Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

The death of Pope Emeritus Benedict on New Year’s Eve 2022 is the end of an era and the beginning of an interregnum. It had been expected by his doctors and long anticipated by himself. His life has been a witness to the Way of Christian discipleship: the key word, the main theme.That is, the Truth of the Person of Jesus Christ who took flesh to redeem our poor, broken but beautiful world; the Life that Jesus confers on us, through baptism and His Spirit and, above all, His enduring Eucharistic presence.

To all of this, infused by his authentic humility, the life of Pope Benedict bore witness. He lived and taught as one of the foremost theologians of the last century, showing his humility in the manner in which he engaged with people. The erosion of his physical health in recent times, especially his final illness, was, in the words of Pope Francis, “a testimony of love for the Church until the end.”

The parable of the talents — our personal use of the gifts and graces conferred on us by God — applies to Pope Benedict in full measure, pressed down and running over. His theological publications are prodigious in their scale, breath and scholarship. Our age disparages and disrespect reason, intellect and truth. Benedict is a witness to reason, reflection and the pursuit of truth as something integral to humanity.

In the multitude of his writings. at least for the general reader seeking after Truth, his Jesus of Nazareth stands out. It brings the Person of Jesus of the Gospels — the times, the pressures and the triumph of the Cross and the Resurrection — alive. It’s a masterly critique of the dry revisionist perspectives that were displacing the living Christ of the Gospels. It’s one of those books that take you there.

Benedict’s life work focused on the vindication of truth and reason. Reason, and the right use of our will, set humanity apart from the world of nature and our wider global and cosmic environment. Pope Benedict called out “the dictatorship of relativism”, which assails this age of ours, in the nihilism of critical theory and the subversion of Truth, not least in our Universities.

He affirmed normative values: the precious gift of Europe’s Christian patrimony (evoked by Professor Oliver Roy in his book Is Europe Christian?), the truths of the Catholic faith, and the Magisterium or doctrinal authority entrusted to the Church and, for a time, to him, affirming the apostolic tradition. He did so with integrity, grace and without rancour. It is there in his writings and in numerous interviews. He did not reciprocate the hostility visited upon him for affirming the Christian Truth, or the compatibility of Reason and Faith. Professor Fr Vincent Twomey, a former student of Pope Benedict and a leading authority on his life and mission, called his book on Benedict The Conscience of our Age.

The importance of his collaboration with his mentor, Pope St John Paul II, cannot be overstated to the future of the Church and human anthropology.

Silence in the face of the anger and nihilism of critical theory is a true measure of Benedict’s strength. It turned back on those who denigrated his refusal to bow to the zeitgeist or the “progressive” agenda.

Pope Emeritus Benedict was not tempted by power, office or careerism. He knew all too well that they were ephemeral and a trap. He had no ambition to be Pope. That was an invention by a world and a media obsessed by power and status. At the time of his election, he was focused on his retirement, his writing and his music.

In the assault of relativism on the Church and the world, Pope Benedict stood firm, as the darkness deepened and the Church was assailed by the depredations of  wolves and hirelings and the rip tides of abuse which had insinuated their way into the Vatican.  He encountered, as Jesus did, rejection, opprobrium and opposition, laced with the lies of this world which exalts ego, pride and negativity.

Those privileged to know him in person attest to his sensitivity to the personal crises that burden those with whom he engaged in his office of safeguarding the doctrinal integrity of the Church. It’s in his interviews and his testimonies. Truth cannot be bartered to be “compassionate”. That is too high a price. When Truth is assaulted, we and our world are brought low. So Benedict affirmed and safeguarded the Truth.

His visit to the UK in 2010 was greeted with misapprehensions in some quarters.They need not have worried. Many were struck by his ineffable courtesy and his deep cultural awareness. He had the gravitas of wisdom that enraptured the public and engaged the establishment. He won over many, not least thanks to his canonisation of one of the greatest of Englishmen and of Anglican converts to Catholicism: St John Henry Newman.

The thing is, you cannot feign wisdom, holiness or humility — not for long. With no affectation, Pope Benedict undertook the final stages of his life journey towards this heartland. Leadership has been defined as “Humility with fierce resolve”. Humility and Obedience was how Jesus defined his relationship with His Father. They are not optional and they are profoundly at odds with contemporary culture. Yet they were cornerstones of Pope Benedict spiritual life and his mission. He was tenacious in affirming truth. That will endure against the present and future assaults on reason and truth.

His retirement in 2013 was a historical event — a shock to many sensibilities and to modern precedent. For Benedict XVI, however, it was a reasoned decision. He prayed for guidance about it, and announced it, in Latin, with grace.

It was part of the mosaic of a much longer life, well lived, spanning nearly a century. He had never wanted to be Pope. Those intimate with the folly of power couldn’t begin to fathom that he did not not want “the top job”. Had they reflected at all on Jesus washing the feet of His disciples at the Last Supper– and His message of what it meant. They caricatured it as ambition concealed.

Benedict XVI understood the demands that the papacy would increasingly make on his already frail health and capabilities. His great mentor Pope St John Paul II endured to the end —an extraordinary witness, as those who were present in St Peter’s Square have testified. Benedict might have emulated this example. Instead, he endured a different kind of witness. It showed great integrity that he had the humility and tenacity to walk a different path. Guided by reason and, having prayed and reflected, he announced his retirement.

Then he moved forward to a period of prayer, silence and service, a segue to Heaven and union with Jesus Christ whose incarnation, crucifixion,  resurrection, and glorification of Jesus, was the Gospel he preached and affirmed.

And the future of the Church he served and led? In an astonishingly prescient vision of the future of the Church, broadcast at Christmas 1969 and subsequently published by Ignatius Press in 2014, the young Joseph Ratzinger envisaged a smaller, poorer church — one that had suffered greatly. It was, he said, a Church to which humanity will eventually return, as the consequences, the unbearable loneliness, of its wilful isolation from God become more evident and oppressive.

In his final weeks Benedict anticipated the mercy, and friendship, that awaited him and every individual soul. He wrote that the Christian message, “the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is the cure for death, the medicine for immortality given us in Baptism. A new life begins in us, a life that matures in faith and is not extinguished by the death of the old life but only then fully revealed.”

This is the final legacy of a great theologian, an unassuming and holy man — one that will continue to resonate down the decades, during the interregnum that will last until humanity returns to the Truth of Jesus Christ.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.