Enemy of relativism, pope leaves a tainted legacy

The frailty of the 85-year-old man, who, on Monday, stood down on health grounds as the 265th Bishop of Rome — the first pope to do so in more than six centuries — belies his well-earned reputation for flinty dogmatism. Justly reputed a subtle theologian, this pope often gave the impression his real forte was as a student of power.

Pope Benedict XVI, scourge of moral relativism and militant culture warrior, has had a huge impact on the Roman Catholic Church, which long predates his relatively short tenure in the chair of St Peter.

Benedict stood firmly in a line of continuity from John Paul II, the Polish pope whose confidant and enforcer he was, ruling with iron centralism to impose orthodoxy and roll back the modernisation process set in train by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.

Karol Wojtyla, who emerged as Pope John Paul II from the conclave of cardinals in 1978, made Joseph Ratzinger, a Bavarian theologian with little pastoral experience, first a cardinal and then the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is the Vatican institution which is the successor to the Inquisition; its business is orthodoxy.

Cardinal Ratzinger laid into liberation theology in Latin America and Jesuit theologians in Europe, attacking feminism and homosexuality, and appearing to believe excesses in the former led to the latter by muddling up the differences between men and women. His and his then pope’s rigidity tried to shut down the debate on married priests and celibacy, the ordination of women, contraception and abortion. Cardinal Ratzinger held this job for 25 years until he succeeded John Paul in 2005, more than enough time to mould Church institutions — if not the real world of actual Catholics — into the shape he wanted.

The Roman Catholic Church, with some 1.2 billion adherents worldwide, is a potent spiritual force and a uniquely powerful institution. Pope Benedict sought to give it the muscle tone of a church militant, gleaming with his doctrinal certitude. There were moments when it seemed he was competing with the seemingly undiluted forthrightness of Islam.

In September 2006, addressing Regensburg University, where he once held the chair of theology, the pope quoted a Byzantine emperor describing Islam as violent, evil and inhuman. He seemed to appear perplexed by the incendiary controversy that ensued, describing his words as merely part of a lecture that “in its totality” was an invitation to a frank and sincere interfaith dialogue.

While Benedict’s insistence on eternal truth may strike a clear bell for many in a relativist era, his papacy will probably be remembered more than anything else for horrific revelations of child sex abuse at Catholic institutions, which have sullied the reputation of the Church.

The clearest sign that Pope Benedict’s Vatican was too obtuse to measure up to the torrent of outrage came from Ireland, once the most Catholic of countries, and from Enda Kenny, its devoutly Catholic Prime Minister. Calling the Vatican bureaucracy elitist, dysfunctional and narcissist, the taoiseach said: “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’”.

While the Pope has regularly expressed contrition for what happened, and not just in Ireland, had he really wanted to send a signal he could have made a cardinal of the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who has courageously campaigned to bring the full extent of the abuses to light. Instead, like Pope John Paul, Benedict has continued to make cardinals of like-minded prelates, especially from the secretive and reactionary Opus Dei organisation.

In this authoritarian isolation, surrounded by dogmatics convinced of infallible truth, it is hardly surprising that Pope Benedict would turn to Opus Dei prelates to investigate recent leaks alleging corruption in the Vatican. Or that John Paul could equate contraception with genocide and Benedict’s Vatican compare the idea of ordaining women priests as a similarly “grave” crime as the sexual abuse of children.

Pope Benedict’s war against relativism appears unable to distinguish between the worst crimes and arguable differences in which faith contests with reason — the raw material of theology. Is this now likely to change?

The papal electorate is a bit like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank in its over-representation of Europeans, usually selected for their conservatism (about a fifth are Italians and nearly two-fifths are Vatican bureaucrats). The cardinals from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East are often more conservative anyway.

Popes Benedict and John Paul seem to have succeeded in packing the conclave of cardinals that will select the new pope, but their absolutism may end up manufacturing more cultural Catholics rather than the theologically correct variety they intended.

— Financial Times