Defender Of The Faith
The Vatican's longtime enforcer promises a kinder, gentler pontificate. Can he deliver?
Rome--It seemed almost inevitable--or, as the faithful would say, preordained. Some of the thousands gathered in St. Peter's Square believed they saw in it the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, others the politically achieved culmination of the all-too-human struggle called the "culture war." Yet others perceived it to be an inseparable weave of both. Whatever the case, when his name was finally announced, after the long interval between the first puffs of white smoke and his appearance on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, the crowd seemed almost unsurprised to learn that the 115 cardinals had elected Joseph Ratzinger--now Pope Pope Benedict XVI--as the 264th successor to St. Peter.
This was the man, after all, who had not only been John Paul II's chief adviser on doctrine and his trusted confidant, heavily involved in helping the late pope formulate some of his most important documents and statements about the church's relations with other Christian sects and other religions, as well as its stand on a range of ecclesiastical, moral, and social issues. He had also been dean of the College of Cardinals, presiding over John Paul's funeral mass and the mass that officially launched the conclave. In all of those capacities, he had made himself known to his fellow cardinals and to the wider world as an exactingly orthodox defender of the faith, an able leader and manager, and a master of an unassuming rhetorical eloquence. More directly to the point, since John Paul II's funeral, he had gone from a long shot to a surprising front-runner, a figure against whom the reformist wing of the College of Cardinals was said to have rallied in a last-ditch effort to prevent his election.
The reactions that came from the crowd at the announcement of his name--from joyous exuberance to grudging silence, with much respectful but restrained applause in between--seemed to provide an instant referendum on what people thought about a man who had condemned homosexuality as an intrinsic moral evil, declared other Christian sects gravely "deficient," and vigorously opposed the ordination of women or marriage among clergy as unacceptable violations of tradition. To many Americans in the crowd, he was also known for expressing dismay at the aggressive way the American legal system prosecuted pedophile priests, in his view further fueling the scandal.
There were, at the same time, those who expressed a sense of comfort in the new pope's theological certainty. "I think the church needs Benedict," said an ebullient John Burger, a junior from Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., on the square with a group of schoolmates who were all studying in Rome. "He will be clear and forceful, and he will bring internal integrity to the church. There is nothing more attractive than a faith that is strong."
Praising the new pope in more measured tones was Pierre Romain, 31, a seminarian from Cameroon. The new pope, he thought, would deal sensitively and sensibly with the challenge of adapting Roman Catholicism to the different cultures of the developing world and particularly of Africa, where the church is now expanding rapidly. But in that effort, as well as in the development of the Christian dialogue with Islam, Romain added approvingly, the new pope "will not compromise the Gospel and what it stands for." Some of the stronger reservations heard that evening on the square were voiced by people from, or closer to, the new pope's native country. "I will feel some national pride, although I would like a more reform-oriented leader," said Gabrielle Schuh, 76, of Hagen, Germany, who had come to Rome with her three children expressly for the conclave. "For the German Catholics," she added, "it will be a problem."
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