POPE BENEDICT XVI “THE POPE IN RED SHOES”

  

By Rev. Fr. Casmir Odundo 

Today, at 9.34 am Rome time in Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, in the Vatican Pope Benedict XVI passed on just a few hours before we crossed over to the New Year 2023 and during the Christmas Octave. 

By the time of his death, he was 95 years old. He had served as Pope for 7 years and as a Cardinal for 27 years. He had also served as a Bishop for 45 years and 71 years as a priest. 

On 28th February 2013 Pope Benedict XVI walked into a  gathering of cardinals in the Apostolic Palace and announced in his  characteristic fluent Latin what no pope has dared for over 600 years:  His resignation.  

Born on 16th April 1927 (the feast of St. Bernadette Soubirous of  Loudress) Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger rose through the ecclesiastical  ranks to become the 265th Bishop of Rome. His vocation journey started  when as a 5 year old boy he was in the group of young children who  welcomed the then visiting Cardinal Archbishop of Munich with  flowers. Struck by the cardinal’s distinctive garb, he announced later  that day that he wanted to be a cardinal.  

In his “Letter to Seminarians,” of 18th October 2010, he spoke of his  decision to join the seminary,  

“…In December 1944, I was  

drafted for military service; the  

company commander asked each  

of us what we planned to do in  

future. I answered that I wanted 

to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied, “Then you  ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are  no longer needed.”  

This did not dampen the young Ratzinger’s spirit. In November, the  following year he and his brother Georg entered the seminary in  Traunstein. On 29th June 1951 together with his brother Georg, he was  ordained a priest. Many years later he still fondly remembered the  memories of his priestly ordination:  

“at the moment the elderly Archbishop laid hands on me- a little  bird flew up from the altar in the high cathedral and thrilled a little  joyful song.”1  

The newly ordained Fr. Ratzinger  served for a brief while as a curate in Bogenhausen. “That was the loveliest  time of my life.” He once commented.2 After this brief stint he  immersed himself completely in the  world of academia.

It is a journey that took him to many prestigious  German universities: Bonn, Munster, Tubigen, Regensburg to mention  but a few. It also made him brush shoulders with many theologians of  the time, many of whom were his contemporaries: Hans Kung, Edward  Schillbex, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, Han Urs von Balthasar, Walter  Kasper, Josef Pieper to mention but a few. In 1968 he wrote his  celebrated work Introduction to Christianity. It is significant also to note  that Fr. Ratzinger participated in the sessions of the Vatican II council  as a Peritus i.e. first as a theological  consultant to Cardinal Frings of Cologne and later as a consultant to the Council as a whole. 

On the Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord, Pope Paul VI, barely  a year before his death, appointed Fr. Ratzinger the Archbishop of  Munich and Freising. An appointment that was unprecedented  (because he had not much pastoral experience) but not surprising since  Ratzinger had already established himself as a distinguished theologian.  He took as his Episcopal motto ‘Cooperatores Veritatis’ (Co-workers of  Truth). He retained this Episcopal Motto up to his Pontificate.

In June of  the same year he was elevated to be a cardinal. On 25th November  1981, Pope John Paul II named him the Prefect of the Sacred  Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. A position he held for almost  quarter of a century, till when he was elected Pope. While still head of  the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger also held  the following positions: President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission  (1981-2005), President of the International Theological Commission  (1981-2005), the Dean of the College of Cardinals in (2002-2005). In  1997, when he turned 70, Ratzinger asked Pope John Paul II for  permission to leave the congregation of the Doctrine of Faith and to  become the archivist in the Vatican Secret Archives as well as librarian  in the Vatican Library but Pope John Paul II refused to assent.3 Throughout his years in the Vatican as the Prefect of CDF, he was said  to be very close to St. John Paul II.  

Following the death of St. John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, who as the  Dean of the college of Cardinals had presided over his requiem mass  was elected Pope on 19th April 2005, on the second day of voting after  four ballots. He began his pontificate by describing himself as, “a humble servant in the Lord’s vineyard.”  During his first audience with German Pilgrims in the same  year, Pope Benedict said that he had prayed to God during the conclave  not to be elected Pope, but that evidently that time God did not listen  to his prayers. 

Ratzinger chose the Pontifical Name Benedict for two reasons: First he  wanted to follow the footsteps of Pope Benedict XV the courageous  Pope during World War I who has been referred to by historians as “the  Pope of Peace.” Secondly, in honor of St. Benedict of Nursia, the  patron of monasticism and one of the patrons of Europe. Pope Benedict  had thus hoped to remind Europe of its religious roots. 4 

Initially many historians saw his Pontificate as a continuation of the  pontificate of St. John Paul II. However, as many later came to find out,  Pope Benedict XVI papacy had its own peculiarities. Peter Seewald  summarizes his 7-8 year Pontificate as “the great retreat the Church  needed to buttress the interior castle and to strengthen her soul.”5Pope  Benedict may be referred to in my opinion as “The Pope of the New  Evangelization.” He created a new department in the Holy See  specifically for New Evangelization. i.e the Pontifical Council for the  Promotion of New Evangelization. He was also “The Pope of  Seminarians”. He visited many seminaries in Rome, wrote a letter to  seminarians during my seminary days, which was a great  encouragement to us then, and began a wonderful tradition during the  world youth days to have a session/audience with the seminarians.  

He was also a Pope in love with the liturgy. One needs to recall just how  wonderfully he chanted parts of the Mass; he gave the motu proprio  Summorum Pontificum which allowed priests at their own private  masses or at the request of the faithful to celebrate the Tridentine  Mass. He was also the Pope with an “aesthetical eye”. We all remember his red papal shoes that he wore in respect to the Papal tradition and vesture of the Middle Ages, his large Palliums (Pallia) and  wonderful chasubles which he wore on several liturgical ceremonies. 

Even as a Pontiff, he did not abandon his theological endeavors; his  Wednesday audiences were attended in great numbers that have never  been seen before. In these audiences he delved deeply into the Church  Fathers and Church Heritage. In most cases he would end his  audiences by intoning ancient hymns, rhythms of which he would  personally key in the organ. He added two saints: John of Avila and  Hildegard of Bingen to the list of Doctors of the Church to make the  Doctors to number 35. His encyclicals Deus Caritas Est, Spe Salvi and  Caritas in Veritate reached, in the words of Peter Seewald, “ astronomical heights in the numbers of reprints.”6 Through his  theological and intellectual potency, he reposed the papacy to new  levels and made the Catholic Church attractive even to outsiders.  

He proclaimed three great years: The 

Year of St. Paul, The Year of Priests and  

The Year of Faith. Pope Benedict XVI had  

Africa, close to his heart. He  

courageously called Africa, the Spiritual  

Lung of the World, promoted many  

African Prelates to head major departments in Rome and convened a  second Synod for African Bishops in Rome in less than 20 years since  the first one was convened.  

“Everyone misses Benedict’s hallmarks,” comments Peter Seewald:  

“...his wise speeches, which could cool the mind and warm the  heart, the richness of his words, the honesty of his analysis, the  infinite patience of his listening, the nobility of the character that  he embodied like no other churchman. There is his shy smile, as  well, of course and then his often rather clumsy movements as he 

walked on stage…But above all there is his insistence on reason,  which as a guarantor of faith protects religion from lapsing into  erroneous fantasies and dangerous fanaticism. Not to mention his  modernity, which many were either unable or unwilling to  acknowledge.”  

It is important to acknowledge that as Pope he opened a twitter  account. He has been called “The last representative of the German  Genius,” putting him at par with Lessing, Immanuel Kant and  Beethoven.7  

Even in his resignation Pope Benedict XVI continued to be a lesson  to many Christians and people all over the world. The fact that he  voluntarily relinquished the papacy as head of over one billion Catholics  is an open lesson to many leaders’ particularly African despots who  insist on clinging to power against people’s will. He has taught us that  temporal power is for service. In his conversations with Peter Seewald,  the Pope admitted that even in his retirement, he still wrote his Sunday  Sermons even though his masses are always attended by merely 3 to 5  people. “Whether there are three or twenty thousand, the Word of God  must always be present to people,” Benedict XVI explained.8He was always positive about his successor Pope Francis and  said he  admired, “his direct contact with the people, his thoughtfulness and the  courage with which he exposes problems and searches for solutions.”9 

His years in retirement were marked with silence. Pope Francis recently remarked that in his silence and prayers, Pope Benedict XVI sustained the church. Well the Benedict  

XVI was not entirely silent.  He was present in several consistories, the  canonization mass of Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII, the Beatification of  Pope Paul VI and once appeared together with Pope Francis during an  audience with Grandparents. When he could not attend the consistories, he warmly received the new Cardinals in his residence.  

Asked if he had any special or favorite saint, he at once stated, “I love  St. Joseph, my patron.” He was indeed a true Josephite. This is how we need to interpret him, particularly in his  days of his retirement in Mater Ecclesia. Indeed, one of his rare  appearances was on the day he joined Pope Francis to place the Vatican  under the twin patronage of St. Michael and St. Joseph. It was he who  had initiated the idea of adding the name of St. Joseph in the second,  third and fourth Eucharistic prayers which was later implemented by  Pope Francis. His silence after retirement, in my opinion, should  be seen from the standpoint of his devotion to St. Joseph—the Silent  guardian of Our Lord, of whom not a single word is recorded but who  always worked behind the scenes. His silence and quiet days in Mater  Ecclesiae must thus be equated to the Silence of St. Joseph, the Father  of Contemplatives.  

His humility was also that of St. Joseph. Pope Benedict XVI was the first  pope to remove the Papal Tiara from his coat of arms and replaced it  with a simple Bishop’s mitre. He also silently abolished the tradition of  kissing the Pope’s hand. In his retirement, he stopped wearing the red  papal shoes and simply put on a white cassock without fascia.  

The fact that he spoke often and boldly about his imminent death is also  Josephite. In a message published in the Italian Newspaper Corriere della Sera on the occasion of his 5th anniversary of  his resignation, he said, “I am on a pilgrimage preparing for home.” 

His love for the Blessed Virgin Mary cannot be explained in words. It  suffices to say he was born on the feast of St. Bernadette of Lourdes, resigned on the feast of our Lady of Lourdes. The feast of our lady  of Lourdes is also the world day for the sick and aged . And his reason  for retirement was due to sickness and old age.  

We will all miss Pope Benedict XVI. A humble servant of God who mentored the whole world with his simplicity. 

The author is a priest of the Diocese of Nakuru, Kenya, currently a MA student at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome.  

 

End Notes:  

1Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger; Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, Ignatius Press, p. 99.  

2Peter Seewald, Benedict XVI, “Last Testament: In his own words,” Bloomsbury, p. 89  

3Caldwell Simon, “Pope Benedict wanted to be a librarian,” The Daily Telegraph.  

4General Audience of 27th April 2005.  

5Seewald, p.xix.  

6Ibid., p. xiv.  

7Peter Watson, the German Genius, Eurpoe’s Third Renaissance, London: Simon & Schuster 2010, pp. 786-7.  8Seewald, p.6.  

9Cf. Seewald p. 30.