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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Father Andrew Greeley, Frances Kissling, Michael Lerner, Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Fox, Amy Sullivan, John T. McGreevy and others weigh in on the newly elected Pope Benedict XVI.
Apr 20, 2005 | Father Andrew Greeley, sociologist and author of "Priests: A Calling in Crisis"
Why did the new pope choose a name that only one pope in the last 100 years used? Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa became Pope Benedict XV in 1914 and died in 1922. He did his best to prevent and then end the Great War. Moreover, he put an end to the punitive campaign against "Modernism" that Cardinal Merry del Val, the secretary of state under St. Pius X, had unleashed on the church -- spies, secret societies, anonymous denunciations, careers and lives ruined. Benedict was a healer who restored internal tolerance to the church.
The Italian papers told us that you could tell what kind of pope the new man would be by his name. If he chose "John Paul," he would be opting for a continuation of the late pope's style of governance. If he chose "Pius," he would be returning to the middle decades of the last century when the church seem frozen in place. If he chose "John" he would be opting for the exciting years of the Second Vatican Council. The new pope rejected all those possibilities and selected a name that would distinguish his administration from those of his predecessors of the last 100 years and (perhaps) because he wanted to be known as a healer. Heaven knows that there is need for healing in the church.
Perhaps a man whose conservative credentials as the head of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith are unquestioned is uniquely situated for the task -- just as Richard Nixon was uniquely situated to visit China.
Women -- and not only in the United States -- are very angry at the church. It is no exaggeration to say that many of them, devout Catholics to the core, will tell you they hated John Paul because he hated women. If the new pope wants to win them over, he will have a very hard sell on his hands. Similarly, gay and lesbian Catholics will find it difficult to forgive him for his comment that they are "objectively" disordered. He will have to put off his persona as stats professor and put on his persona as a parish priest.
Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice
The good news is that Ratzinger is not John Paul II. No world leader owes him thanks for his role in the downfall of communism. It will take years for his papacy to achieve any potential political cache. The bad news is that he is Pope, and he was elected by two thirds or more of the princes of the church, who knew what they were doing.
I can no longer delude myself about these princes almost total lack of interest in healing the divide in the Church, in showing compassion for or even in listening to the voices of the suffering. The time for nuance is over. Let the unholy war begin.
Mary Segers, professor of political science at Rutgers University
Joseph Ratzinger prefers order over anarchy. He'll emphasize Catholic identity. He's talked about a dictatorship of relativism; any kind of flirtation with the idea that all religions might be equal -- he doesn't believe in that. He thinks that Catholic Christianity is the answer. All religious traditions may embody some truth, but somehow Catholics have got more of it.
He believes in the idea that Europe is a kind of base for Christian civilization, and he apparently thinks that an admixture of that with a Muslim country is not a good thing. Last year he stated that he was opposed to the admission of Turkey to the European Union because of its Islamic history, even though Turkey has been secular since the 1920s. Ratzinger thinks that since Europe has Christian roots, by definition you can't admit a Muslim country into the European Union. That worries me more than anything else, because I think that one of the tasks the next pope must undertake is making some sort of outreach to Islam.
James Martin, Jesuit priest, associate editor of America magazine and author of "In Good Company"
While I trust that the Holy Spirit will be helping Pope Benedict XVI over the next few years, I would be lying if I didn't say how disappointed I was by the cardinals' selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope. To my mind, there were many other candidates who had more pastoral experience, who have been more open to dialogue with other religions, and who have demonstrated more sensitivity to the thoughtful questioning that has always characterized Christian theology. But the cardinals quickly settled on a man who would forcefully continue John Paul's approach to governing the church. I can only pray that Pope Benedict proves to be more tolerant and open-minded than Cardinal Ratzinger was. But stranger things have happened in the Catholic Church, and I am hoping that the God of Surprises will surprise all of us.
Amy Sullivan, Salon contributor and editor for Washington Monthly
As tears of joy filled the eyes of Catholic nuns standing in St. Peter's Square on Tuesday with the announcement of Joseph Ratzinger's election to the papacy, tears of anger and frustration stung the eyes of progressive Catholics around the world. Both conservative and progressive Catholics care deeply about the crises facing their church, but they have very different ideas about the solutions. The election of Ratzinger signals a decision to stick with the failed policies that have led millions of Catholics in the developing world to leave the church for Pentecostalism, and millions of western Catholics to simply leave religion altogether. The choice Ratzinger has posed -- between the tyranny of relativism or the triumph of orthodoxy -- is false. The church will continue to suffer for his lack of imagination.
Rabbi Michael Lerner of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco, editor of Tikkun
Ratzinger has been the leader of an internal inquisition in the church against any voices that sought to hold on to the message that came out of Vatican II. Instead, he has pushed the church away from social justice and peace concerns. This guy has a history -- from his short time in the Nazi youth organization and service in the army to his authoritarian and anti-gay perspective -- of fighting against the liberalization of the church that occurred under Vatican II. He has taken fundamentally repressive stands on homosexuality and on women's right to make their own reproductive choices. He has denounced anybody in the church who was willing to give equal validity to other faith traditions, including Jews.
Lawrence Cunningham, professor of theology at Notre Dame
I think the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger was elected so quickly indicates that there was a fair amount of consensus when they started the conclave Monday morning. They probably found him attractive for two reasons: because he would continue many of the policies of John Paul II, and because he has been occupied by the rapid de-Christianization of Europe in general and Western Europe in particular, with the attendant problem of the rise of Islam in Europe.
He spoke very compellingly about the rise of the secular mentality in the homily he gave at the Mass just before the conclave opened. The name he chose, Benedict, is significant -- St. Benedict was one of the co-patron saints of all of Europe, and his monasteries were one of the primary vehicles for the Christianization of Europe in the early Middle Ages.
If his actions in the past are any indication, he is not going to be sympathetic to relinquishing power to local bishops. He's in favor of centralization, and I think that's bad news for the church.
