Benedict XVI

Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022) was a German theologian who ruled the Catholic Church as Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 till 2013, when he resigned. The last time a pope resigned was Gregory XII in 1415, to end the split between pope and antipope.

He will probably be most remembered for “Summorum Pontificum” (2007), which allows the Traditional Latin Mass and its sacraments to be freely practised once again, as they had been for over a thousand years before Vatican II (1962-65). If it was good enough for the saints, it was good enough for him. But Pope Francis has already started to crack down on that with “Traditiones Custodes” (2021).

Timeline:

• 1941: turns 14, forced to join Hitler’s Youth. A cousin with Down syndrome put to death by Action T4, a Nazi eugenics programme.
• 1943-45: German army. Deserts. The US army uses his house as a headquarters and takes him as a prisoner of war.
• 1951: priest
• 1959: professor of theology
• 1962-65: Council of Vatican II. Works with the likes of Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeekcx to reform the Church. He is an admirer of Karl Rahner, whose liberal ideas helped to inform the Council.
• 1977-82: Archbishop of Munich.
• 1982-2005: Head of the Congregration for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF), fka the Roman Inquisition, set up to defend the Church against heresy.
• 2005-13: Pope Benedict XVI.
• 2013-22: pope emeritus. Continues to live at the Vatican and wear his white papal robes.

God’s Rottweiler: At Vatican II he was a reformer, but he was shocked by the wave of student radicalism in the late 1960s. By the 1980s he was taking a hard line on doctrine, on things like abortion and gay rights. The White Liberal Press called him “God’s Rottweiler”.

In 2006 Benedict said:

“For 60 years now, I have accompanied the path of theology, especially biblical studies, and have seen seemingly unshakeable theses collapse with the changing generations, which turned out to be mere hypotheses: the liberal generation (Harnack, Jülicher, etc.), the existentialist generation (Bultmann, etc.), the Marxist generation. I have seen, and see, how, out of the tangle of hypotheses, the reasonableness of faith has emerged and is emerging anew. Jesus Christ is truly the Way, the Truth, and the Life – and the Church, in all her shortcomings, is truly His Body.”

and in 2021 he said of same-sex marriage:

“We are witnessing a distortion of conscience which has evidently penetrated deeply into sectors of the Catholic people. This cannot be answered with some small moralism or even with some exegetical reference. The problem goes deeper and therefore must be addressed in fundamental terms.”

But God’s Rottweiler was all bark and no bite: By the 1990s the CDF was largely toothless: it issued statements on doctrine but had no way to back them up. And even as pope he did little to bring heretics into line.

Paedophilia: He gets low marks here too. He did little to fight it – as archbishop, head of the CDF, or pope. As Barbara Blaine, president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, noted:

“I would hate for him to be remembered as someone who did the right thing because from our perspective, Pope Benedict’s record has been abysmal.”

– Abagond, 2023.

See also:

• Christianity
  • Catholic
    • pope
      • The popes of Rome of the 1400s
      • Benedict XVI
        • What the pope said on 9/12
      • Pope Francis
• Hans Kung: Credo
• Signs Gospel – the work of Bultmann
• eugenics
• Hitler

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