DAVID CRARY, of Associated Press, reports…
New York, US
AP
In the United States, admirers of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI remembered him warmly for his theological prowess and devotion to traditional doctrine. However, some US Catholics, on learning of his death Saturday, recalled him as an obstacle to progress in combating clergy sex abuse and expanding the role of women in the church.
Pope Benedict XVI waves as he appears for the last time at the balcony of his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on 28th February, 2013. PICTURE: Osservatore Romano/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, depicted Benedict as “a man of unwavering faith, deep conviction and towering intellect,” yet added that he left “a complicated legacy”.
“When he was elected to succeed John Paul II as pope in 2005, Benedict XVI was the person who was most knowledgeable about clergy sexual abuse. Yet, the crisis continued to fester throughout Benedict’s papacy past his resignation in 2013 and even today.”
– Steven Millies, a professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago
She noted that last February, following a report that implicated him in the cover-up of sexual abuse during the years he served as Archbishop of Munich, Benedict “acknowledged his failure to act decisively at times in confronting sexual abusers.”
Steven Millies, a professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, noted that Benedict – before becoming pope – had a lead role in enforcing church discipline at a time when the sex-abuse crisis was making headlines in the US two decades ago.
“When he was elected to succeed John Paul II as pope in 2005, Benedict XVI was the person who was most knowledgeable about clergy sexual abuse,” Millies said via email. “Yet, the crisis continued to fester throughout Benedict’s papacy past his resignation in 2013 and even today.”
Millies suggested that Benedict’s most important legacy was his resignation, arising from “his recognition that he could not fix the abuse crisis or accomplish much else in the face of the deeply entrenched power of the Vatican’s centralised bureaucracy.”
Pope Benedict XVI walks with US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama during their meeting in the pontiff’s private library at the Vatican, on 10th July, 2009. PICTURE: ReutersChris Helgren/File photo.
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Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who heads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and is president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, praised Benedict as “a superb theologian” and recalled how the announcement of his resignation “shocked the world.”
“He recognized the great demands made of him as the chief shepherd of the Universal Church of a billion Catholics worldwide, and his physical limitations for such a monumental task,” Broglio said in a statement. “Even in retirement, retreating to live out a life in quiet prayer and study, he continued to teach us how to be a true disciple of Christ.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was appointed Archbishop of New York and nominated as a cardinal by Benedict, praised the pope emeritus as a “erudite, wise, and holy man, who spoke the truth with love.”
Dolan held a special Mass for Benedict at St Patrick’s Cathedral; its bells tolled 95 times before the Mass – reflecting Benedict’s age when he died.
President Joe Biden – a church-going Catholic who differs with church teaching on abortion and some other social issues – issued a statement evoking a meeting with Benedict at the Vatican in 2011. Biden recalled Benedict’s “generosity and welcome as well as our meaningful conversation”.
“He will be remembered as a renowned theologian, with a lifetime of devotion to the Church, guided by his principles and faith,” Biden added. “May his focus on the ministry of charity continue to be an inspiration to us all.”
Monsignor Kevin Irwin, dean emeritus at Catholic University of America, called Benedict a “theology professor extraordinaire…a clear thinker who was a quiet contributor to the church’s continuity after Pope John Paul II.”
Irwin said Benedict’s resignation left him stunned.
“But, in the end it was about understanding he was overwhelmed and letting him go,” Irwin said.
Monsignor Stephen Doktorczyk, vicar general for the Diocese of Orange in Southern California, remembered Benedict as a gracious leader who had the ability to build bridges and foster reconciliation.
“There was this unfair perception that he was there to cut people off at the knees,” said Doktorczyk, who served for five years – from September, 2011, to December, 2016 – in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for processing clergy sex abuse complaints. “He tried to be a peacemaker. When there was a way to reconcile, he tried to look outside the box.”
Others were more critical, including Kate McElwee, executive director of the US-based Women’s Ordination Conference, which seeks to enable women to be ordained as Catholic priests.
“For many Catholics, Pope Benedict’s papacy is a chapter of our church’s history that we are still healing from,” McElwee said. Her statement asserted that Benedict, as head of the Vatican’s doctrine office and as pope, “orchestrated a rigid campaign of theological suppression on the question of women’s ordination, creating a culture of fear and pain within the church.”
Also offering a harsh judgment was David Clohessy, a longtime leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
“In more than 30 years as a mighty Vatican bureaucrat – nearly 10 of them as the world’s top Catholic figure – Benedict enabled countless child sex crimes and cover-ups to continue by virtually refusing to publicly expose even one child molesting cleric or a complicit church official,” Clohessy said via email.
“With his extensive power and bully pulpit, he could have prevented hundreds or perhaps thousands of kids from being sexually assaulted. But he didn’t. Instead, he chose, time and time again, to side with ordained clergy over vulnerable children.”
The Survivors Network’s leadership, in a statement, said honoring Benedict now “is not only wrong, it is shameful.:
“Benedict was more concerned about the church’s deteriorating image and financial flow to the hierarchy versus grasping the concept of true apologies followed by true amends to victims of abuse,” the statement said.
The leader of a Maryland-based group that advocates for LGBTQ Catholics, Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, noted that Benedict – prior to his papacy – helped shape a document that called homosexual orientation as ”an objective disorder” and a Catechism describing sexual activity between people of the same gender as “acts of grave depravity.”
“Those documents caused – and still cause – grave pastoral harm to many LGBTQ+ people,” DeBernardo said.
Correction: The byline and source for this article has been corrected. Our sincere apologies for any confusion. The headline has also been corrected.
FACT BOX: FORMER POPE BENEDICT, HIS PAPACY AND RESIGNATION
Following are some facts about former Pope Benedict, who died on Saturday:
• Benedict, the first German pope in 1,000 years, was elected on 19th April, 2005, to succeed the widely popular Pope John Paul II, who reigned for 27 years. Cardinals chose him from among their number seeking continuity and what one called “a safe pair of hands”. For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was the powerful head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
A reproduction picture shows the Ratzinger family on 8th July, 1951: Joseph Ratzinger (second from right) who became Pope Benedict in 2005, brother Georg (second from left), mother Maria, sister Maria (left) and father Joseph, after the two brothers’ ordination to the priesthood. PICTURE: Reuters/KNA-Bild/File photo.
• An uncompromising theological conservative, Ratzinger left Germany and his post as Archbishop of Munich in 1982 to head the CDF. His disciplining of Latin American priests who promoted Marxist-influenced Liberation Theology bestowed him with the sobriquet “God’s Rottweiler”.
• A weak administrator who admitted a “lack of resolve in governing and decision taking”, his eight-year papacy was marked by missteps and a leaks scandal. He antagonised Muslims by appearing to suggest that Islam was inherently violent. He angered Jews by rehabilitating a Holocaust denier and prompted international dismay by saying the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS only worsened the problem. The 2012 “Vatileaks” scandal helped unravel his papacy. Paolo Gabriele, Benedict’s butler, leaked secret documents that revealed corruption and feuding within the Vatican. Benedict said he stood down because bad health prevented him from bearing the full weight of the papacy.
• Child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy but he is credited with jump-starting the process to discipline or defrock predator priests after a more lax attitude under John Paul II. He ordered an inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops. He disciplined the late Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ and one of the Church’s most notorious predators. The Vatican under Pope John Paul II had failed to take action against Maciel despite overwhelming evidence of his crimes.
A reproduction picture shows Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during the 1250 anniversary of Bonifatius pilgrimage in Fulda, on June, 1994. PICTURE: Reuters/KNA-Bild/File photo.
• In 2022, an independent report in Benedict’s native Germany alleged that he had failed to take action in four cases when he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982. The frail former pope acknowledged in an emotional personal letter that errors had occurred and asked for forgiveness. His lawyers argued in a detailed rebuttal that he was not directly to blame.
• Although he promised to keep a low profile after his retirement, Benedict wrote, gave interviews and, unwittingly or not, became a lightning rod for conservatives who opposed Pope Francis. Some loyalists failed to accept that he had resigned the papacy willingly and continued to consider him “my pope”. The “two popes” confusion was compounded because he chose to continue wearing white and be known as “pope emeritus”. The resulting polarisation led to calls from both conservatives and liberals for changes in Church law to regulate the functions and status of former popes.
• Benedict produced more than 60 books between 1963, when he was a priest, and 2013, when he resigned. “In reality I am more of a professor, a person who reflects and meditates on spiritual questions,” Benedict said after his resignation.
• He played piano and had a preference for Mozart and Bach. As a classicist, he frowned on rock and roll as an “expression of base passions” and once called popular music a “cult of banality”. Pope Francis, by contrast, also loves classical music but appreciates Italian pop songs from the early 1960s and also likes tango music from his native Argentina.
– PHILIP PULLELLA/Reuters
