A Life Cultivated in Bavarian Soil
TRAUNSTEIN, GERMANY--A daily churchgoer, Elisabeth Unterbuchner can't help but be honest. Standing outside St. Michael's Seminary in this hilly hamlet at the edge of the Bavarian Alps where Pope Benedict XVI studied in the 1940s, the retiree admits that, despite a deep affection for Traunstein's native son, she has her reservations. Unterbuchner recalls a weekday mass in the seminary's small chapel last winter, where she and then Cardinal Ratzinger were the only attendees: "He sat in the back just like any ordinary person and met my eyes at the end." Still, sure that the Roman Catholic Church needs reform, Unterbuchner answers the question of whether Ratzinger is the right man for the job with a typical German expression of indecision, a rueful combination of ja and nein: "Jein."
Such ambivalence regarding the election of the first German pope since the Middle Ages is common here. A preconclave poll in the newsweekly Der Spiegel showed that 36 percent of Germans opposed Ratzinger's election, while just 29 percent favored it. High-profile scuffles with progressive German bishops--most notably over whether churches should offer counseling to pregnant teens--helped establish Ratzinger's reputation as a doctrinal hard-liner. Domestic criticism continues: Christian Weisner of the reform group Wir Sind Kirche (We Are Church) chides the new pope for planning his first trip to Cologne: "He should go to Africa or South America," says Weisner, as an overture to Catholic communities in the Third World. "It's a bad sign."
Church and ale. Opinions in Ratzinger's native Bavaria, Germany's picturesque, conservative, and highly independent southern state, are more forgiving. In Germany at large, Protestants and Catholics each make up some 30 percent of the population. But nearly 70 percent of Bavaria is Catholic. The region's religion, like its beer, is simply a way of life. In Traunstein, in fact, as in much of Bavaria, the local church is steps away from the town biergarten, and many parishioners visit both in succession on Sundays. Politics, too, takes its cue from the pulpit: The conservative Christian Social Union has ruled the region unchallenged since the late 1950s.
Many Bavarians say Ratzinger's reputation as cold and calculating misrepresents not only the man but the region. As pope, says St. Michael's Prefect Michael Winnichner, Ratzinger will be able to enforce the faith's fundamentals while showing a warmer, more open side: "That's the Bavarian way."
In Marktl am Inn, the 2,800-person village where Ratzinger was born, residents also claim a measure of pride. At the Winzenhoerlein Bakery, across from Ratzinger's first home, a chalkboard sign proudly advertises "Vatican Bread," a tasty concoction of wheat and sunflower seeds with a flour-dusted cross on the crust. Says owner Erika Winzenhoerlein: "We just wanted to do something. And what better connection than holy bread?"
Already, Benedict XVI has succeeded in drawing Germans together--no small feat in a country where expressions of nationalism have been anathema since 1945. "We can never forget the terrible role we played in recent history," says Winfried Roehmel, spokesman for the Munich Archdiocese. "But to have a German pope just 60 years after World War II--it's a step toward reconciliation."
This story appears in the May 2, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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