Show Pope Turbulent Times Forged a Complex Mind Benedict brings rigid morals and tradition back to Jeffrey Fleishman Los Angeles Times As student unrest bristled across the campus campus campus cam cam- pus of University in the Marxist rabble rousers would burst into th the e classroom of Father Joseph a diminutive intellectual who preferred Mozart and the writings of St. St Augustine t to o the chaotic and changing times around him Some of the students heckled the priest whistling and interrupting his theological lectures had been a voice fo for r reform in the Roman Catholic Church buthe but bu t the disrespect of the students and their r relentless demands unnerved him and redirected redirected redi redi- redirected the course of his religious thinking according to friends priests and theologians is a letter writer not a man o of f confrontation and he was deeply disturbed d by these Marxist commandos said Hans Kueng a fellow professor at the university four decades ago He was wounded inter inter- nally He felt betrayed It was a decisive moment for him Hes He's timid and suspicious and he developed a complex against reforms Rigid morals and devotion to tradition were th the tenet that b tact last t weel n u u ed from powerful cardinal to Pope Benedict XVI Born in the mountains of Bavaria and schooled in a seminary eventually eventually eventually ally taken over by the Nazis Benedict was swept into World War II and later forced to confront a world he viewed as spinning away from God and toward the demeaning realms of secularism and liberal politics Critics say Benedicts Benedict's theology is barbed with troubling prejudices Much of his conservative conservative conservative con con- thinking was inspired by a determination determination determination nation to buttress the church against tyrannies tyrannies tyrannies tyran tyran- nies such as fascism and Marxism The man who once said Mozart's music contains the whole tragedy of human existence also equated homosexuality with an intrinsic moral evil He eloquently can quote St. St Matthew on the suffering of the poor yet is isi i opposed to the use of condoms to prevent i AIDS from spreading in Africa 1 The new pope however is a man not of contradiction but theologians theologians theolo theolo- complexity s gians say His thinking thinking think think- think think-a P ing is more than his public persona persona persona per per- sona as the churchs church's enforcer of the faith suggests r The theologies of John Paul II and i Benedict XVI are the same but their personalities personalities personalities per per- are differ differ- t ent John Paul was energetic and possessed possessed possessed pos pos- t a rustic mystical mystical e 4 cal charm Benedict c was a quiet shy boy who grew into a timid man but one who even critics agree is witty wilt Y and p pleasant a yn y fr multilingual musician music ian n 4 y who occasionally t l f seeks out criticism I think hes he's sometimes sometimes sometimes some some- r times caught between his modernist modernist ideas ideas ideas' and his conservatism conservatism conser conser- E said Father I 8 Josef pastor pastor pas pas- 8 tor of St St. Marias Maria's Church in Munich 4 Q and childhood c a VW Via friend of Benedicts Benedict's I w who o was was orda ordained ned a 6 priest with him in l 1951 rt Pope Benedic Benedict XVI smiles and w waves ves to the crowd crowd during the church hurch service on St Peters Peter's s Square He has this tension at the Vatican in m Rome Rome Italy April 24 Pope Benedict XVI was inaugurated as the new head of the the Roman Roman Catholic church church him J think u its it's useless to compare him as a progressive or a conservative He knows the scriptures and that the message of Jesus Christ doesn't change Devotion to Christ was woven into the foothills and streaked snow-streaked mountains of Bavaria where was born on April 16 1927 The town of his birth Marktl am Inn is about 20 miles from Adolph Hitler's origins in Braunau Austria For centuries the region was known for salt mines Catholicism and beer brewed from the recipes of friars and monks and his brother Georg were the sons of a police officer They attended St. St Michaels Michael's seminary on a rise overlooking their boyhood home outside Traunstein later would write in his memoir About My Life that he was bright but not athletic a deficiency that bothered him because he thought he was holding back his soccer teams Nazism seeped across Bavaria in the Crucifixes were removed from classrooms Catholic youth groups met in secret Nazi rallies were held in the town square near St. St Oswalds Oswald's Church and fascist sympathizers began appearing as teachers and Wand coaches at the seminary A 1935 photo shows an year old Joseph sitting in class with a picture of Hitler hanging beside a chalkboard The people of Traunstein did not rise up to stop Nazi attacks on Jewish homes and businesses businesses businesses busi busi- nesses during the Semitic anti-Semitic violence of Nov 9 1938 known as They did not intervene later to stop their small community of Jews from being deported to concentration camps The family despised the Nazis according to biographers But like many te teenagers nager at the time J Joseph Jj iti d the Hitler for fear of P that resisted r s sted the as as' s the Nazis I 1 f AA l J-l 1 I j- j l rt a l 1 rt j k j-k CIte L 1 V k va v J t. t P w. w C a t. t P J 1 J. aul r 1 Rupert Berger a retired priest who lives in Traunstein and was ordained the same day as said his father openly opposed National Socialism My father was well known in the resistance Berger recalled He was fired from his job as a health insurance officer and ended up in Dachau When my father was released from the concentration camp he never told us what happened until years later My father gave me the freedom to join the Hitler Youth I said no Berger admires Benedict He paused when asked why Benedict didn't refuse the youth brigade which assigned him to an antiaircraft unit He said as have Jewish groups and historians historians historians his his- who have credited Benedict for his efforts to improve the Catholic Churchs Church's relations with Jews that the pope cannot be blamed for enrolling It was another time Berger said when fear and oppression were constants and few knew what the Nazis were conspiring to do was discharged from the Hitler Youth in 1944 at 18 and immediately immediately immediately imme imme- drafted into the German army to dig antitank trenches His friend was shipped to the Russian front said was wounded and sent to St. St Michaels Michael's seminary which the Nazis had turned into a hospital deserted in inthe inthe inthe the spring of 1945 just before Germanys Germany's defeat and briefly was held heldI as a prisoner of war by American forces The war defined early view that the church could endure evil and emerge stronger according to the biography Cardinal The Vatican's Enforcer of Faith by John L. L Allen Jr In November 1945 entered the seminary in Freising where he reunited with back from the Russian front The two along with brother Georg 0 were ordained priests in 1951 Benedict went to Munich University for higher study said sitting in his rectory in a gray suit with a silver cross pin shining shining shin shin- ing on his black tie I didn't want to become a theologian I wanted to be a parish priest But Benedict was very very gifted His His memory was outstanding received a doctorate from Munich in 1953 Over the next decade Ratzi ger according to theologians theologian and friends refined a progressive the the- He was inspired by the works of St. St Augustine and St. St Charles Borromeo the archbishop of Milan during the Council of Trent in the century when the church enacted reforms to stop corruption corruption corruption cor cor- and attempted to counter the Protestant Reformation helped draft a withering document document document docu docu- ment at the Second Vatican Council criticizing criticizing criticizing ing the churchs church's Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office a year old body that guarded guard guard- ed against heresy The document suggested the Holy Office had evolved little since the days of the medieval Inquisition The critique prompted Pope Paul VI to overhaul the office which was renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Nineteen years later Pope John Paul II would appoint to head the office in an effort to tug the church away from the liberalism spawned by Vatican II and back to toU U co s J II rno no 1 R tzi r Ia S' S hired d lIS' lIS y r professor at University al 11 1 ui Ul v in iii I st Germany Entering his he continued his progressive writing and research but but became increasingly agitated by the Marxist student protesters Germany and Western Europe it seemed t 1 to were careening g. g away from their spiritual centers and drifting toward a adan dan dangerous moral vacuum The violence of Nazism Nazism afforded his first encounter with a godless tyranny and the unruly liberal environment environment of the late along with the materialism and moral relativism that followed followed fol fol- followed lowed again would be viewed by as shackles on human aspirations for free free- dom Said The students yelled and whistled him down in lecture halls This liberalism liberalism liberalism lib lib- lib lib- was a fashion and as a young teacher Benedict was progressive himself but he quickly discovered this could all go inthe inthe in inthe the wrong direction resigned from in 1969 and moved to Regensburg to teach and to be closer to his brother in Bavaria conservatism hardened and his keen mind caught the notice of Karol who became Pope John Paul II in 1978 In Ratzing r theologians said John Paul found a loyalist who shared the Polish pontiffs pontiff's great goal remaining true to Catholicism's conservative precepts while resonating with a turbulent modern world John Paul would take this mission on the road traveling hundreds of thousands of miles and transforming the papacy would work amid the Vatican's marbled halls and Renaissance splendor After taking raking the helm of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981 became the articulator of church teachings the legal detail to John Pauls Paul's vision He shaped church opposition to homosexuality Latin American liberation theology secularism globalization women in in the priesthood contraception and religious reli reli- religious plurality He led what was known as a or cultural war dent against dissident dissident theologians and questioned the value of other religions once referring to Buddhism as an erotic auto spirituality He was a godsend to conservatives and a bane to liber liber- als He Ie became the became lightning rod for a charismatic charismatIc charis charis- matic mystical pope job is a thankless one one a ranking high-ranking Vatican official told the Los Los Angeles Times as long ago as 1986 Its inevitable that he would be seen as the fall guy General civility within the church would avoid an overly blunt personal attack on the pope See Benedict continued on page 10 Benedict cont cant from page 6 Despite the new popes pope's conservative conservative conservative conser conser- image Mario a spokesman for the Community of Sant' Sant Edigio which works with the poor said wrote a powerful treatise on poverty in his 1960 book The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood Its the strongest theological discourse that I know on the theme of the poor because it is the one that puts the poor in the z 7 Christian community said citing interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew It is the only time in inthe inthe inthe the Gospels that the word brothers brothers brothers broth ers' ers is used to refer not to the apostles but to another cate cate- gory And it is the poor At his first papal Mass on Wednesday Benedict spoke of starting a theological dialogue with other faiths and reaching out to the young His conciliatory ry tone and words were a sharp departure from his staunchly conservative comments before the conclave that ended in his elevation Some theologians wondered whether his papacy would be less rigid than the atmosphere he created enforcing doctrine for John Paul The question is How will he do that said Bernd Jochen Hilberath a Catholic theologian at University So far hes he's been the brakeman Now he wants to be the forerunner Im I'm looking forward to the new momentum coming from him His complex personality is allowing hope Hes He's too much of ofa a theologian to not know that one cannot just repeat everything in old language and dictate from above |