Which Joseph next: the enforcer or innovator?

April 21, 2005

The new pontiff may turn out to be less doctrinaire than his predecessor, writes W J Uren.

There are two Joseph Ratzingers. The first is the distinguished speculative and innovative theologian, the architect, along with Jesuit Karl Rahner and the subsequently disenfranchised Swiss professor Hans Kung, of many of the more progressive documents of the Second Vatican Council.

In those heady days, in an authoritative commentary on the most liberating document of the council - The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World - he famously witnessed to the dignity of the human person and to freedom of conscience, even over papal authority. Drawing explicitly on two great 19th-century defenders of conscience, John Henry Newman and Soren Kierkegaard, he wrote:



"Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any obligation of this kind beyond the reach of its dominating will."

The second Joseph Ratzinger is the more recent and probably better known. For 24 years he has been the prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. He was John Paul II's right-hand man in maintaining doctrinal "orthodoxy" and silencing what he has perceived as "dissent", but what others might have called "development of doctrine" - ironically another classic John Henry Newman theological category.

Why the change? Most people put it down to his mentor St Augustine, in the first instance, and the rather gloomy view of "the world" that Ratzinger inherited from him.

Then there were the events of 1968 - the student revolutions and the reaction to the birth-control encyclical, Humanae Vitae. Both of these he is reputed to have attributed to "unrestrained" liberty of conscience!

What has remained constant over almost half a century is his distinguished theological mind, his loyalty to pope and church, and his unfailing personal charm and courtesy.

He is probably less doctrinaire and less an ideologue than John Paul II. He appears to be less formed by his reaction to the experience of Nazism than his predecessor was to that of communism.

He is credited with moderating some of John Paul's more extreme utterances, particularly in respect of liberation theology. In responding to criticisms of unpopular papal directives, he often gave them a coherence and a sophistication that at least initially they seemed to lack.

What will be the character of his papacy? John Paul has been called "the great communicator", although many of his critics would claim that the communication was one-way. The new Pope, by contrast, is reputed to be a listener, even if it has not always been clear that he has appreciated the full significance of other perspectives.

Perhaps he has, but in the end has agreed to disagree - and then implemented his disagreement!

In his previous role, he was a watchdog. Now that he is off the leash, will he roam once again those theological pastures in which he delighted 40 years ago? More importantly, will he allow others to roam, and curb the centralising authority of the Vatican by empowering the local hierarchy?

The doctrine of collegiality of pope and bishops was one of the central reforms that he facilitated at the Second Vatican Council.

There are good signs. He is very intelligent. He realises that initiatives must be undertaken to rehabilitate Christianity in the First World. He has chosen the name "Benedict".

The previous Benedict (1914-22) was an architect of peace both in the church after the anathemas of his predecessor, Pius X, and in Europe during the cataclysm of the Great War.

There is much peace to be made - within the church and with the world. Let us hope that the obedience he will evoke will be the genuine kind that respects freedom of conscience and the dignity of the human person rather than the "totalitarian claims" and the "dominating will" that he excoriated in his post-Vatican II commentary.

Father Bill Uren is rector of the Jesuit Theological College in Parkville.


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