The Church & Benedict XVI: what can we hope for?

I have met Pope Benedict XVI only once. It was seventeen years ago, when I was a graduate student at Yale. Richard John Neuhaus had organized an invitation-only conference in New York on biblical interpretation. Among the invited guests were Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Raymond Brown, the widely respected biblical scholar, and the eminent Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck, my dissertation adviser, who had been a delegated observer at the Second Vatican Council. With the breezy temerity of youth, I wrote Neuhaus (then still Lutheran), and asked to be the "observer from the next generation" at the conference. Much to my amazement, he acceded to my request.

During the first break, Lindbeck introduced me to Cardinal Ratzinger. The conversation went something like this: Lindbeck said, "Your eminence, I would like to introduce to you Cathleen Kaveny, a Catholic studying moral theology at Yale." I smiled and said hello. Ratzinger smiled at me and responded, "A Catholic studying moral theology at Yale? You'd better be careful or you'll have the Congregation after you." I couldn't believe my ears. After all, I had just heard, while wide awake, what Cardinal Ratzinger--the Grand Inquisitor--would say to me in a nightmare, which naturally would also include a stake, a match, a heap of kindling, and a long, flowing white dress (a la Cecil B. De Mille's The Story of Joan of Arc). He was joking, of course, as I realized almost immediately. Nonetheless, my face must have turned as pale as Joan's dress. The cardinal quickly understood the problem: "With whom are you studying?" he asked. And not quite able to speak again, I pointed mutely to Lindbeck. Ratzinger said, "Well, then, that's all right ... you're in good hands."

After the break, Neuhaus invited me to sit at the table for the remainder of the conference. But there was only one open seat, right next to Ratzinger himself. I took it with some trepidation. What sort of being was this man? Gradually, I relaxed, as I realized that by virtue of my undergraduate and graduate training, I was already quite familiar with the universal type, if not this particular German model. He was a real academic, delighting in the world illumined by his beloved texts, which conveyed a reality that seemed to be more vivid to him than the reality conveyed by his own senses. In his discussion with Lindbeck and Brown, I saw immense mutual respect, significant mutual challenge, and not a trace of condescension or rank-pulling on his part. I also got the distinct impression that Ratzinger was relishing the intellectual exchange, much as a professor swamped with departmental administrative responsibilities relishes the all-too-rare opportunity to participate in colloquium on a key topic in his or her own academic field. He also seemed quite shy, in the peculiar, nonretiring manner that many academics are shy: they fearlessly present the contents of their minds for public examination while closely guarding the paths of their hearts.

Now nearly two decades older, I am not yet entirely depleted of breezy temerity. So I would like to give the new Pope Benedict five suggestions, reminding him of what he doubtless already knows.

* Please preach the Good News. People around the world desperately need to hear the Good News of the gospel--that each one is made in the image and likeness of God; that each one is dear to God as a precious child; that the tears and sorrows of this age will be wiped clean in the next, through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The individualism, materialism, and relativism you see in the United States and Western Europe are symptoms, not causes. If the church does not provide a compelling, positive, vibrant vision that can generate hope of new life in people's hearts, railing against the symptoms is only going to plunge people further into apathy or despair. No one joins the Church of No.

* Please live out the meaning of your new name. As prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, your job was to say no--to condemn theological views that you believed to be inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. But condemnation is not a value in itself; the no has to be in service of a broader, blessed yes--to the fullness of Christian life. The job of the pope is to articulate and model the yes to the Catholic faithful and to the entire world. "Benedict," "the blessed one," comes from the Latin benedicere, which means "to praise" or "to bless." As pope, you must show that you can bless and praise as well as condemn.

* Please remember that not everyone approaches the world the way we academics do. For most people, the reality of the church is determined not by their ruminations about its doctrine, but by their concrete experience of its care for their own material and spiritual welfare on a local level, and by their perception of its care and concern for others around the globe. For example, to invoke the distinction between the church as the spotless, sinless bride of Christ and the sinful acts of some of the church's leadership can seem not only hopelessly abstract, but also hopelessly callous to any parent whose child has suffered abuse at the hands of the clergy.

* Please spend some time thinking about the ways in which men and women have similar gifts, aspirations, and callings. In your recent Letter on the Collaboration of Men and Women, you so emphasized the differences between men and women that it became difficult for some people to conceive how women and men could actually work together. But many of us do so all the time. For many people, raising children involves collaboration as much as division of labor. Women work with men as lawyers, doctors, scientists, theologians, and world leaders. The secretary of state of the most powerful nation on earth is a woman. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that your papacy may see a female president of the United States. The church's anthropology should not give rise to the mistaken view that women who are accustomed to working closely and collaboratively with men are ontological aberrations.

* Finally, please let us see, somehow, that the Holy Spirit has infused your heart with love, and not merely gifted your mind with wisdom. In these polarized times, the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians apply to each and every one of us. "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." As any good scholar of St. Augustine knows, the decisive mark of the Catholic Church is charity, not purity.

Cathleen Kaveny

Cathleen Kaveny, a Commonweal columnist, teaches law and theology at the University of Notre Dame.

A few weeks before John Paul II died, a reporter on the death watch called me. Among her questions: Is the papacy obsolete? My immediate reply was, "Yes, and it always has been." I later revised my wisecrack, at least in my own head: the older the papacy becomes, the more obsolete it appears, because the longer it goes on, the more it has to preserve. To outsiders, like the reporter, the papacy seems so far behind the times that she could repeat a very old Protestant canard and describe it as obsolete. That, of course, is not how Catholics and many Christians, even Protestants, would describe it today.

But in this culture, with its highly developed techniques of planned obsolescence, the story line is clear: imminent demise or wholesale redesign. Neither is likely, since one of the central tenets of the papal office is to preserve the church that began two thousand years ago, and not to remake it. From time to time refashioning has occurred, though that does not loom large in the job description or the history books. Like the absolute monarchies of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, from which the concept of the papacy still takes its cues, we can say: "The pope is dead; long live the pope," as Benedict XVI takes on this transcendent sense of his responsibilities.

Whatever our deepest desires or lengthy agendas, most Catholics do not expect the new pope to remake the church. Indeed the larger-than-life John Paul II may have remade Eastern Europe and the public image of the papacy, but he did not remake the church; he simply returned it to December 8, 1965, the day Vatican II ended and before the reforms of the council came to life.

Nonetheless, as Benedict's papacy begins, there are certain exigencies that he would be foolish to ignore. Three particularly affect the Catholic Church in the United States, but loom elsewhere: first, a shrinking leadership group with diluted authority; second, an educated and skeptical laity; and third, a polarized church.

A diminishing number of U.S. clergy are shepherded by bishops seriously hampered by their lack of credibility and authentic authority. Much of the actual work of the church is now carried out by laypeople, especially women, who have no authority at all and work at the will or whim of the ordained. The sexual-abuse crisis is the proximate cause of the bishops' loss of credibility, but episcopal appointments of Roman favorites, the transfer of bishops from one diocese to another (as if trial runs have become necessary), and the decline in the consensus-building work (among bishops) of the bishops' conference must all be factored in. One solution is a return to the practice of naming a bishop from within the local church and allowing him to serve there until retirement or death. This too may have its drawbacks, but at least a local appointee will have a fair knowledge of clergy and people and a sense of diocesan needs. Being permanently appointed to a specific diocese, he will be saved from the careerism that now seems to tempt some bishops.

An educated and skeptical laity are a challenge of the church's own making, since many of them are graduates of Catholic schools--perhaps the most skeptical being sixteen-year veterans of the system. This is a two-edged sword: on the one side, such Catholics make an enormous contribution in talent and resources to church and society; on the other, they can't be treated as pious and deferential dolts readily put off by cheerful assessments or duplicitous answers. An engaged and knowledgeable laity is the church's strong suit if it is to pick itself up and move beyond the current paralysis. Smarter bishops would help. Ordaining married men would ease the growing burdens of current clergy and, if done with serious attention to the qualities of the candidates, bridge the gap that increasingly exists between the people of God and those who minister to them.

Finally, there is a polarized church usually described as divided between conservatives and liberals. That is not wholly wrong. But increasingly it seems to me that the polarization is between two smaller groups both deeply committed to the church and the Catholic tradition. The first group we might call resisters. They regard the church and tradition as bulwarks against a culture enthralled (as they see it) to consumption, technological fixes, and novel social arrangements. Their remedy is resistance to the power of the culture (and sometimes the state) and preservation of a Catholic ethos centered on family, religious devotion, and an integral intellectual framework for defending the tradition. Certainly many of these can be described as conservative or traditionalists, but there is a left-wing version developing, including those who style themselves "radical orthodox."

The second group we might call engagers. They do not buy the "culture of death" analysis on which the resisters argue their case, though they too may be critics of some of the same economic and cultural practices. They see in the culture and the outlines of modernity (and postmodernity) a challenge to which the church and tradition bring rich and powerful ideas, analyses, and counter-practices. Dialogue and engagement are their primary responses, though preservation of Catholic practice is important to their endeavors. Many of these can be described as liberals, but they are increasingly joined by moderates and some conservatives who, at least in the United States, are reluctant to join the more integralist resisters. (It is paradoxical that the resisters take John Paul II for their hero, though in many respects he is a model for the engagers.)

Will Benedict XVI and the Vatican address these issues? In fact, some of them are best tackled by the local church, if only it had more guts and gusto. It's precisely where the local church meets the Vatican that the engine of Catholicism has seized up. To get it moving again there has to be a return to authentic episcopal leadership. Bishops should resume their traditional roles as vicars of Christ in their own dioceses and be prepared to consult with the presbyteral, pastoral, and finance councils provided for in canon law. Vatican congregations should stop second-guessing bishops and advocating for every crank and curmudgeon who writes to Rome with complaints. Although as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger sharply delimited the authority of national bishops' conferences, it is evident that a more robust pattern of collegiality would provide bishops with the national resources and planning tools they urgently need given the challenges local churches face.

Bishops also need greater freedom and opportunity to engage in honest dialogue among themselves and with Rome. This would go a long way to create a spirit of consultation and consensus-building throughout the church. Benedict XVI might begin by making the Synod of Bishops an authentic vehicle of consultation. After all, if the pope doesn't trust bishops to describe and reflect on the church in both its local and universal aspects, how can the church genuinely call itself catholic--global though it may have become?

The choice of Joseph Ratzinger as pope has been a disappointment, no doubt. But Benedict XVI faces enormous challenges in both church and culture--the same challenges all Catholics face. If my proposed motto for the new pope--"loosen up"--seems an unlikely choice for him, that doesn't mean the rest of the church shouldn't adopt it.

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.

"Methinks that this polished bow does not lightly yield itself to be
strung."
--Odyssey, XXI

Departing for his epic voyage, the mythic hero Odysseus left his storied bow in his wife's care. During his absence, it served as an identity test to ward off suitors, for it was so large and difficult to handle only Odysseus, with his almost superhuman strength, could draw the ends together.

In every age, true leadership requires a similar strength, to draw together ends that stand in profound tension. In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, as Josef Pieper noted, took in hand a bow with ends that "seemed to be inevitably pulling away from one another"--the realm of the supernatural, accessible only by faith, and that of reason and natural reality--and joined them in a way that recognized and utilized the distinctiveness of each.

In the task of guiding the church on its continuing journey, Pope Benedict XVI will have quite a bow to draw. Neither the church nor our globalized world is lacking in the need to bring together elements that seem to be "inevitably pulling away from one another." When it comes to the church, I will focus on just three: the tension in how it sees itself (ecclesiology); in how it relates to those outside the Christian community (missiology); and finally, in how it fulfills its social responsibilities in the world (social justice).

In the realm of ecclesiology, many Catholics continue to emphasize the church's hierarchical and institutional dimensions. In this model, the church is, in essence, the pope, the bishops, and the priests who administer the sacraments, preside over church governance, and guard the magisterial tradition. But as John Paul II observed in a 1998 meeting with ecclesial movements, today's world cries out for a much richer, multidimensional understanding of the church. In our time, often dominated by a secularized culture, "the faith of many is sorely tested, and is frequently stifled and dies." Thus there is an urgent need for "mature Christian personalities, conscious of their baptismal identity, of their vocation and mission in the world."

Quoting Vatican II's Lumen gentium, John Paul II affirmed that "it is not only through the sacraments and the ministrations of the church that the Holy Spirit makes holy the people.... Allotting his gifts according as he wills, he also distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank.... He makes them fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up of the church."

Certainly, what has been termed the "charismatic" dimension of the church can and should be in profound harmony with its "institutional" aspect. In the same 1998 address, John Paul II defined the two as "co-essential" to the church's constitution. But the two ends of this bow may not "lightly yield" because of deeply ingrained patterns within both clergy and laity who, for the most part, still imagine themselves only within a hierarchical model.

In the realm of ecclesiology, therefore, an important challenge for Benedict XVI will be to bring together the institutional and charismatic dimensions of the church so that they shine forth as truly "co-essential," enabling the church to tap into all the resources the Holy Spirit is sending it for its renewal, holiness, and unity.

In the realm of missiology, how the church interacts with those outside the Christian community, "dialogue" and "witness" represent two ends in tension. As John Paul II observed in his 2001 apostolic letter, Novo millennio ineunte, in a climate of increased cultural and religious pluralism, openness with followers of other religions is crucial in establishing a solid basis for peace. But what does it mean to be in sincere conversation with people of other faith traditions and at the same time to be authentically Christian, convinced of the unique role of Jesus Christ in salvation and of the duty to share this message with others?

Novo millennio illustrates some headway in its description of "mission" by including a "willingness to listen" to others and attention to the presence and purpose of God in other religions--for the Spirit "blows where he wills." The two ends of this bow need not inevitably pull away from one another.

But here, too, the bow will not "lightly yield"--in part because this project is relatively new and because, historically, it is fraught with contentious and even violent conflict. Dignitatis humanae, the conciliar document which declared the right to religious freedom, is only forty years old. The challenge for Pope Benedict will be to lead the church through the delicate theological, philosophical, and interdisciplinary efforts to discover the relationship and harmony between dialogue and witness, and to implement this understanding in the most varied contexts throughout the world.

Finally, in the realm of social justice, in Novo millennio, John Paul II described another set of deep tensions: on one end, the developed world, offering the immense possibilities of economic, cultural, and technological progress to a fortunate few, and on the other, millions living in conditions far below the requirements of human dignity.

In a global church for a globalized world, one of the greatest challenges will be to communicate and instill a notion of freedom--so dear to Western culture--that is inextricably bound to solidarity with "the least," in every sense of the word: the poor, the outcast, the unborn. Novo millennio described a spirituality of communion that enables Christians to see all their brothers and sisters in faith within the profound unity of the Mystical Body. This, in turn, makes them able to share one another's joys and sufferings, and to attend to one another's needs.

Still, neither of these tensions will "lightly yield": the concrete task of moving economic systems and cultural lifestyles toward a model which recognizes humanity as one universal family is--to put it mildly--immense. The challenge for Benedict XVI's pontificate will be to continue the church's efforts, and to foster strong collaboration with people of other Christian denominations, other religions, and all people who are working toward that goal. The deepest hope for enhancing a global commitment to economic justice will be in bringing many hands to the bow.

As we contemplate the "superhuman strength" required to pull together these elements in tension, our greatest hope, of course, is Christ, who holds all things together and promised to be with us until the end of the age. As John Paul II wrote in Novo millennio, any "program" for the church ultimately has its center in Christ, "who is to be known, loved, and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem." Thus, perhaps the most important prayer for Pope Benedict--or any Christian leader, for that matter--is not superhuman strength but docility to the presence, voice, and light of Christ.

Amy Uelmen

Amy Uelmen is director of the Fordham University School of Law Institute on Religion, Law, and Lawyer's Work. She can be reached at [e-mail].

In 1996, John Paul II issued the apostolic letter Universi dominici gregis, which laid down detailed procedures to govern the election of a new pope. Among the responsibilities of the cardinals, prior to the recent conclave, was to appoint two preachers "known for their sound doctrine, wisdom, and moral authority" who were to offer "meditations on the problems facing the church at the present time and on the need for careful discernment in choosing the new pope." This requirement of prayerful discernment of spirits carries beyond the conclave and the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and constitutes a continuing responsibility of the church gathered in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Had I been asked to offer recommendations on texts to guide the preachers' presentations (and now, more importantly, the Catholic community's ongoing reflections), I would have suggested two: the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, and the wonderful pastoral vision sketched by John Paul II in his Novo millennio ineunte.

John 21 is striking on many counts. It serves as the epilogue to one of the theologically most profound writings of the New Testament. It is a foundational text for the exercise of the Petrine ministry, based on the risen Christ's injunction to Simon Peter: "Feed my lambs ... feed my sheep" (Jn 21:15, 17). It links this pastoral imperative to the unconditional personal relation that binds the disciple to the one Lord: "Do you love me?" Thus it reminds Peter (and all of us) that the demands and the cost of discipleship are addressed to all, though in different ways. Christ commands each disciple individually: "follow me!" (Jn 21:19)--words that served as leitmotif for then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's moving homily at John Paul II's funeral Mass.

The late Raymond Brown contended that John 21 may testify to the integration of John's community and the Johannine heritage into the "Great Church," the church catholic, represented, indeed "sacramentalized," by the Petrine ministry. The communion (koinonia) thus realized is marked by a vibrant unity that resists sectarian temptations, whether to "left" or "right." Whatever the legitimacy of current concerns regarding an overcentralization of the church: the need in an increasingly global world for a visible, authoritative center is more imperative than ever.

A meditation on John 21, undertaken as a "spiritual exercise," lays two indispensable responsibilities upon the Petrine ministry. First, proclaiming in season and out of season the living source of the church's communion: Jesus Christ, who is the light of the nations. This surely entails renewed commitment to catechesis and education in those nations, including our own, where there is widespread biblical and religious illiteracy. A people adrift often lacks the very instruments whereby it might recover its proper course. The Catholic community must cultivate the language of faith, in all its breadth and depth, not in a truncated version, if we are truly to encounter the mystery of Christ.

Let me add, that focusing on evangelization and education in shaping a distinctive Catholic identity does not represent a rejection of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Such dialogue, though, must proceed not only from intense respect for the other, but also from abiding fidelity to one's own tradition.

A second responsibility of the Petrine ministry suggested by a lectio continua of John 21, is the acknowledgement that disciples of Christ are called to diverse paths and missions. The church has taken root and borne abundant fruit in different cultural soils, sanctioning, for example, a diversity of religious orders and institutes, from Benedictines to Jesuits, from Opus Dei to the Community of Sant Egidio. Each pope must safeguard the genuine unity of the church while still promoting the richness of plurality.

Here John Paul II's Novo millennio ineunte offers guidance. The text of this letter is one of the richest and most accessible of his many writings. In it he recalled the intense experience of the Jubilee Year which included his history-making pilgrimage to the Holy Land and his prayer at the Western Wall. But the central chapter lifts up the person of Jesus Christ as "A Face to Contemplate." One appreciates, in this text, how "mystagogy"--the profound evocation of and immersion in the mystery of Christ present in Scripture and sacraments--formed the very heart of John Paul's preaching and ministry.

The pastoral charge facing Pope Benedict and the whole church is to appropriate anew this mystical knowledge of Christ and to communicate its significance to others. There are, certainly, issues of "management" that any institution must engage, and by no means do I minimize the importance of such concerns as accountability and transparency--they are key to ecclesial credibility. But what is unique to the community called church is not good management, but the all-demanding love of Christ which answers the yearning of the human heart for the transcendent--for the true and the beautiful. Whatever his lapses in management, it was John Paul's mystagogy--his palpable love of the living Christ--that attracted millions. The same dramatic witness to the beauty of the Christian mystery must mark the Petrine ministry of Benedict XVI, albeit with different accents and hues.

This embrace of the mystical dimension of faith does not require withdrawal to the cloister or a privatized Christianity. No quote from Vatican II was dearer to John Paul than the passage in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) which declares that, in the mystery of the Incarnation, "Christ fully reveals humankind to itself." This Christological conviction is the basis for the church's commitment to human dignity and human rights in every nation and culture. Contemplating the face of Christ inspires Christians to recognize him in a special way in the faces of the poor, leading the church to reaffirm its "preferential option for them."

Another theme developed in Novo millennio ineunte may prove particularly important in focusing the vision and energies of the church: its call "to make the church the home and the school of communion." Achieving this will require the development of "a spirituality of communion" that can undergird and sustain a commitment to consultation, dialogue, and collaboration. Vatican II's recovery of the constitutive role of collegiality in Catholic ecclesiology was a catalyst for the postconciliar development of such participatory structures as the Synod of Bishops and diocesan presbyteral and pastoral councils. The challenge confronting Pope Benedict and the whole church is to reanimate these, to employ them more effectively, and, when necessary, to create new vehicles for expressing and furthering the active and mature collaboration of all the baptized.

In this regard, one must mention two crucial claims on the prayerful discernment of the church. The first is how the manifold gifts that women bring to the whole church may find fuller institutional recognition. The second is whether, in view of the aging and diminishing numbers of clergy, especially in the West, the tradition of celibacy can continue to be the normal practice for the Latin church.

In the years since Novo millennio ineunte, other challenges of "these rapidly changing times" have emerged, perhaps none more difficult, and urgent than the dialogue with Islam. Clearly our new pope cannot be the sole responsible dialogue partner; but his leadership will set the tone and help orient its course.

The daunting challenges presented to Benedict XVI and to the whole church can seem overwhelming. Like Peter and the disciples in the storm-driven boat, we are tempted to lose heart. But the two-fold passion, for Christ and for communion, is the beacon that guides disciples, not away from suffering and the cross, but toward meeting them with faith, in the hope of resurrection. Together with St. John of the Cross the church of the new millennium chants the song of "The Dark Night": Sin otra luz y guia / Sino la que en el corazon ardia--"With no other light and guide / Save that which burned in my heart."

Robert P. Imbelli

Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, teaches theology at Boston College.