'God's Rottweiler' hasn't been a unifier
Associated PressPublished April 20, 2005
VATICAN CITY - Two images of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stood in sharp relief during the mourning period for the pope he would eventually succeed.
With his wispy silver hair blowing in the wind, the German prelate stood before the world's political and spiritual leaders at John Paul II's funeral April 8 and offered an eloquent, sensitive farewell.
Ten days later - just before Ratzinger and 114 other cardinals entered the conclave to select the 265th pontiff - he delivered a sharp-edged homily on strict obedience to church teachings that left liberal Catholics wincing.
"He could be a wedge rather than a unifier for the church," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit weekly magazine America.
This was clear in St. Peter's Square moments after the announcement of Ratzinger's election. Amid the applause were groans and pockets of stunned silence.
"It's Ratzinger," French pilgrim Silvie Genthial, 52, barked into her cellular phone before hanging up.
"We were all hoping for a different pope - a Latin American perhaps - but not an ultraconservative like this," she said.
But others toasted the new pope. "A clear and true voice of faith," said Maria Piscini, an 80-year-old Italian grandmother, raising a paper cup filled with pinot noir.
The cardinals who selected him knew it would be received this way.
Perhaps no member of the conclave evoked such potent opinions - and has stirred more arguments - as the 78-year-old Ratzinger and the role he has held since 1981: head of the Vatican office that oversees doctrine and takes action against dissent.
As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the Vatican's iron hand.
His interventions are a roll call of flash points for the church: the 1987 order stripping American theologian Charles Curran of the right to teach because he encouraged dissent; crippling Latin Americans supporting the popular "liberation theology" movement for alleged Marxist leanings; coming down hard on efforts to rewrite Scriptures in gender-inclusive language.
He also shows no flexibility on the church's views on priestly celibacy, contraception and the ordinations for women.
In 1986, he denounced rock music as the "vehicle of antireligion." In 1988, he dismissed anyone who tried to find "feminist" meanings in the Bible. Last year, he told American bishops that it was allowable to deny Communion to those who support abortion or euthanasia.
He earned unflattering nicknames such as Panzercardinal, God's Rottweiler and the Grand Inquisitor. (The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was founded in 1542 as the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition.)
But among conservatives, he rose in stature. An online fan club sings his praises and offers souvenirs with the slogan: "Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981."
In recent years, he took on issues outside church doctrine. He called Buddhism a religion for the self-indulgent. In an interview with the French magazine Le Figaro, he suggested Turkey's bid to join the Europe Union conflicted with Europe's Christian roots, a view that could unsettle Vatican attempts to improve relations with Muslims.
"If he continues as pope the way he was as a cardinal, I think we will see a polarized church," said David Gibson, a former Vatican Radio journalist and author of a book on trends in the church.
Critics complain that Ratzinger embodies all the conservative instincts of the last papacy, but without John Paul's charisma and pastoral genius.
Both John Paul II and his successor were forged by the horrors of World War II and advanced in the church in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. They also shared a deep drive to try to use Christianity as a grand unifier for the continent following the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
But the Polish pontiff came from a nation that suffered greatly during the war. Ratzinger carries the burdens and ghosts of Germany's past.
Raised in Bavaria, he said he was enrolled in Hitler's Nazi youth movement against his will. At the same time, he entered seminary studies in 1939 at age 12.
But in 1943, he was drafted as an assistant to a Nazi antiaircraft unit in Munich. Later, he was shipped off to build tank barriers at the Austrian-Hungarian border. He wrote that he escaped recruitment by the dreaded SS because he and others said they were training to be priests.
He deserted in April 1945 and returned home to Traunstein as the Third Reich was collapsing.