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Pope Benedict XVI aka Cardinal Ratzinger: Can This Leopard Change His Spots? By Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox One always wishes for a miracle. I do not rule out anyone having a conversion experience at any time. Unlike fundamentalists who talk of one conversion experience I believe we are all capable of being born again…and again…and again. And this applies to popes too. Might it happen with Cardinal Ratzinger turned Pope Benedict XVI? Can this leopard change his spots? One can pray for it. But I would not bet on it. Because, as the saying goes, “ya dance with them that brung ya there.” And the forces that have coalesced around this pope for the past twenty-five years are not pretty. Nor are they at all dialogical. We cannot be naďve about the papacy. Just because a person is dressed in white does not make him a holy person. Or a just one. Just because the media salivates over a particular figure does not make that figure authentic or saintly. Celebrity is not the same as character. Many have been the knaves, the heretics, the butchers and moral midgets who have sat in “Peter’s throne” (not that Peter, a simple fisherman, ever had a throne. In fact the empire killed him rather efficiently.) What do we know about the character of this man who is now pope? I and millions of others saw the 20/20 tv program in which he took a swing at a journalist as he was getting into his limousine. What was that about? It was about just one of the burgeoning scandals of the past papacy, a scandal in which Ratzinger was sitting in the middle of it all. It concerned the founder (still living in his eighties) of the “Legionnaires of Christ,” a far right wing religious order named Father Maciel of Mexico. This very well connected priest, it seems, was a genius at raising money. He started many seminaries and even schools and universities. But at least nine of his ex-seminarians started writing the Vatican over twenty years ago to report that this priest had sexually abused them when they were boys in his seminary. Even though these victims wrote document after document to the Vatican, the Vatican did nothing. The case sat on Ratzinger’s desk for years and he commented that it would not be prudent to attack a priest who had done so much good for the church. Only in December, 2004, did he take notice. One can read about the scurrilous goings on in the past papacy, spearheaded by Cardinal Ratzinger, in two books written by three Catholic journalists. They are not out to ‘get the church’ but to get it going again. But their books are truly chilling for the secrets they reveal. One is Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II by Jason Berry and Gerald Renner. They tell the whole story of Father Maciel. The second book is Papal Sins by Garry Wills (also: Why I am a Catholic). Pope John Paul II, who had a peculiar attraction to right wing religious groups, invited the priest Maciel onto the papal plane for his trips to America and praised him often. He also gave special treatment to Father Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, another right wing religious order, that was so chummy with Franco that Franco had three of them on his cabinet. Father Escriva was rushed into canonization by this pope even though he praised Hitler [sic!]). Ratzinger oversaw the appointment of numerous cardinals and bishops especially in Latin America who are from the Opus Dei and the order is very strong in media and in financial circles of Europe and America. (Indeed, America’s most notorious spy, the ex-FBI man Robert Hammens, who gave away more secrets than anyone in our history, was a member of Opus Dei.) The third extreme right wing group that the past papacy (and the current pope) so strongly supported is the Communion and Liberation group of Italy. These are the people most wildly cheering the new pope since they know how close he was to John Paul II and how much of his behind the scenes work he did on the pope’s behalf. Including silencing over 100 theologians and dismissing most of us (yes, I’m one of them) from the priesthood or our religious orders in the name of “orthodoxy.” And destroying liberation theology and base community movements in Latin America—which is why right wing Pentecostal sects are flourishing now all over the continent. The press is going out of its way to show us how ‘human’ this Inquisitor General is. We are told he drinks lemonade and is followed down the streets by cats. But I think we have to judge the spots on this leopard by his actions, not by his love of lemonade. The most ignoble of his actions is his killing theology in the Roman Catholic Church and appointing churchmen (only men!) whose only qualification was an oath of loyalty. By killing theology, driving thinkers out, you have a church of Ideology and a hierarchy of sycophants. This is why the big current scandal in the American church happened: When you pick ideologues and Yes Men to run your organization, you can expect lack of imagination and moral stupidity to happen when there is a crisis. A kind of ecclesial in-breeding and intellectual incestuousness breeds stupidity. And there is a crisis in the American Catholic Church. It concerns not so much the pedophile priests, as criminal as their behavior is, but the cover-up by the bishops and cardinals. (The chief poster boy among them, Cardinal Law, has been given a plum job overseeing a fourth century basilica in Rome.) When the scandal first broke about the pedophile priests being shuttled from parish to parish and diocese to diocese under Cardinal Law in the Boston archdiocese we were in session with a Doctor of Ministry program at Wisdom University (formerly called University of Creation Spirituality). One of our students, who was a CEO in business said this: “If this happens in business the CEO is gone in twenty-four hours.” Well, it took Cardinal Law two and one half years to resign. And then he was promoted! Cardinal Ratzinger (with the complete approval of John Paul II) brought back the Inquisition. That is what he did over a twenty-three year period. One prominent and elegant theologian, Father Bernard Haering, who was the first one attacked by Ratzinger, had also been interrogated by the Nazis during the second world war. He reported that his interrogations in Ratzinger’s office were far more scary. The attitude of Ratzinger has been that he alone (or the pope in his name) knows theology and all real theologians can find work elsewhere. It is truly scary, such a power trip. He denies women any role of leadership even though the best scholarship today makes clear that women were leading from the get-go in the early Christian movement. Some of them worked closely with Paul. Another theologian, Brazilian Father Leonardo Boff, a champion of liberation theology, wrote about the torture that the Sacred Congregation of the Faith (called “the Office of the Holy Inquisition” until 1965) puts a theologian through today. It is more psychological than physical as in the days of the rack, he points out. But it is deadly. Many theologians have died or suffered from heart attacks and stress because of the unleashing of hatred shouted by those who are sure, because Ratzinger has said it, that they are teaching “heresy.” I went through this experience personally on a number of occasions when people would not just show up and protest at my talks or lectures with shouts and signs and pickets but also spit on me as I was leaving the speaking venue. This happened for example at the Cathedral in Seattle where Ratzinger’s ideologues gathered to attack Archbishop Hunthausen who, among other things, had refused to pay his taxes because of his moral opposition to the Vietnam War. I was invited to lecture on Hildegard of Bingen—they put her wonderful twelfth century opera on in the Cathedral—and I was spit on by members of CUFF—Catholics United for the Faith—as I exited the auditorium where I spoke. It was they who mailed a large dossier in to Ratzinger about my work. Though they are not theologians but religious hooligans, they were listened to by Ratzinger. Archbishop Hunthausen was mercilessly hounded by Ratzinger who took most of his powers away from him—a tactic he employed with many prophetic churchmen in Latin America as well, some of whom had their dioceses cut up or taken away from them and given over to right wing clergy. (An example is Cardinal Arns who stood up for years practically alone to the military dictatorship of Brazil.) Being stuck in one’s ideology and refusing to come up for theological air has many painful consequences. For example, Ratzinger believes that God revealed to him that no one should use condoms—how many Africans (and others) are dying because of that private revelation? Or that no one should practice birth control? (How many species are dying and how many women are kept in poverty because of that private revelation?) Or that gays and lesbians are “evil” in their love lives? The bishop who replaced the saintly Oscar Romero in El Salvador, who was murdered by the military while celebrating Mass, is a member of Opus Dei. Romero, who worked with the peasants and poor against the military regime and who died a martyr, has not been proposed for canonization by Ratzinger and company. But Escriva was canonized and in record time. There is no doubt therefore about where the man we knew as Cardinal Ratzinger lies in terms of supporting justice movements. His is a preferential option for the rich and powerful, not for the poor as was the theology of base communities and liberation theologies. And that of the prophets of Israel including the historical Jesus. Ratzinger’s allies can be very violent people. If you read Ratzinger’s two documents attacking homosexuals, they are truly mean-spirited in tone as well as content. So too was his bullying of me (and no doubt the other 100 plus theologians) when he struck up correspondence with my order about my works. He is not nearly as knowledgeable as he thinks he is about, for example, the history of spirituality. In his correspondence about me he actually defends the tired teaching of the spiritual path named as the three paths of purgation, illumination and union. He rejects the four paths of the creation spiritual tradition that I name: the via positiva (joy), via negativa (silence and darkness), via creative (creativity) and the via transformativa (justice and compassion) as “dangerous and deviant.” My paths, as Jewish scholars have told me, are Jewish. The others are not. The same is true of my work on “Original Blessing” vs. Original Sin. His rage at losing a pet concept like original sin did him in. Yet it is not Jewish and is not Biblical. Karl Rove is another cheerleader for this pope. He should be since he owes his job to him after all. In the last presidential election Ratzinger actually got Bush elected and this is how it happened. On June 4, Bush went to the Vatican and complained that the Catholic Bishops were not supporting him enough for his stand against abortion and gay rights. One week later a document came from Ratzinger to the Catholic bishops of America telling them that they should tell the public that a Catholic politician (i.e. Kerry) who is not against abortion ought not to be allowed to take communion. A number of bishops went along. (After all, all the bishops appointed the past twenty-three years went through Ratzinger’s approval and a big number of American bishops in particular were trained in his Inquisitorial office). The result? In Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico the Catholic vote was 6% higher than ever before for a Republican candidate. Thus, Ratzinger got Bush elected. As a head of state, the pope had no right to interfere in an American election but that did not slow Bush down. No wonder he was the first in line at John Paul II’s funeral—he owed him his job (as he owed the Supreme Court his job four years prior). To get a measure of Ratzinger and his spots we really ought to name the theologians he silenced and set upon and deprived of work and livelihood and above all of serving the greater church. Maybe each one of them can be seen as a spot on his leopard skin. People need theologians, people committed to thinking through the tradition in light of today’s needs—no matter what Inquisitors prefer. A partial list of the fallen follows. Fr. Bernhard Haering, a German Redemptorist and moral theologian Oscar Romero of El Salvador, called in three times to the Vatican to explain his stand against the military. The Vatican sent three visitors to coerce him to be silent. Jacques Pohier, French Dominican Edward Schillebeecks, Dutch Dominican Professor Hans Kung Father Ernesto Cardenal of Nicaragua Sister Agnes Mary Mansour of the Sisters of Mercy in Michigan Bishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle Gustavo Gutierrez, Peruvian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, Brazilian liberation theologian All the bishops of Peru summoned to Rome to repudiate liberation theology Fr. Gyorgy Bulanyi, a Hungarian priest Fr. Charles Curran of Catholic University of America Bishop Mathew Clark of Rochester, New York Fr. Alex Zanotelli of Columbia who published an article showing the relationship of arms sales and Italian relief agencies Bishop Pedor Casaldaliga, defender of the Indians and the rain forest in Brazil Bishop Helder Camara’s Institute in Recife, Brazil, was shut down Fr. Eugen Drewermann of Germany, a psychoanalyst and priest author Fr. Philipe Denis, Dominican of France, for criticizing the Opus Dei Brazilian sister Ivone Gebara Fr. Paul Collins of Australia Indian Jesuit Anthony de Mello (who had already been dead eleven years when they condemned his work) Sister Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent of the United States for ministering with gay and lesbian Catholics because they had not “condemned the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts.” Might Ratzinger change? His first two homilies as pope suggests he wants to—he talks of “the service of reconciliation and harmony between peoples” and of wanting to “listen” and wanting to commit himself to “interfaith.” We will have to wait and see. Like everyone else, I hope he can change. The Dalai Lama warns, however, that the biggest obstacle to interfaith is a bad relationship with one’s own faith tradition. Benedict XVI has a lot of learning to do about his own tradition, I’m afraid. And a lot of answering to do. Meanwhile, as we wait to see, I do not recommend holding one’s breath. His spots are very deep and long imbedded. Copyright 2005 |
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