Our Sunday Visitor

October 23, 2005

INTO THE DEEP

The Pontiff's Softer Side

Pope Benedict XVI has surprised the world by being who his friends knew he was all along

By Colleen Carroll Campbell

When Pope Benedict XVI stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica last April, he faced a world that knew little more about him than his reputation as “God’s Rottweiler.”  As the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for more than two decades, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the Church’s premiere defender of orthodoxy.  His steadfast opposition to any corruption of Catholic doctrine had earned him many admirers – and more than a few detractors.

Those critics wasted no time in declaring that his papacy would usher in grim times for the Catholic Church.  They predicted theological crackdowns without genuine dialogue, and rigid authoritarianism supplanting a shepherd’s kindness.  Dissenting German theologian Father Hans Kung called Pope Benedict’s election “an enormous disappointment for all those who hoped for a reformist and pastoral pope,” though he held out hope that “the papacy in the Catholic Church today is such a challenge that it can change anyone.” 

After nearly six months on the job, Benedict has confounded many of his critics.  His pastoral side has come to the fore as he swiftly reached out to Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim clergy, warmly welcomed a million World Youth Day pilgrims in August, and even hosted his archrival Kung at Castel Gandolfo for a friendly chat in September. 

The Pope and the professor did not discuss the Vatican decision that prevents Kung from teaching as a Catholic theologian, but they did find common ground.  Through his spokesman, Benedict praised Kung’s efforts to promote dialogue with other religions and with science, and declared that both are important goals for his papacy. 

Many Vatican observers were surprised by the Pope’s amiability and willingness to directly engage his critics.  But they should not have been.   Pope Benedict has a long literary trail that testifies to his humility, his intellectual honesty and originality, and his receptivity to new people and ideas. 

In following this trail, the reader discovers a man with the ability to cut to the very heart of a question – whether theological, philosophical, or cultural – and address it with courage and clarity.  Pope Benedict refuses to dilute the Gospels and Church teaching, but he also resists the all-too-common temptation among religious writers to lapse into sectarian lingo. Whether writing about Eucharistic theology in God Is Near Us (Ignatius, 2003) or apostolic succession in Called to Communion (Ignatius, 1996), he speaks to audiences in a language they can understand, then invites them to ponder how God speaks to them through the Scriptures and the Church.

Perhaps most impressive for a lifelong intellectual whose views have been so frequently caricatured, he presents the arguments of his opponents in the best possible light, answering their strongest possible challenges, and assuming their noblest possible motives.  In his dozens of books, and now as Pope Benedict, he has consistently followed St. Paul’s exhortation to speak the truth in love. 

Kung was right that the challenges of the papacy can change a man, but he was wrong to assume that Benedict needed to be elected pope in order to discover his pastoral side or his passion for Church renewal.  He had those qualities long before he stepped out onto that balcony last spring.  We only had to take the time and trouble to discover them. 

 Colleen Carroll Campbell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.