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Deccan Herald » Foreign » Detailed Story
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Back to the future with Ratzinger
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The cardinal’s defence of conservative orthodoxy has made him unpopular with more progressive Catholics.
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Benedict XVI, the new face of orthodoxy
To many onlookers, the sermon preached by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in St Peter’s Basilica on Monday looked almost like a campaign speech for the papacy in which he emerged at the 11th hour as a surprising frontrunner.
Cardinal Ratzinger, the dean of the college of cardinals which on Tuesday elected him as the new pope, has been the Vatican’s defender of doctrinal orthodoxy for many years. It was no surprise that he should lay into modern relativism ahead of the conclave that after only a day resulted in his becoming Pope Benedict XVI. It was the way that he did it that startled.
The softly-spoken, courteous Bavarian cardinal, who turned 78 last Saturday, called on his colleagues, listening in their mitres and scarlet robes, to stand up for an “adult faith”, withstanding ideologies and anything-goes philosophies. “We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise anything as definitive and has as its highest value one’s own ego and one’s own desires ... from Marxism to free-market liberalism to even libertarianism, from collectivism to radical individualism, from atheism to a vague religion, from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth.” It is what the cardinal has spent much of the last quarter-century fighting against as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the institution that was once known as the Inquisition, standing firm for Catholic orthodoxy.
He was one of the late pope’s closest and staunchest advisers and, in the conclave that elected him, one of only two cardinals who was not appointed by Pope John Paul II - his red hat having been awarded by Pope Paul VI in the last year of his reign.
Ratzinger’s defence of conservative orthodoxy may have been part of his job, but it hasn’t made him popular, especially in more progressive corners of the faith. His hand has been seen behind most of the Vatican’s more hardline messages in recent years, during the waning health of Pope John Paul II, that took away the breath of more progressive elements in the church.
The cardinal has certainly exhibited the stern, unbending face of Catholicism. It has earned him the derogatory titles of “God’s rottweiler” and the panzer cardinal. The latter is particularly unfortunate since it has been revealed that as a very young man, Ratzinger did indeed serve briefly and unenthusiastically with the Hitler Youth and later a German army anti-aircraft unit, though he has claimed never to have fired a shot in anger.
Ratzinger, the son of a Bavarian police officer who opposed the Nazification process (his older brother also became a priest), has defended himself by claiming, not strictly truthfully, that he could not have avoided military service in the circumstances.
His theological career has been distinguished - he was formerly and relatively briefly the archbishop of Munich - but he has spent a very long time in the Vatican since his appointment by Pope John Paul II to defend the faith in 1981. Critics, including those from his native Germany, detect a lack of sympathy and understanding for the outside world, or much pastoral experience.
His name was certainly run hard by more conservative elements in recent days, largely since his well-received homily at Pope John Paul II’s funeral.
The Guardian
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Wednesday, April 20, 2005
