They wait on his word
A recent trend I’ve noticed in the Catholic blogosphere is a
fascination—sometimes bordering on obsession—with the public pronouncements of
Pope Benedict. The global reach of the
Internet has allowed every homily, Angelus address, speech, or off-the-cuff
remark to be quickly translated and disseminated.
There is no denying that Pope Benedict is a man of unique
spiritual and intellectual gifts. As a
friend of mine wrote to me recently, “Benedict leads me to prayer. When I read
his writings, I find myself praying and being opened up.” My friend recounted a story about
then-Professor Ratzinger’s 8am lectures in
came to listen on their way to work.
When the lectures ended, many would remain in their seats praying.
So it seems almost churlish to question whether this
fascination with the Pope’s public statements is a good thing. But question it I shall. Because the problem is not the Pope, but
rather the lack of any other Catholic voices of comparable stature.
I was thinking of this the other day when I was preparing my
post on St. John Chrysostom. When one
looks back at the 4th and 5th centuries, one is struck by
the number of bishops who had the kind of public profile—albeit on a smaller scale—that
Benedict has today: Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of
Nazianzus, John Chrysostom. To be Bishop
of Rome in those days was not to be the sun around which lesser bodies merely revolved. As Eamon Duffy once observed, it is not the normal state of things for the
pope to be the Church’s chief theologian, evangelist and legislator all rolled
into one.
One of the clear intentions of the Council Fathers at
Vatican II was to reaffirm the centrality of the episcopate in Catholic ecclesiology
after several decades (one might even say several centuries) of papal maximalism.
But 40 years after the Council, the pope remains something of a solitary
figure, floating above the episcopal college rather than firmly embedded in it.
The reasons for this are varied and even those who agree on
the problem may disagree about the cause.
Some point to the poor quality of episcopal appointments made during the
last pontificate and the impact of the sexual abuse scandals on public
perception of bishops. Others argue that
the national episcopal conferences have made it harder for individual bishops
to develop distinctive voices. Still
others note that the fascination with the pope is a result of forces within the
mass media over which the Church has limited control. There are many fine bishops who preach and
inspire their flocks, but who do not make the news.
hesitate to share the fruits of his prayer and reflection with us. We would be the poorer for that. But as my aforementioned friend put it, “My
hope is that Benedict can provide a distinctive voice that allows other
distinctive voices to flourish.” That will be my prayer as well.
Ha! When I read the initial 2/3 of the first sentence, I thought this post was going to be about Stephen Colbert.
Peter, I’m not sure what you feel the problem is.
1. In the US, we do have Bishops who get out there with there own messaegs– Chaput, Burke, et al. In fact, one could say that they disproportionately took the spotlight away from the more taciturn types during the last election. I guess whether you think that is a good thing depends in part upon your evaluation of what they said.
2. I think the Fourth and Fifth Centuries were anaomolous in terms of the number and quality of theologians they produced.
3. But we do have bishops today whose ideas people pay attention to: Schonborn, Kasper, Martini and maybe George. We also have lay theologians, at all levels, whom people pay attention to.
4. I think the fascination with this pope has a number of causes. He was known before he became Pope –and known as JPII’s enforcer. So people want to see what he can do on his own. Before that, he was known as a leading VII theologian in his own right. It’s interesting to see him come into his own, intergrating both his nuanced scholarly capapblities and his pastoral role, without having to modify his voice to please a superior. And this is more ineffable, but there is something about his style and persona that seems genuine –rather than just designed for the cameras. And that, I think, is why the cameras like him. They’re not used to that.
5. Fred, there is nothing I would rather see than the Pope interviewed on the Colbert Report. I could die a happy woman.
The pope like other celebrities has a forum not available to others. As with celebrities the pope is wrong many times. Nevertheless, people seem to rather be wrong with fame than right with the less known.
This is a serious abuse. JP’s cd was the wacko version of all this.
Benedict is indeed genuine, though not always right.
The power of the celebrity of the pope was evident in his most recent lecture. Most were scurrying to explain away the talk. If it were someone else the talk might have been termed crude and/or senseless.
One good thing, imho, no one refererred to him as “the holy father, in all this.
Good heads up Peter. Can we get out of celebrity and appreciate real people. It seems even Colbert cannot do that.
How could I forget Avery Dulles, SJ, who has a speaking schedule that tires me out even looking at it.
How many people in the 4th and 5th centuries heard more than one or two of the great bishop theologians, or even read their works? The vast capabilities of modern media have changed everything. John Paul courted media attention. I am not sure that Benedict does, but the media are not about to let hims speak privately. The coverage of the lecture in Regensburg by the New York Times was extremely inaccurate, even misquoted him. It was actually good that we were able to get the actual text via the internet. I for one prefer to offer a critique of what he actually said rather than a comment on what the NYT relayed of his words.
Peter: thanks for saying what I have been recently thinking. It has become slavish the way almost every public word B16 says is instantly broadcast on all of the news media and, to an even worse degree, Catholic blogsites. And then parsed to death! Would that sacred scripture was examined as well.
Too much of a good thing is exactly that: too much.
The latest brouhaha over his quotation from the 14th Century Christian emperor who said the Prophet Muhammad had brought the world only “evil and inhuman” things is a case in point. Maybe there is too much pressure on the man to be constantly speaking out on each and every occasion that he appears in public.
I have gotten to the point that I don’t even bother to read the papal pronouncement postings. I’d much prefer fewer public utterances so that they migh have a bit more meaning. But, then, I’m not a huge fan of the papacy to begin with, so I readily admit my bias.
I haven’t heard commentary this churlish in a long time. You people could stand to read Pope Benedict’s statements – every word of them. As a Church, we are privileged to have a theologian of his standing as Pope. And Mr. Mazella, his lecture at the University of Regensburg was neither crude nor senseless. It was a very precise depiction of the differences among various views of God and humanity. And we’ve been long overdue for that. Why do all of you resent the Holy Father so much? Probably because you know he does not agree with your theological viewpoint(s).
As with the reaction to the Danish cartoons, the Islamic reaction to the Pope’s lecture may be overblown, but it seems he will certainly have a difficult trip to Turkey in November–assuming the trip doesn’t get cancelled. Here’s the latest from the press:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060915/ap_on_re_mi_ea/pope_muslims_12;_ylt=AkYEGH3oII4LDkT6fvx1nkzkeO0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
The rapid response from the Muslim world seems to prove Peter’s point that many in the world hang on the Pope’s every word. If his comments about Islam prove to be a misstep, as some thought his comments at Auschwitz were a misstep in Catholic/Jewish relations, the Pope may have to get more objective review of his texts before their delivery. I have a feeling he does much of his own writing and editing, relying little on his staff to suggest less controversial ways of saying things. In his prior role as head of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, he was speakly almost exclusively to Catholics about internal matters. Now, rightly or wrongly, he is perceived as speaking to the world in almost everything he says. JPII’s media superstardom no doubt had a lot to do with making so visible. Maybe BXVI needs to surround himself with more staff who will respectfully advise him of potential missteps on the world stage.
Peter:
The process that led to the Pope’s being considered the chief teacher (even the exclusive one, bishops being considered megaphones) began long before John Paul II. Fr. Congar wrote about the “incredible inflation” of the papal magisterium in the modern period (19th-20th centuries). One measure of this is to look at the pages of Denzinger’s collection of magisterial documents and see how many pages are given to papal statements during this period, and how few to episcopal statements.
It didn’t help in this process that Vatican I had time only for statements about the pope, and in succeeding decades the number, say, of encyclicals greatly increased. It even became common to see the Roman See’s role not simply as a defender of the faith but as an initiator and director of theology, something strong under Pius XII. Vatican II tried to counterbalance things with an assertion that bishops are not simply vicars of the pope, but have their own teaching responsibilities. But under John Paul II, even while the language of collegiality rang out, there took place an erosion of the sense of co-responsibility at all levels. It seems that many of the US bishops do in fact see themselves as the pope’s vicars, related to him as pastors in their dioceses are related to the bihop.
Another danger in all of this is that teaching gets assimilated to legislating, as if (to paraphrase a complaint of Newman’s) people consider it as easy to assent as to obey.
I think that Pope Benedict, so far, has shown himself to have a more modest sense of his own role than did his predecessor. I myself am interested in what he is writing as pope, because it is usually so intelligent.
The only thing I would add is that there are some very good theologians out there, and many books about the faith worth reading.
Sorry for the unwieldy nature of the link above, though it works.
Personally I enjoy reading Benedict’s statements. He is erudite, but he does not pontificate. The writing, I suspect, is the man. It is his humanity that it is good to be reassured of. One can see a mind at work, not alway with perfect clarity, at times indulging in doubtful asertions, at times ambiguous, but without mask or masquerade. He seems a celebrity despite himself. I like that.
“Maybe BXVI needs to surround himself with more staff who will respectfully advise him of potential missteps on the world stage. ”
Right you are Bill C. Benedict is a Jimmy Carter disaster in process. Being pope is different than being head of the CDF as being president is different than governor.
Let’s hope he will not do any Playboy interviews.
I just want to respond briefly to some points raised by both Kathleen and Joe, because they suggest that my original post could be understood to imply that I don’t think there are other well known Catholic theologians or bishops out there. Avery Dulles and Walter Kasper are certainly giants of contemporary Catholic thought, and there are others I could mention as well. There are certainly some well known bishops in the United States, although it is interesting that some of those Kathleen mentioned seem better known for their statements on issues of public policy than for the kind of expositions of Christian doctrine that Benedict has graced us with.
It’s also interesting to note that in the Dean Hoge survey of recently ordained priests that Grant blogged yesterday, so many listed the writings of John Paul II as one of their most important theological influences. I suspect that many Catholics would be inclined to say “Well, why not?” But again—and here I think Joe’s recounting of the history is useful—it hasn’t always been the case that the writings of the Bishop of Rome have been the most important theological influence on the clergy.
And again, just so I’m clear, this is not about Benedict himself. I agree with Joe that in some ways he has tried to lower the profile of his office. But for reasons that may well lie outside his control, I’m not sure how successful he’s been. In any case, there is no question that his writing and preaching has been of very high quality. So perhaps I should merely sit back and enjoy!
As I said in my original post, I don’t have a ready-made set of solutions here. But I thought the issue was worth discussing. Thanks to all for their comments.
I agree, Joseph. He has resisted pontification, to date at least, contrary to what many of us no doubt expected given his enforcer reputation during JPII’s papacy. In one of the articles on his website (www.chiesa), Sandro Magister said that the best way to read BXVI’s statements is to pause from the hustle and bustle around us, to read patiently, and to try to imagine oneself as part of the audience that heard the statement live. (In my mind, Magister’s advice is somewhat akin to the experience of dropping into a darkened church during a busy day for a few moments of reflection and prayer without distractions.)
For an example of BXVI’s low-key pastoral style, here’s an excerpt from the Pope’s homily about the Creed at a Mass in Regensberg on 12 September, the same day the university lecture was delivered:
“We believe in God. This is what the main sections of the Creed affirm, especially the first section. But another question now follows: in what God? Certainly we believe in the God who is Creator Spirit, creative Reason, the source of everything that exists, including ourselves. The second section of the Creed tells us more. This creative Reason is Goodness, it is Love. It has a face. God does not leave us groping in the dark. He has shown himself to us as a man. In his greatness he has let himself become small. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”, Jesus says (Jn 14:9). God has taken on a human face. He has loved us even to the point of letting himself be nailed to the Cross for our sake, in order to bring the sufferings of mankind to the very heart of God. Today, when we have learned to recognize the pathologies and the life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason, and the ways that God’s image can be destroyed by hatred and fanaticism, it is important to state clearly the God in whom we believe, and to proclaim confidently that this God has a human face. Only this can free us from being afraid of God – which is ultimately at the root of modern atheism. Only this God saves us from being afraid of the world and from anxiety before the emptiness of life. Only by looking to Jesus Christ does our joy in God come to fulfilment and become redeemed joy. During this solemn Eucharistic celebration, let us look to the Lord and ask him to give us the immense joy which he promised to his disciples (cf. Jn 16:24)!”
There’s nothing in that excerpt that Catholics, especially cradle Catholics, haven’t heard hundreds of times before, yet there is a simplicity and a freshness in the way the Pope reminds us of the Incarnation and Redemption. Like you, I don’t think the Pope has any affect–what we see is what we get. I also find it interesting watching him grow, from what has largely been a life of the mind, to someone with whom more and more people feel a personal connection. All of this is not to say that I agree with everything the Pope says or does–I don’t–but he has been a pleasant surprise in many ways.
At the beginning of Benedict’s Regensburg address, he evokes, rather wistfully, the memory of a time when his life was a lot simpler and he could sit with his faculty colleagues and toss ideas around casually. He obviously relished the idea of being able to do something of the sort again. His “lecture” reads like a broadly-sketched proposal for a wide-ranging scholarly project that hasn’t been written yet, addressed to a common-room full of friendly experts prepared to offer encouragement and useful feedback.
Unfortunately, that is not the kind of audience he got, since as Pope he is no longer a private person. And with the press and public so eager to work out his likely agenda on this or that issue that they hang on his every word, he should probably start editing his public addresses with that inevitable secondary audience in mind. It is too bad, because in an age of smooth, spin-doctored public prose, it is nice to hear an authentic voice now and then.
But a prudent press-secretary might have helped Benedict to avoid the predictable furor now in the making in the Muslim world over the anecdote about Manuel II Paleologus and the educated Persian. And considering the history of coercion associated with the Holy Office, Mother Church’s former “enforcer” might have been well-advised to acknowledge past Christian errors when– quite rightly of course– arguing against the idea of violent conversion.
It is hard not to wish Benedict might postpone that Turkish visit for a bit.
Spengler has some interesting comments on American Evangelical critiques of Islam and Benedict’s views on the same in a piece written just before the latest uproar. The url is http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HI12Aa03.html
I’m with the(ad hominem) churls.
Seriously, theologians will not be noticied if not widely heard.
A subtext of Bradford Hinze”s “Dialogical Practices In the Catholic Church” is a plea for a forum(a) for theologians and bishops to dialogue.
Also, I call to mind Luke timothy Johnson’s “The Big Chill” in this magazine earlier this year.
While I think B15 has much to offer, there is a stilted listening, abetted by those who only adulkate Vaticana.
Vatican says Benedict ‘regrets’ remarks but offers no apology. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14861689/
What exactly constitutes an apology. If A says that he sincerely regrets having offended B, is that equivalent to A apologizes for having offended B? One regrets that one has said something that gave offense. Is that an apology? What is missing is the affirmation that what one said was at least unjustified by the facts, or perhaps even dowright false. I doubt Benedict is prepared to go so far as that. What he said was inopportune and undiplomatic. Was it false? Was there no factual basis, at least in his mind, for what he said?
I would say false, Joe, but Benedict may not think so. But the point may be more of arrogance than falsehood. There are so many things in our scripture that we acknowledge to have several interpretations or at least two.
Should we not enter the Muslin world to decipher their meaning. There are significant peaceful Muslims who deplore violence. What about them?
They must be saying what many of us say. “God save us from our friends.”
The NY Times came out with an accurate editorial critizing Benedict for this and his earlier remark about Turkey.
Rome just won’t take responsibility for losing Europe and pretty soon Ireland.
It’s like Kennedy; Bay of Pigs forget, we are going to the moon. Islam is a bad moon shot for B.
Bill,
I fully agree that the pope ought to be diplomatic. If nothing else, he should think of the harm that may come to Christians in predominantly Islamic countries. I should have said this earlier. He could however have condemned all violence in the name of religion while admitting that Christians have not always held to this themselves.
In all this now I am also reminded of Pius XII’s caution before the reality of Nazi threats. Fortunately the furor seems to by dying down.
Susan Gannon is right that the Pope needs an editor who will point out that certain remarks might cause offense, and that Christians should criticize religious violence with enormous humility. But that said, I don’t see why “giving offense” is a bad thing. Should the world have stayed quiet so as not to hurt the feelings of fascists, or racists, or other touchy oppressors? All this worry about “offending” people demonstrates how deeply the therapeutic ethos has taken hold.
I don’t see the “falsity” in Benedict’s remarks — indeed, the Muslim reaction simply confirms them. What was false about pointing out that, on the one had, we’re told in the Koran that compulsion is a bad thing, and that on the other, the same book informs us that it’s quite OK to slay the infidels? Granted that Christians have their own bloody history, and that Benedict should have prefaced his remarks with some kind of statement that Christians have learned from sorry experience about the unholiness of compulsion. Does that mean that the Koran’s self-contradictions aren’t there?
Of course there are “peaceful Muslims,” as Bill Mazzella points out. But they should be held to intellectual and historical account for their faith no less than “peaceful Christians” who like to obscure the history of Christian wrongs. There’s one standard for everyone: speak the truth in love.
The story Joseph Gannon recommended is quite shrewd, as was the footnoted article about the Pope’s skepticism regarding Islam’s capacity for “reformation.”
Eugene,
I have come to the view that the Pope should not have criticized Islam so openly as to provoke riots. I think he could have made his point about the impropriety of using violence against unbelievers with more subtlety and also more effect. (I also think Pius XII was right not to openly provoke the Nazis.) Spengler is in a rather different position. For one thing nobody knows who he is and he is certainly not an official spokesman for any group that may pay for what he says. Satire tends to offend its targets, and I think that is legitimate. I think the Pope should avoid the broad stroke and rather use the fine ppoint.
Here is a report (filed less than an hour ago ) from the Associated Press on the N.Y. Times online discussing Pope Benedict’s latest reflections on his Regensburg address. He was apparently speaking to a group of Pilgrims.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Pope-Muslims.html?ref=world
But Joe (if I may), he didn’t intend to start riots with his comments. (Moreover, he arguably was using the fine point — he noted that the Koran says contradictory things about compulsion and violence, and indirectly called for clarification.) If Muslims start burning churches and killing nuns, that’s on their account, not his. (Talk about broad strokes….)
And as for subtlety, I take your point, though I think that, given what can only be described as the spiritual sickness in fundamentalist Islam, I don’t know how criticism of whatever degree of subtlety or generosity of spirit isn’t going to provoke violence. Fine point or broad stroke, many Muslim fundies will react to any criticism with firebombs.
I wonder how many of the journalists and editorial writes (like those of the NY Times, for instance) actually took the trouble to read the text of Benedict’s lecture, and to discover the context in which the remarks about Islam from the xiv century could be found. Journalists, even the best of them, can become addicted to sound bites, and thus a remark, made as an aside, can be presented by the news media as standing for a whole world view (or Weltanschauung, as they would say in Regensburg!). The lecture was not really about Islam, nor was it even about forcible convesion. Rather it was about what Benedict calls “de-Hellenization,” and it raised the very interesting question of how far the Hellenization of the church is a matter of inculturation, and how far it is (because the NT itself is a production of Hellenized circles) integral to the Christianity presented in the NT.
Still, the pope should be realistic enough to understand that sound bites, whether or not essential to the context, are what the media will pick up. If he still doesn’t get it, then perhaps we should fly a sadder but wiser Larry Summers over to Rome to explain to Benedict, on the basis of his own personal experience, how the media work, and how even offhand remarks, made within the confines of a great university, can be distorted.
And that is why a) Benedict should have dissociated himself from the views of Manuel II Paleologos, and b) why he should have pointed out (as Susan Gannon suggests) that forcible conversion to Christianity is every bit as irrational and unChristian as spreading Islam (or anything else) by the sword.
Eugene,
Of course he did not intend to provoke riots but when dealing with people of a certain sort one must be careful. He is now in the position of saying that he does not agree with Manuel II Palaeologus.
Actually I prefer to be called “Joe”.
While Sandro Magister believes that the Islamic world’s reaction to the Pope’s Regensburg lecture is unreasonable, he also says that the lecture, as well as all of the Pope’s pronouncements throughout his entire trip to Bavaria, was calculated to satisfy the Pope’s overarching policy of “less diplomacy and more Gospel.”
According to Magister, “[l]ess diplomacy and more Gospel: this is the course that Joseph Ratzinger is setting for the Church’s central governance….
And it was again this criterion – less diplomacy and more Gospel – that led the pope, in the course of his trip to Germany, to say such politically incorrect, and such potentially explosive, words.
Anyone who is an expert in the art of diplomacy and a proponent of ‘realism’ in international relations would certainly have censured as inopportune and dangerous many passages of the homilies and speeches delivered by Benedict XVI in Germany.
But this is not a pope who submits himself to such censorship or self-censorship, which he sees as being inopportune and dangerous indeed when it concerns the pillars of his preaching. His goal on his trip to Germany was to illuminate before modern man – whether Christian, agnostic, or of another faith; from Europe, Africa, or Asia – that simple and supreme truth that is the other side of the truth to which he dedicated the encyclical ‘Deus Caritas Est.’ God is love, but he is also reason, he is the ‘Logos.’ And so when reason separates itself from God, it closes in upon itself. And likewise, faith in an ‘irrational’ God, an absolute, unbridled will, can become the seed of violence. Every religion, culture, and civilization is exposed to this twofold error – not only Islam, but also Christianity, toward which the pope directed almost the entirety of his preaching.”
Magister also notes that the Pope’s subordination of diplomacy is reflected in his choice of a cardinal not from the diplomatic corps as secretary of state.
More can be found at http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=84185&eng=y
Bill,
If Sandro Magister is right, Benedict has played the fool, first defying Islam, than backing down.
Spengler says that Benedict is of the same mind about Islam as Franz Rosenzweig. Could there be an influence? Could they both be wrong about Islamic theology?
Joe–
I’m afraid I don’t really know anything about a comparison between BXVI and Franz Rosenzweig, but here’s a papal transfer that perhaps has come back to haunt BXVI because he lost the direct counsel of a highly regarded Islamic expert within the curia.
JPII had made British Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald the head of the Pontifical Council on Inter-Religious Dialogue. Fitzgerald is fluent in Arabic and is a recognized expert on Islamic culture and theology. He had even lived for sustained periods of time in Muslim countries like Tunisia and the Sudan, and he has many contacts in the Muslim world and is well-respected there. JPII knew Fitzgerald’s importance, and he kept him close at hand for advice and counsel.
In February of this year, BXVI transferred Fitzgerald to Egypt as papal nuncio and Vatican representative to the League of Arab States. Though touted as a transfer that would bring Fitzgerald into more contact with Arab leaders, it was perceived in some parts of the Catholic media as a demotion for Fitzgerald, whom some had predicted would be named a cardinal. I remember reading an interview Fitzgerald gave after the transfer. Fitzgerald was extremely gracious and said several times that he serves at the pope’s pleasure, but I can’t help thinking that we wouldn’t be having Regensburggate if Fitzgerald had been able to continue in the important advisory role he played during JPII’s papacy.
Bill,
I suspect there are few Catholic theologians who really know Islam. Any pope needs all the informed advice he can get on these matters. No one can be up on everything.
“Less diplomacy, more Gospel.” Yes, and sugar attracts and vinegar repels.
To those who say our pope was “right,” I say “Yes, and a Catholic woman religious became ‘dead right’ because of his apparent desire to put Gospel first and diplomacy second.”