The Rise of Benedict XVI by John L. Allen Jr

Author:John L. Allen, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307424105
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

REACTION

Perhaps the single greatest reservation many cardinals had about Ratzinger was the “baggage” he would carry into the papacy, meaning his reputation as a fierce enforcer who would divide and polarize the Church. In truth, this was not a great source of anxiety for cardinals from many parts of the world, such as Latin America, Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe, where Ratzinger’s stands had not been a source of much public discussion over the years. For Europeans and North Americans, however, and above all cardinals from Germany and the United States, the potential for “baggage” was a live concern indeed.

I had indirect confirmation of the point when I bumped into Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City in the Rome airport, awaiting a flight to Paris the day after the new pope’s inaugural Mass. (Rivera Carrera was on his way home, while my wife and I were traveling to Paris for a writing retreat to produce this book.) I had met Rivera Carrera for the first time during John Paul II’s trip to Mexico in 2002 for the canonization of Juan Diego, and so I went over to say hello. Speaking in flawless Italian, he asked me why I was headed to Paris, and I told him the purpose was to write a book about the conclave and the new pontificate.

“Your book will be balanced, I hope,” he said.

“I hope so, too,” I replied.

“That will be particularly important in the United States,” he said. “There could be problems there.”

Given such concerns, it is not surprising that immediately after the election, cardinals from the United States and Germany sprung into a public relations offensive designed to present Ratzinger to the world before the media and his critics had a chance to set the agenda.

Interviewed by CNN’s Alessio Vinci shortly after the result was announced, for example, Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany, the Vatican’s top ecumenical official and a man often identified as a more progressive jousting partner of Ratzinger, urged patience.

“Well, I cannot tell about the conclave, but it was a very moving event,” Kasper said. “And for me it’s the first conclave I participated in, and a sense of high responsibility, not only for my own church but for all churches, for the whole of the world. And then, the first German cardinal after eight centuries, it’s also something. Today was the feast day of the last German pope [Victor II]. He was a pope of reformers. And now, Cardinal Ratzinger, was before my colleague as professor, and now he’s pope. It makes a moving atmosphere among us.”

Kasper was generous in his praise of Ratzinger.

“Well, there are a lot of prejudices about him, and most of these prejudices are unfair. And I think you should leave these prejudices aside now and give him at least a chance. . . . I know him since the sixties when he was a professor at Münster. I was also a professor there, and we worked together. He can be a very charming person.

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