The Remarkable Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI…!

BY Rev. Fr. Eymard Fernando
Catholic Bishop’s House,Kurunegala.

A Man of Great Faith with a Caring Heart has gone to rest in peace with the hope of rising in glory in the person of Pope Benedict XVI on the eve of the New Year 2023! Pope Benedict is regarded in high esteem and widespread affection as one of the most brilliant Theologians of the last century and one of the most powerful churchmen of the last 50 years or more!

Born Josef Alois Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Marktl, in Germany, Josef Ratzinger, the son of a police officer who answered to the name Josef and his wife Maria, grew up in a Germany infected by Nazism. At the age of 14, he was forced to join The Hitler Youth. Two years later, while still in the seminary, the future Roman Pontiff was conscripted into the German army and sent to the front.

With the allies on the verge of victory, this young man deserted the German military and went home in 1945. After a brief stint in a POW camp, he returned to the seminary and, along with his brother Georg, was ordained a priest on June 29, 1951.

Fr. Josef Ratzinger began his priesthood in the aftermath of two World Wars and amid technological, political and sexual revolutions that threatened to overwhelm the society in general and religion in particular.

He was just 35 years of age when Josef Cardinal Frings of Cologne, the then-President of the German Bishops’ Conference, chose him to be his peritus at the Ecumenical Council that Pope St. John XXIII had convoked in early 1959.

Thus, this youthful budding Theologian was propelled into a heady role as one of the Theological progressives working to shape the assembly. This was a bench that included such well-recognised luminaries of that day as Yves Congar OP, Edward Schillebeeckx OP, Henri de Lubac SJ, Hans Küng and – the most influential of all during Vatican II – Karl Rahner SJ.

Although the Council’s documents were the work of many heads, Fr. Ratzinger had an important part in formulating the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church namely Lumen Gentium, the Theological centerpiece of Vatican II.

Fr. Ratzinger’s special contribution was working out the Theological underpinnings of ‘Collegiality’ – the idea that Bishops in communion with the Holy Father make up a single body responsible for governing the Universal Church.

He also drafted the Theological section of Ad Gentes, the Decree on Missionary Activity in the Church, which declares the Church to be “by its very nature missionary”.

Upon accepting Pope St. John Paul II’s invitation in 1981 to become Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Ratzinger became one of the Pope’s closest collaborators.Cardinal Ratzinger’s fierce resistance to what he saw as campaigns to secularise the Church, promote women priesthood, ‘normalise’ different forms of immorality together with corresponding aspects of moral paralysis and overemphasise a liberal Latin American strain of Catholicism known as ‘liberation theology’ is indeed remarkable!

From 1986 to 1992, he headed the commission responsible for writing the new Catechism of the Catholic Church – the first general catechism in 400 years.Following Pope John Paul II’s death in 2005, Cardinal Ratzinger preached the homily at the Holy Mass attended by Cardinals preparing to enter the Conclave to elect his successor. There he spoke of the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ that he saw infecting not only the secular society but also the Church. To this, the Cardinals in the Conclave responded by choosing him as Pope.

His Pontificate, which began when he was 78, was extremely busy for a man who had wanted to retire to study, write and pray when he turned 75. He used virtually every medium at his disposal – books and Twitter, sermons and Encyclicals – to catechise the faithful on the foundational beliefs and practices of Christianity.

This Great Pontiff’s work is best understood as a long career seeking to guide the Church through uncharted territory. Through decades of defence for Vatican II coupled with a strict enforcement of religious orthodoxy, he became a sort of ‘Spiritual Umpire’ for the Church’s most contested debates.

Surprising those who had expected a by-the-book Pontificate from a man who had spent so many years as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal official, Pope Benedict emphasised that Christianity was a religion of love and not a religion of rules!

Some of Pope Benedict’s most memorable statements came when he applied simple Gospel Values to social issues such as the protection of human life, the environment and economics etc. When the global financial crisis worsened in 2008, for example, the Pope insisted that financial institutions must put people before profits. He also reminded people that money and worldly success are just passing realities.

As a ‘Theological and Spiritual Giant’ to many, his reflections on the Catholic doctrine are a worthy roadmap for many, seeking to keep the 2000-year-old Catholic Church on the correct path with a clear vision for the future based on the hallmark of his Theology – a Christo-centric way of looking at the entire universe – which he beautifully summed up at the end of his life as his final words: “Jesus, I love You!”

We now pray that Your Holiness will stand together with Pope St. John Paul II, your great friend and predecessor “in the window of the Father’s House” to bless us all!