Benedict XVI

On New Year’s Eve, nine years after he retired from the Papacy, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) passed away.

Many Catholics will face the dilemma of mourning the man who led the Catholic Church for eight years while reconciling Benedict’s papacy with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As a theological giant, he revered the intellectual side of Catholicism; one that is a man-made construct full of dogma that at times contradicts the basic teachings of Jesus Christ – love God and love your fellow human beings.

Rather than focus on the pastoral side of Catholicism and try to unify people in this new millennium, his theological background made him a harsh critic of women in the clergy as well as the LGBTQ community. 

Jesus focused on bringing people together in an inclusive faith in God. Man-made dogma and theology divides people.

Benedict sought to impose an intellectual bent to theology and isolate many from the bosom of the Church he led. This led him to conclude that it was more important for the Church to be “right” rather than just.

As Head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he was nicknamed “God’s rottweiler” by many. He failed to grasp the seriousness of accusations of sexual molestation and pedophilia by many priests. 

He held negative views of such contemporary issues as contraception, celibacy, opposed social activism by priests who emulated Jesus’s concerns for the poor and oppressed, and sought to create a “pure” Church free of the relativism of today’s thinking while stuck in a past that no longer exists.

Although he retired, he did not remain secluded.

He continued to espouse his conservative views, often in direct contradiction to the views of his successor Pope Francis. He served as a lightning rod for conservative elements who continue to hanker for pre-Vatican II days when Latin was the lingua franca of the Church and obedience to Rome was paramount.

Benedict was a child of the Roman Curia. Coming to Rome in 1962, he supported Vatican II at first, but by 1975 he became vehemently against Church reform and progressivism and became drawn to Cracow’s Archbishop Karol Wojtyla who later became Pope John Paul II. Wojtyla brought Benedict to Rome and there he began his rapid ascent in the Papal bureaucracy. When John Paul II died in 2005, Benedict was elected Pope and continued John Paul’s conservative theological bent.

Benedict’s resignation highlighted the differences within the Church.

The successor to this doctrinaire theologian has been a pastoral pontiff. Pope Francis has brought a humanistic leadership after decades of absolutist conservative rule. His papacy is in complete contrast to the past two popes and has created a more inclusive Church. His Papacy gives hope to those previously marginalized: women, gays, and victims of sexual abuse and pedophilia.

Many consider this an evolution in Church thinking. 

I consider it a positive devolution in Church teachings. 

Devolution in the positive sense of departing from the man-made constraints of theology back to the fundamental teachings of the Church’s founder, Jesus of Nazareth.

A humanistic Church that cares for its diverse flock is the basis of Christ’s teachings. Jesus welcomed women (Mary his mother and Mary Magdalene to name two), lepers, the sick, and the different to his fold saying that there was room in God’s kingdom for all. Nowhere did Jesus mention gays, contraception, a male dominated Church, or abortion. Francis’s Church is heading in that direction, and this can only enhance the Church’s message of universalism and inclusion.

Now that Benedict has passed, Francis may also decide to resign given his poor health following his predecessor’s example of leaving the Papacy for the good of his flock.

This will reopen public debate about the future direction of the Church. 

If a doctrinaire theologian like Benedict succeeds him, Francis’s legacy will be for naught, and the Church will continue to lose relevance for many of its erstwhile followers.

This would be a shame since the Church, for all of its warts, still has a role to play in bringing social justice and greater equality to a deeply divided world.

[email protected]

Keep reading: Netanyahu: The Price of Power

Edición: Laura Espejo