A New Pope Must Face Old Problems
- GEORGE WEIGEL
Pope Benedict XVI has celebrated his first Christmas as bishop of Rome, giving his blessing "to the city and the world." His retired brother, a priest and distinguished choir director, came to stay with him; perhaps the Ratzinger brothers played Mozart duets on the Steinway that the piano company recently donated to the papal apartment.
And
now, the pontiff may be engaged in a little post-Christmas relaxation. Yet for
some who were most enthusiastic eight months ago about the choice of Joseph Ratzinger
as pope, this Christmas season has continued a period of waiting some becoming
a bit impatient for Benedict XVI to fulfill more of the promise of his
election.
It's not that the pope has been inactive since April. He has
been a luminously clear teacher, the kind who gently compels others to think,
even to reconsider.
His sermons are miniature masterpieces of Christian
doctrine, the refined reflections of a man who has thoroughly mastered the Bible
and 2,000 years of Christian tradition.
Then there was the lengthy free-for-all
he had with Italian priests of the Alpine Diocese of Aosta in July; there, he
spoke in an intriguing way of Europe as a world weary of its own culture, and
he counseled European Christians to be patient as they traveled through what he
described as "this tunnel, this underpass of arid secularism."
The pope's
recently released statement for the World Day of Peace on Jan. 1 was a careful,
penetrating analysis of the lethal combination of nihilism and fundamentalism
that lies behind so much of modern terrorism. His widely anticipated first encyclical,
reported to be ready for publication in mid-January, will likely be a challenging
reflection on the false loves that mar 21st century life, viewed through the prism
of the Christian gospel of love.
No one who knew the man doubted that this would be a pontificate of doctrinal clarity and insightful analysis of contemporary culture. But something more was anticipated that the new pope would take in hand, and soon, a reform of the personnel and practice of the Roman Curia, the Catholic Church's central bureaucracy. |
The new pope has also displayed a compelling
public personality. He held the attention of more than a million young people
at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in August. In September and October, he
consistently drew larger crowds to the weekly papal general audience than his
great predecessor, John Paul II, had drawn at the height of the Jubilee Year of
2000. Those who worried in April that the shy, scholarly Benedict would not be
able to summon the enthusiasm and affection that was showered on John Paul can
relax: In his distinctive way, Benedict XVI is also a leader who commands attention.
Yet this is what those who actually knew Joseph Ratzinger as distinct
from the caricature of Joseph Ratzinger expected last April. No one who
knew the man doubted that this would be a pontificate of doctrinal clarity and
insightful analysis of contemporary culture.
But something more was anticipated
that the new pope would take in hand, and soon, a reform of the personnel
and practice of the Roman Curia, the Catholic Church's central bureaucracy. More
than a few of the cardinals who rallied to support him in one of the shortest
conclaves in modern history did so because they believed Ratzinger, having spent
more than two decades in the Curia, would know what was broken and would fix it.
That may yet come. The pope is a careful, prudent man, not given to impulsive
action or premature decisions. At the same time, it was precisely because he was
not a product of the current Curial system, but rather a scholar who had to struggle
to get things accomplished within it, that his supporters expected him to bring
to the papacy a well-developed sense of where changes, even dramatic ones, need
to be made in both structure and personnel. Those supporters are waiting, now
a little anxiously, for serious change to be implemented.
Then there is
the question of the appointment of bishops and the volatile but unavoidable
question of whether the church ought not devise criteria and processes for removing
bishops who are manifestly incapable of leadership. Whether Benedict XVI undertakes
a far-reaching reform of the Catholic Church's Roman bureaucracy or not
and my bet remains that he will, although perhaps slowly his papacy will
be judged in no small part on his shrewdness in choosing bishops and his courage
in facing questions of episcopal failure. With half a dozen major appointments
coming in the next three years in the United States alone, the stakes are very
high.
Pope Benedict XVI has delivered, beautifully, as a papal teacher.
Now comes the hard part for this man who wanted nothing more in April than to
be spending this Christmas season back home in Bavaria.
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Acknowledgement
George Weigel. "A New Pope Must Face Old Problems." Los Angeles Times (December 30, 2005).
Reprinted with permission of George Weigel.
The Author
George Weigel is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He is author of The Fragility of Order: Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times; Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II; Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Catholic Church; Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II; Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches; Evangelical Catholicism; The End and the Beginning: John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy; God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church; Letters to a Young Catholic: The Art of Mentoring; The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church; and The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored.
Copyright © 2006 George Weigel