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Pope
Benedict XVI
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
I would not
care to venture what the secular media might say about Pope Benedict XVI
when he visits the United States for six days in April. Catholics will
welcome him as our pastor, the successor of St. Peter the Apostle, and
the visible head of the Catholic Church. Perhaps I can provide some
overlooked or forgotten details about this remarkable man.
Joseph Alois
Ratzinger was born on Holy Saturday in 1927 in a small town in southern
Germany, in the province of Bavaria, the most Catholic area in Germany.
He is the youngest of three children born to a police officer descended
from farmers of modest economic means and an Austrian hotel cook mother
born in south Tyrol near the northern border of Italy. Father Georg
Ratzinger, a priest, is the pope’s older brother. Maria Ratzinger, who
died in 1991, was his sister. She never married, was very devoted to her
brother Joseph, and spent a good part of her life as his housekeeper.
Pope Benedict
grew up in a time when the Nazi regime had overtaken not only Germany,
but many surrounding countries of Europe as well. From his earliest
years, Joseph Ratzinger wanted to be a priest. In 1941, just after his
14th birthday, he was forced to enroll in the Hitler Youth Corps. He
never attended Nazi meetings. His lack of enthusiasm for the Nazi party
no doubt was intensified by the fact that one of his cousins, a boy of
his own age who suffered from Down Syndrome, was murdered by the Nazis
as part of their program to do away with those who were physically and
mentally handicapped. Joseph Ratzinger also witnessed the Nazis beating
his parish priest before the priest celebrated Mass. Like all boys his
age at the time, he had no choice but to accept membership in the Hitler
Youth Corps.
The future
pope was a seminarian in 1943 when at the age of 16 he was drafted into
the German army as an anti-aircraft gunner. Eventually he was trained in
the infantry. But, due to poor health, he never saw combat. In 1945,
when the Allied front drew closer to his post, he deserted the army and
found his way back home. When the Allies arrived, he was put in a POW
camp, but was released a few months after World War II ended in the
summer of 1945. Returning to the seminary with his brother, Georg, in
November of that year, the brothers were ordained to the priesthood
together for the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising on June 29, 1951, the
feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The Holy Father’s brother still lives in
Bavaria. A touching moment was when Benedict XVI, shortly after his
election, visited his brother in a Rome hospital. (It was a brief
hospitalization.)
A year after
his ordination, Joseph Ratzinger began teaching as a high school
instructor. Several years after earning his doctorate in theology, he
began a university career as a lecturer on dogmatic and fundamental
theology. From 1962 to 1965, the future pope participated in the Second
Vatican Council, not as a bishop, but as a peritus or theological
advisor to Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne.
In March of
1977, Pope Paul VI named Joseph Ratzinger archbishop of Munich–Freising,
a position he held for only four years. He took as his episcopal motto
Cooperators Veritatis (“Collaborators of the Truth”). In his
autobiography, he comments on his selection of that motto: “On the one
hand I saw it as a relation between my previous task as professor and my
new mission. In spite of different approaches, what was involved, and
continued to be so, was following the truth and being at its service. On
the other hand I chose that motto because in today’s world the theme of
truth is omitted almost entirely, as something too great for man, and
yet everything collapses if truth is missing.”
Pope John
Paul II chose the archbishop of Munich-Freising to be prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, president of the Pontifical
Biblical Commission and president of the International Theological
Commission, posts he continued to hold until his election as pope.
In addition
to his native German, Pope Benedict XVI is fluent in Italian, French,
English, Spanish and Latin. He also has some knowledge of Portuguese and
can read ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew. He has been a prolific
writer. The author of 36 books before he became pope, he has now
authored two papal encyclicals.
On April 19,
2005, Joseph Alois Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. The taking of a
new name by the pope dates back to St. Peter himself, the first pope.
His name was Simon. Jesus changed his name to “rock” or Peter. Jesus
said: “I say to you, you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my
Church.”
The change in
name indicates a change in identity. Upon his election as pontiff,
Joseph Ratzinger was no longer Joseph Ratzinger, a German theologian and
cardinal, but the successor of St. Peter whose mission became the same
as that entrusted to Peter: “Go forth and baptize all nations in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20). Back in
2005, the keys of authority that Jesus had handed to St. Peter were
passed to Benedict XVI. “I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).
Shortly after
his election, the Holy Father explained why he had chosen the name
Benedict: “I would like to begin by reflecting on the name that I chose
upon becoming bishop of Rome and universal pastor of the Church. I
wanted to be called Benedict XVI in order to create a spiritual bond
with Benedict XV, who steered the Church through the period of turmoil
caused by the First World War. He was a courageous and authentic prophet
of peace and strove with brave courage first of all to avert the tragedy
of the war and then to limit its harmful consequences. Treading in his
footsteps, I would like to place my ministry at the service of
reconciliation and harmony between persons and peoples, since I am
profoundly convinced that the great good of peace is first and foremost
a gift of God, a precious but unfortunately fragile gift to pray for,
safeguard and build up, day after day, with the help of all. The name
‘Benedict’ also calls to mind the extraordinary figure of the great
‘Patriarch of Western Monasticism,’ St. Benedict of Norcia, co-patron of
Europe together with Sts. Cyril and Methodius and the women saints,
Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein. The gradual
expansion of the Benedictine Order that he founded had an enormous
influence on the spread of Christianity across the continent. St.
Benedict is therefore deeply venerated, also in Germany and particularly
in Bavaria, my birthplace; he is a fundamental reference point for
European unity and a powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian
roots of his culture and civilization.”
The words
Benedict spoke to the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square immediately
after his election reveal the humility of the former Joseph Alois
Ratzinger: “Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul
II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple humble laborer in the
vineyard of the Lord. The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to
act even with insufficient instruments comforts me, and above all I
entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the Risen Lord, confident
of his unfailing help, let us move forward. The Lord will help us, and
Mary, his most holy Mother, will be on our side.” |
