inherently in conflict with his predecessor is Edward Stourton, who evaluates Ratzinger's career as Prefect, "John Paul’s trump card" The Tablet January 4, 2006:

  John Paul made the most significant appointment of his pontificate in late November 1981, as political storm clouds were gathering in Poland. The rapport established between Karol Wojtyla and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during the conclaves of 1978 had flourished following John Paul’s election, and in early 1980 we find the then Archbishop of Munich expressing admiration for the new pope’s championship of traditional Catholic teaching.

  It was not, he explained during a radio interview, within the pope’s power to change what had been handed down to him: “It is the pope’s duty”, he said, “to preserve the faith intact for our time, and to criticise the ills of Western society.”

  According to Stourton, John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger

  "came to know one another’s minds very well indeed; for more than 20 years the two men would meet each Friday in private to discuss the CDF’s work, and there were regular Thursday lunches at which the conversation ranged more widely over a variety of topics in a freewheeling manner."

  One may wonder if a Prefect who collaborated so closely with his Pope would, in the words of Crittenden, "bring to a close the age of Karol Wojtyla"? -- While we can certainly expect differences in their approach, I don't believe it will be a radical de-emphasization of orthodoxy (and obedience to the Magisterium) that Crittenden and co. anticipate, nor a wholesale abandonment of John Paul II's catechesis in theology of the body.

  

• Likewise, it would appear that Ernesto Cardenal begs to differ as well. The 81 year old former Sandinista Minister of Culture (and ex-priest) gave two talks in Austria, in which he issued the warning:

  Pope Benedict XVI is continuing the course of his predecessor, who already was a disaster for the Church and turned back the clock 100 years. The current Pope was the main force behind the pontifical politics of his predecessor. I think, he will be the same, or even worse.

  (Via "Look what the cat dragged in" The Cafeteria Is Closed March 17, 2006).

• Behind the throne of the iPod pope, by John Cornwell. The Sunday Times April 16, 2006. Cornwell examines "the ultra-orthodox Bavarian theologian, known for two decades as 'God’s rottweiler' and once a member of the Hitler Youth . . . [who] rallied his brother cardinals to choose him at the conclave," pauses to mention papal right-hand Msgr. Ganswein's stint at an Opus Dei university ("the self-flagellating extreme conservative Catholic group"), gives a shout-out to Rocco Palmo ("for a taste of Georg-fever and pin-up pics"), adopts Crittenden's thank-God-he-hasn't-booted-the-liberals approach with a jab at Fr. Neuhaus ("an influential and vociferous hardline Catholic conservative . . . who pontificates like an alternative pope from the pages of First Things"); notes the "expansive girths" of Benedict's "kitchen cabinet" (Angelo Scola, William Levada and Christoph Schonborn -- "like Caesar, Benedict does not favour 'lean and hungry' prelates about him"), chastises Benedict for failing to meet the call of his own encyclical ("despite Benedict’s almsgiving rhetoric he has gone silent on the issue") but ends with cautious praise for his inclusive approach ("by concentrating on unconditional love in his first encyclical, he appears to be invoking an image of the church as a big tent with room for all perspectives"). Yick.

• Of course, when it comes to acerbic commentary about the Pope, Cornwell has some competition. Amy Welborn posts evaluations of Benedict XVI's pontificate from Hans Kung and Charles Curran, with appropriate responses from the Commentariat. From the Swiss theologian,

  "Benedict must choose between an eventual retreat to the pre-modern, pre-Reformation world of the Middle Ages, or a forward-looking long view which will take the Church into the post-modern universe that the rest of the world entered for quite some time."

  God help us all if Kung's wish is granted. A reader of Open Book responds:

  The thing about Kung and Curran (and this would apply to hundreds of other "thinkers") is the absolute predictability of what they are going to say. I mean, not only the substance, but the almost word-for-word nature of what is produced. This was especially striking about Kung's "effort." The man is crowding 80 (!) and he's happy to put out this standing still vs. moving forward vs. return to pre-Reformatiion days garbage. "Und I am tired today [he's addressing his secretary] zo, lizzen, just rrrrelease article number 4 to ze press, okay, Helga?"

• Blessings all round from the iPod Pope, by "leading Catholic writer" Peter Stanford. The Guardian April 16, 2006.

  At this point I have to say every appraisal of Benedict's pontificate by the Mainstream Media (with the exception of John Allen, Jr.) seems to me a repetitive copy of its neighbor: as before, Benedict's "inclusivity" is heralded, and used as a bludgeon against "the divisive policies on matters of personal and sexual morality" by John Paul II and conservative / traditionalist Catholics (Fr. Neuhaus, again).

  Stanford coos(?) over Benedict's fashion sense ("the hem . . . hovered somewhere just below his knee, exposing his dainty feet in white plimsolls and making him look more like a mincing Hercule Poirot than Supreme Roman Pontiff") and Msgr. Ganswein ("Known to Vatican colleagues at 'Don Georgio', to the Italian media as 'the Black Forest Adonis'") . . . and finally gets around to pondering "but does this new style papacy have any substance?" -- he questions some of "the monsignori [in] the bars and restaurants that surround the Vatican" and concludes:

  "There remains undisturbed that fundamental antipathy to change in Catholicism, a reluctance at the highest level to tailor the ideals it preaches for human behaviour with a corresponding understanding that individuals' lives usually fall short of moral perfection."

  "Is there any substance to the papacy"? -- How about reading some of Benedict's writings? For starters, he could review the recently compiled collection of B16's World Youth Day addresses (God's Revolution Ignatius Press, 2006).

  Suffice to say there's little here that differentiates The Guardian's take on Benedict's pontificate from that of Crittenden, Cornwell and Crossan. Although, between Stanford and Cornwell, I have to wonder if "iPod Pope" was purely coincidental? plagiarization? collaboration? -- Or maybe they got it from Rocco.

• Writing for USA Today, Eric J. Lyman believes "Benedict's appeal moves beyond 'caricature'", confounding the stereotypes of both the right and the left and inviting a new type of "fan base":

  Benedict's popularity differs from that of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who was accorded almost rock star status by the legions of banner-waving young fans who turned out to see him. By contrast, Benedict's admirers seem to be older, quieter and more introspective.

  "I loved John Paul and I love Benedict, but the personality of each man appeals to different sides of the faithful," says Carlo Angelo Sanzio, 43, a worker at a coffee bar who says he has attended most of the Sunday Masses at the Vatican over the past 10 years. "The people here now are less likely to shout and cheer (than those who came to see John Paul) and are more likely to pray and reflect. My friends say you would come to experience John Paul, and you come to listen to and learn from Benedict."

  People have been coming to listen to Benedict in large numbers. The crowd at the pope's Easter celebration Sunday — held under clear skies and in cool temperatures — was an estimated 100,000, according to the Carabinieri, one of the police units that provide security at Vatican events. Even Benedict's routine Sunday Masses attract crowds of about 25,000 in good weather, which is similar to the numbers that came to see John Paul before he became ill in the final years of his life. . . .

  "To the extent that the pope's popularity can be judged by straight numbers, the numbers have been growing," police Sgt. Antonio Caldaroni says.

  Benedict's meeting with Hans Kung is mentioned, but without the typical fawning adulation accorded to the latter; likewise, congrats to Lyman for contrasting JPII with B16 without succumbing to the urge to lambast John Paul II's Catholic teaching on sexuality.

• Benedict’s surprising first year, by Kieron Wood. Sunday Business Post (Ireland). April 16, 2006.

• One year on, Pope Benedict confounds critics, by Philip Puella. Boston Globe April 17, 2006.

• Assessing Benedict XVI's First Year, Zenit News Service interviews Andrea Tornielli, a Vatican-watcher for the newspaper Il Giornale, and author of Benedict XVI, Custodian of the Faith.

• Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: One-Year Anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI - PBS Television's March 22, 2006 interview with (who else, but) John Allen Jr. [Extended version here].

In Other News

• On April 3, 2006, Benedict celebrated the first anniversary mass for Pope John Paul II, and in a homily recalled the great faith and witness of his predecessor:

  It was faith, of course, that was at the root of this total offering of himself. In the Second Reading that we have just heard, St Peter too uses the image of the gold tested by fire and applies it to faith (cf. I Pt 1: 7). In fact, in life's difficulties it is especially the quality of the faith of each one of us that is tried and tested: its firmness, its purity, its consistency with life. Well, the late Pontiff, whom God had endowed with multiple human and spiritual gifts, in passing through the crucible of apostolic labours and sickness, appeared more and more as a "rock" of faith.

  To those who had the opportunity to be close to him, that firm and forthright faith was almost tangible. If it impressed the circle of his collaborators, it did not fail during his long Pontificate to spread its beneficial influence throughout the Church in a crescendo that reached its highest point in the last months and days of his life.

  It was a convinced, strong and authentic faith - free of the fears and compromises that have infected the hearts of so many people -, thanks partly to his many Apostolic Pilgrimages in every part of the world, and especially thanks to that last "journey", his agony and his death.

• April 2006 saw the english publication of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict XVI presented back in June 2005. Amy Welborn gives her first impressions of the Compendium:

  The interest and the yes, dare we say excitement, are totally justified. It is strikingly organic and deeply rooted. It is totally focused on the task at hand: communicating the fundamentals of the Catholic faith in a way that is completely accessible, comfortably confident. There is an ease about it, clarity and simplicty that is the essence of good teaching.

  Jimmy Akin gives his first thoughts as well, illustrating its merits with some comparisons of the Compedium and the original Catechism's treatment of the doctrine of original sin.

  See also A Catechism for the Culture of the Image, by Sandro Magister (L'Espresso May 7, 2005).

• Consistory 2006 Summary complete list of American Papist [blog] posts on the 2006 consistory. March 2006. (See also the listing of 15 new cardinals created by Pope Benedict Vatican Information Service. March 24, 2006.

  On March 24, 2006, Pope Benedict reminded the Cardinals of their calling:

  May the scarlet that you now wear always express the caritas Christi, inspiring you to a passionate love for Christ, for his Church and for all humanity. You now have an additional motive to seek to rekindle in yourselves those same sentiments that led the incarnate Son of God to pour out his blood in atonement for the sins of the whole world. I am counting on you, venerable Brothers, I am counting on the entire College into which you are being incorporated, to proclaim to the world that “Deus caritas est"

• On March 15, 2006, Pope Benedict initiated a new round of Wednesday catechesis, focusing on the relationship between Christ and His Church. Via Amy Welborn. The text of the Holy Father's Wednesday audiences are available at the Vatican website.

• Reorganization begins in Roman Curia Catholic World News. March 11, 2006. Benedict XVI made his first major changes in the organization of the Roman Curia, with two mergers of existing pontifical councils. According to Catholic World News:

  The Pontifical Council for Migrants and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace have been temporarily merged into one unit, to be headed by Cardinal Renato Martino.

  Similarly the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue has been temporarily merged with the Pontifical Council for Culture, with Cardinal Paul Poupard, the current head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, to head the combined effort.

  With the mergers, two top positions in the Roman Curia are eliminated. Pope Benedict accepted the resignation of Cardinal Stephen Fumio Hamao, who had been president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who had been president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, had already received a new assignment in February as apostolic nuncio to Egypt.

  Rorate Caeli relays some speculation from the European press on motives behind a promotion:

  Both Korazym and Andrea Tornielli in today's edition of Il Giornale remind their readers that Fitzgerald was the highest authority in that scandalous interreligious meeting in Fatima, in 2003, whose star was none other than Jacques Dupuis, SJ, highly praised by Fitzgerald at the time as the man who had provided the "theological basis" for interreligious dialogue. Dupuis, as is well remembered, was condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2001) and was the most important individual theologian who forced the same Congregation to issue one of the most important documents of the previous pontificate, the declaration Dominus Iesus (2000). Il Foglio also regards this as the overwhelming motive for the promotion of Fitzgerald.

• T.S. O'Rama of Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor expresses his gratitude for a Pope:

  Personally, we “have a history” - I read his books seven or eight years ago and in his very familiarity it was like the ascension of a family member to the throne of St. Peter. A father became the Holy Father.

  He seemed to me the realist to Pope John Paul II’s dreamliness and his frankness allowed me to trust. He wasn’t afraid to be controversial in that Age Before Controversy, the era before blogs and polarization. :-)

  But the primary appeal is that he is a Scripture scholar and that is charismatic in and of itself since Scripture = Christ = charisma. Scott Hahn’s ministry prepared the ground for American Catholics to appreciate Pope Benedict, giving us a craving for the experience of scripture and catechesis that Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, is uniquely gifted to satisfy.

• Cardinal Ratzinger, Biblical Exegesis, and the Church, by Stephen Hand (Traditional Catholic Reflections & Reports - TCRNews.com):

  On January 27, 1988, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dropped something of a large bomb on the neo-modernist Biblical establishment. The Cardinal, theoretically the second most powerful man in the Church, delivered the Erasmus lecture for that year in New York City (1) , sponsored by the Rockford Institute Center on Religion & Society [directed in the 1980's by Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus], entitled Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today. Needless to say, any lecture given by the head of what was formerly known as The Holy Office and which promised to be examining and critiquing the very “foundations” of modern exegesis (which today is completely identified with the so-called historical-critical method) was bound to raise eyebrows and cause no little commotion.

  The Cardinal did not disappoint. Surrounded by both friends and foes (including the American exegete Raymond Brown) the Cardinal delivered the most trenchant critique of the erring philosophical and theological presuppositions which lay behind the historical-critical method since the early days of the Pontifical Biblical Institute founded by Pope Leo XIII. . . .

  The full text of the address "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today" is available online, courtesy of the site Christendom Awake.

• Responding to the case of a man in Afghanistan facing the death penalty for convertion to Christianity, retired diplomat Peter Laurie delivered a blistering broadside against "right wing fundamentalism" of all stripes (Nation News April 2, 2006). One of the targets of his criticism was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, for having defended fundamentalism as "eminently reasonable" in his homily to the college of cardinals in his famous homily a year before.

  In If you're going to call Pope Benedict a "fundamentalist"..., Carl Olson of Insight Scoop demonstrates the value of understanding what you're talking about.

And on a lighter note . . .

• Cambio. Guy Sylvester (Shouts in the Piazza) discusses "a time honored tradition of the Vatican":

  Namely, getting the Pope to exchange the zuchetto on his head for the one you have presented to him. This used to be a frequent occurrence at Papal audiences. In fact, in the days of Pope Pius XII (of happy memory) some zuchetti barely stayed on his head for a few seconds before being switched again with yet another being held up by an enthusiastic member of the faithful.

  Eventually, the custom waned and for much of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II hopeful zuchettos-switchers were politely told no. . . .

  A friend of Sylvester's managed to celebrate the tradition, with the assistance of Mons. Ganswein and a photograph to document the occasion.

• "He looks like the nicest guy you'd never want to get on the wrong side of." - The Many Faces of Benedict XVI Shrine of the Holy Whapping April 16, 2006.

• In honor of the World Youth Day planning meetings being held in Rome this week, Pope Benedict decided to opt for a more contemporary hair style . . . -- PPOTD! (Papist-Picture-of-the-Day) American Papist April 5, 2006.