http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/audio/relrpt_20042005_2856.ram
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/audio/relrpt_20042005_28M.asx http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s1349547.htm Bishop Mark Coleridge of Melbourne, Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, and historian Paul Collins in Rome, comment on the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new Pope Benedict XVI. Program Transcript Bishop Mark Coleridge on Pope Benedict XVI Frances Kissling on Pope Benedict XVI Paul Collins on Pope Benedict XVI Noel Debien: Hello and welcome to the Religion Report. Noel Debien here stepping in for our regular presenters, Stephen Crittenden and David Rutledge. The big story of the week is the new Pope, Benedict XVI. And what a birthday present Cardinal Ratzinger has received. The high drama of it has never been so public or so transparent. Cardinal Medina Estévez : Dear Brothers and Sisters. Anuntio vobis gaudium magnum (cheers) Habemeus Papam. (I announce to you with great joy, We have a Pope) Noel Debien: The successor of Peter, the Universal Shepherd and according to Roman Catholic teaching, chosen under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. ORGAN/CHOIR Noel Debien: Charles-Marie Widor’s great anthem, ‘You are Peter and upon this rock I will build the church’. For the first time ever, the TV Cameras are transmitting just about everything the Vatican Conclave had to offer The world has never seen the likes of all that led up this before; A megastar papacy, and a very public suffering and death. And the publicity simply didn’t stop when John Paul II died. Even from inside the Sistine Chapel as the Cardinals entered and took their oaths of secrecy. The Cameras were only locked out after the oaths were completed. Pope John Paul called the Vatican the “House of Glass”. And the coverage we’ve seen is utterly unprecedented. All live on TV, radio, and internet streaming. All planned by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the first professional director the Vatican Press Office has ever had; and who - like Pope John Paul who appointed him - took the “means of social communication” very seriously indeed. Against many media predictions, the New Pope is a Curial Cardinal. He entered the conclave as a favourite – breaking the old Roman adage “He who enters a Conclave a Pope, exits a Cardinal”. Cardinal Ratzinger even looked a little bit like a Pope as he entered the Conclave wearing the red stole almost identical to one frequently worn by the late Pope. His media persona is one of hard-line Orthodoxy. He taught at the University of Tübingen with the famous Hans Küng. His history included a brief period drafted, along with his seminary class, into the Nazi anti-aircraft corp in 1943. He also served in the German Army until 1945. There are already those who say that the main mistake the media has made about Pope John-Paul II is that he was a Conservative. What Can the World expect of this German theologian? Bishop Mark Coleridge worked from 1998 in the Vatican Secretariat of State. In 2001, he became a chaplain to his late Holiness, Pope John Paul. He returned to Australia 2002 to be bishop in the Archdiocese of Melbourne. He has just returned again from Rome. Bishop Coleridge, at this early stage; what’s your reaction to this new German Pope? Mark Coleridge: The stereotypical image of him as this ferocious right-winger or a fierce ideological warrior, or a desperate man of the right, that is very, very far from the mark. What you are dealing with in Josef Ratzinger is a man of - first of all - the highest intelligence and the broadest culture in that grand European tradition. You are also dealing with a man who is a man of deep personal grace; he’s the most gracious of characters. He has a courtliness about him, he doesn’t have the expanse of personality of John Paul II, not even close to it, so that I think in personal style this pontificate will prove to be a very different kind of pontificate from John Paul II. Ratzinger was a theologian in a university, a Don, and there is a touch of the Don about him. He’s a more restrained character, though he has about him a quiet radiant humanity. In that sense he’s a very attractive personality. But I think you can expect to see a pontificate that is more restrained in personal style, that will continue the deep intellectual and spiritual trajectories of John Paul II’s pontificate, but which will do so in a quite different style. And obviously for a quite different length. I mean the Cardinals have patently not opted for a youth policy. I personally was surprised that Cardinal Ratzinger was elected, mainly because of his age. He was the name much mentioned, but I had thought at 78 he might be considered too old. But the Vatican is full of fit old men, and Josef Ratzinger is one of those. He may be 78, but he’s a small, fit man, and so whilst this won’t be a 26 year pontificate, I think it may not be the five minute job that some might either expect or indeed want. But my feeling, or my suspicion at this very early stage, is that the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI may turn out to be a very surprising affair, and very different in all kinds of ways, from the kind of pontificate that the stereotypical image of Cardinal Ratzinger as this arch-conservative would suggest. I think we might be in for quite a few surprises both internally in the Roman Curia, internally in the Catholic church, but also in the way the church addresses the world of today. Noel Debien: What sort of surprises are you anticipating? You must have some idea in your mind. Mark Coleridge: I only have a very sketchy idea at this stage, but I think for instance, that a man of Cardinal Ratzinger’s impeccably orthodox credentials, is in a position to move on internal change. For instance, in the Roman Curia, now I’m not saying that the Roman Curia needs to be changed from top to bottom, I don’t think that’s true, but I think inevitably it’s a kind of structure that needs to be adapted to changing circumstances. Noel Debien: And this is an insider who knows how the structure works? Mark Coleridge: An insider who knows the Roman Curia through and through and through. No-one could claim a more sophisticated and profound knowledge of the way it works. And in that sense, no-one is better poised to take the great institution of the Roman Curia and adapt it in ways that perhaps need to be adapted to meet changing circumstances. John Paul II did it to some extent, but questions that were strictly internal to the church or the church’s bureaucracy, didn’t really engage the energies of John Paul II. He was much more a Pope ad extra, he was energised by questions of how the church addresses the world, he was always looking outside the church. Ratzinger may well be a pope who looks more inside the church than did John Paul II. And in all kinds of ways, with his impeccable credentials, impeccably orthodox credentials, Cardinal Ratzinger may have a freedom to move that another pope with different credentials may not have had quite. So in that sense I think internally he may prove to be a pope other than many expect. The other thing is, you can never predict how a man will grow into the office. No-one foresaw that John Paul II would become the Titan that he did become. So we just have to wait and see how Pope Benedict XVI grows into the office, because very often the pressure of the papacy brings to light things we haven’t suspected, even in old popes like Benedict XVI. Noel Debien: There is a sense in which those who identify themselves as ‘progressives’ within the church will have a certain anxiety. Mark Coleridge: I think that’s certain, and I fully understand that. The problem with those sorts of tags however is that they tend to be a politicised model of the church, and they understand the church as if it were a political party. Now, that there has been a political element in this election is clear, that’s stating the obvious. That there is a political element and a powerful one, in the Catholic church, and in particular in the workings of the Holy See, that is also stating the obvious. But to reduce this election or the office of the pope or the Catholic church as a whole, to a merely political reality, is again to miss most of the mystery. So tags like ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’, ‘moderate’, tend to be far too simplistic, crude and politicised to make sense of a much more mysterious and messy phenomenon. I mean it was like the convenient media tags applied to Cardinal Ratzinger when he was the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, these were very crude attempts to describe something quite complex in the man and in his performance in the office. So I can understand that people of more liberal and progressive instincts would have a sense of apprehension perhaps. I think it’s misplaced, and I think in fact they may be in for a surprise. But the other thing is, people need to have realistic expectations of any pope. People who think that Pope Benedict XVI or any other pope is going to come in and overturn fundamental points of Catholic teaching are simply chasing a mirage. There are certain things that no pope can do. People talk about the pope as if he were omnipotent, but this is not true. The papacy is hedged in in all kinds of ways, so that neither Benedict XVI nor any pope, could change fundamental points of teaching. So I think in this sense, people need to be realistic in the kind of expectations they have, either of Pope Benedict XVI or any Catholic pope for that matter. Noel Debien: I think it would be fair to say that you’re clearly no ultra-Montanist, but at the same time there would be a sense in which we could expect this pope to enforce orthodoxy, this is the tag he has as one who asserts orthodoxy rigorously. Mark Coleridge: That’s right. And I think we can expect that, but then I would expect no less from any pope. Any pope is the guardian of orthodoxy, that’s essential to the apostolic office, but orthodoxy not understood as it often is, as a kind of straightjacket, that is destructive of human life, or life-denying. I mean the path of orthodoxy as we understand it, takes us back to Jesus Christ, and therefore is a path of liberation, that in fact leads us, albeit by a strange way, into the depth of humanity that comes to us only in Jesus Christ. So that some would use the word orthodoxy with pejorative overtones. Any bishop or any pope or any Catholic for that matter, who understands orthodoxy, you’re right, would see it on the contrary as something profoundly creative and liberating, so in that sense, to defend the gospel is to defend orthodoxy, to proclaim the gospel is to proclaim orthodoxy. So someone like Ratzinger wouldn’t see a distinction between the gospel of Jesus Christ and orthodoxy as understood and taught by the Catholic church. Neither would I. So I think again, to drive a wedge between the good news of Jesus Christ and Catholic orthodoxy, is somehow to get things wrong, to misunderstand both. Noel Debien: I call to mind examples of those who were brought into line under the past pontificate, the Tissa Balasuriya’s, the Paul Collins’s of the world, the Michael Morwoods of the world. This new pope is an academic, he is an intellectual too. Can we expect from him expansiveness - intellectually? Mark Coleridge: Well I think yes. He’s always shown that. He’s a man of profound intellectual power, and anything he’s written suggests it. But many of those have made up their mind about Josef Ratzinger have never read a word that the man has written. This is a man of high, high sophistication and intellectual culture. So I think yes, we can expect a pope who will engage the great currents of intellectual life around the world, but not just in some small part of the Western world. You see the poor old Western world, one of its besetting problems is it thinks it’s the only world that exists. Now Ratzinger has clearly had problems, as did John Paul II, with certain element of Western intellectual life. And that will continue, that critique, but I mean it’s a critique made in order to create, not to destroy. And I think in fact this pope will turn out to be surprisingly perhaps to some, a pope of dialogue. You see it’s interesting that he’s taken the name Benedict, and these names are always symbolic. The last Benedict was Benedict XV, Giacomo de la Chiesa, who was pope during the First World War, fascinating, given that we’ve got a German pope. Now what was Benedict XV in the First World War? He was, in a sense, a voice crying in the wilderness. He strove desperately to bring peace and reconciliation, and I would suspect that in choosing the name Benedict, Josef Ratzinger has in mind the figure of Benedict XV, and the role he played, albeit too briefly, that’s another fascinating element of Benedict XV, he was pope for a short time. But in those few years that he was pope, Benedict XV strove mightily for peace and reconciliation, in an apocalyptic time. Now again, I suspect the choice of the name says that this is a pope who wants to choose the way of peace and reconciliation on all fronts, within the church, and even with those most unnerved by his election. But also outside the church, because he has to pursue the path of dialogue with other religions, and dialogue with all and sundry outside the church. No pope has a choice on that. Noel Debien: Sandro Magister, who writes in ‘Inside the Vatican’ is one of the pundits of this papal election, and he suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger was of the party which has identified modern Western secular humanism as the real enemy. How right is he in that? Mark Coleridge: Well it’s hard for me to judge. I think he’s right on certain elements. I don’t doubt that Cardinal Ratzinger, like John Paul II again, because again their conversations through the 26 years of the pontificate, were crucial, and they shared so many of these fundamental insights. Both men were, or are, rather bleak in their account of contemporary Western culture. It doesn’t mean to say they’re blind to the triumphs and all that is positive in Western culture, but at the same time they are not prepared to write a carte blanche and say nothing. In other words, what Ratzinger has offered as John Paul II did, is a critique of ideology in all its forms. Now in the first place, this would be a critique of communism and fascism. But at the same time there are certain more subtle ideological forces of work in the Western world. And in a sense, Ratzinger has subjected those ideological pressures to the same kind of critique. And again, it’s not a knee-jerk critique that is driven by ideological blindness or a kind of blind, stupid religious faith, this is a critique that Ratzinger has made consistently through the years. Many find it too bleak, but few are prepared to deny that it has truth of any kind. So it’s intellectually grounded, it has been long and deeply pondered, so that I think you will find that as pope, he will continue the critique of ideology that we’ve seen so strikingly in him through more than 20 years in his service of John Paul II. Noel Debien: He comes out of the German church, and the German church that I know is a deeply liturgical church, a more liturgical church certainly than Australia is, strong in music, strong in tradition, conservative. Mark Coleridge: True, as German culture is generally, as European culture is generally, but certainly in Germany. And Ratzinger has made it very clear that he thinks that we have problems on our hands in the area of the church’s worship. He has been a very vocal critic of the banality of much Catholic worship, in particular, music, because he is a musician, he’s a beautiful pianist, which is part of what I mean when I say he’s a man of high European culture. So I suspect that the church’s liturgy may well be one of the areas to which he turns with particular energy and attention in his pontificate, because it’s all there in what he’s written, the critique of much contemporary worship, which he finds banal, one-dimensional, and inadequate to the mystery that the church celebrates at the altar. So that would be one of my guesses, is that the church’s liturgy, the church’s music, the language we use in worship, that he will be much more engaged by those questions than was John Paul II, because again, those liturgical questions were not something that engaged the deepest energies of John Paul II. Noel Debien: Are you predicting that this is not a pontificate for the Medical Missionary sisters and the St Louis Jesuits? Mark Coleridge: I would have to say it’s unlikely to be a thriving pontificate for either. But nor will it be draconian. This is a man of reasonableness, a man who is prepared to sit down and talk with anyone, and in fact many of those who are most strongly critical of him are those who are far less given to dialogue, in my own experience, than is Ratzinger himself. Noel Debien: Bishop Mark Coleridge, thanks for joining The Religion Report. Mark Coleridge: Thank you very much indeed. Noel Debien: Bishop Mark Coleridge there, the Auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Melbourne, and Mark worked from 1998 in the Vatican Secretariat of State. Veni Creator Spiritus, mentes tuorum visita… Noel Debien: The hymn, Veni Creatus Spiritus, sung at the beginning of the Papal Conclave to invoke the Holy Spirit. Well earlier this week, French Cardinal Lustiger said that the Conclave process is not political. He said it’s really a process where the cardinals purify their minds, get rid of distractions and arrive at a clear recognition of a worthy candidate. It’s a very spiritualised explanation. But for the ungodly press, the Conclave is much more easily understood politically. It was Eurocentric. 49% European to be precise, and it has now produced another European Pope. But it did change under John Paul II. He doubled the representation of Eastern European Cardinals, now up to 10%. Latin American representation has also been bumped up slightly, by 1%. Well the Holy Spirit may have inspired the cardinals in their choice of a German pope, but perhaps not all Catholics see it as such a charismatic choice. On the line is Frances Kissling, President of “Catholics for s free choice”; an American Organisation supporting democratic reform in the Catholic church; and particularly the rights of women - including reproductive rights. Frances Kissling, what avenues are left for progressive Catholic movements? Frances Kissling: It’s a great disappointment, and it means a continued inability to really have any sort of meaningful dialogue within the church, or to move forward on many issues related to women’s rights within the church. I mean we now have a new pope who is very much cut in the mould of the old pope, and that wasn’t very good for dialogue within the church, and this will not be very good either. Noel Debien: What avenues do you see for advancing the issues that are dear to Catholics for a Free Choice, women’s choice, reproductive rights? Frances Kissling: I think the avenues are the avenues of the people of the church. And we know that a very significant majority of Catholic people believe that they have a right to follow their conscience on these issues, and believe that, and indeed are practising, their faith in a way that they are comfortable with. That is, they are using contraception, they are making the decision to have an abortion when they believe that is the morally correct decision for them, and I think that what we will continue to see is a dichotomy between the official church, the papacy and the cardinals, who think one way, and the people who will just continue to go on about their own business. This is a sadder situation for the institutional church than it is for ordinary people. Ordinary people have found their way and found their consciences, but unfortunately this means that the institutional leadership of the church will be further alienated and marginalised, and really not be listened to by Catholic people. Noel Debien: How will American Catholics react to the election of this Pope? Frances Kissling: Well this will be a particularly bitter pill for American Catholics to swallow. American Catholics, like European Catholics, tend to be more progressive than conservative; in terms of internal church issues. We have long hoped for a papacy in Rome where the church would become more of a mirror of the message of Jesus Christ which was the message of equality, and we have seen Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, really be very punitive and punishing to our own theologians in the United States of America, to sisters in the United States, to nuns in the United States in America, and indeed even to Catholic politicians in the United States of America. So this is not a Pope who many Catholics in the US are going to consider ours. Noel Debien: What options do American Catholics have to remain practising and to remain faithful to their own consciences? Frances Kissling: Well the options have always been there for Catholics. You know we live in the 21st century in which the Vatican doesn’t have prisons, it can’t burn us at the stake, and so for ordinary Catholics it’s quite possible to do what we have done all along, which is to practice our faith within the church, to be spiritually connected to the sacraments, and yet to go about our own business in terms of those issues that relate to our sexual and reproductive lives, and indeed to women I think that we may also certainly find some Catholics for whom this is the last straw, Some American Catholics will say “this is the last straw, it’s time for me to worship in an Episcopal church or a Lutheran church or some other church”, or to stop going to church. So I think we will hear a variety of responses. I think we certainly also will see a growth in what in the United States is a trend towards what we call house churches, where Catholics who have similar understandings of what it means to be a Catholic and to follow the message of Jesus Christ, don’t go to church and simply hold services privately on their own and in each other’s homes, very much the way early Christians did. Noel Debien: Effectively, American Catholics of the progressive variety will vote with their feet? Frances Kissling: I guess some of them certainly will vote with their feet, and in a way I think the interesting thing is that John Paul was Pope for such a long time, and he had a great personal charisma and great political clout, and there were many Catholics who disagreed with him in terms of his positions, but who still had enormous respect for him and thought of him as a kind and compassionate person. I don’t think Cardinal Ratzinger becomes Pope with that kind of good feeling there for him, and therefore I think that actually the level of resistance and outspokenness by progressive Catholics is going to increase. Noel Debien: Frances Kissling, thanks for your time. Frances Kissling: My pleasure. Bye bye. Noel Debien: Frances Kissling, President of the American organisation, Catholics for a Free Choice. Currently in London. Paul Collins is a church historian, author and specialist commentator on the papacy. Cardinal Ratzinger called Paul Collins to account for his book “Papal Power” in 1998, and accused the former Missionary of the Sacred heart of holding “an erroneous concept of papal infallibility”. The election of Benedict the sixteenth is the election of Paul’s chief Inquisitor. Paul remains a practising Catholic, but resigned from priestly ministry in 1998. Paul Collins, how do you respond to the election of this German Pope? Paul Collins: I’m somewhere between cautious pessimism and cautious optimism. When I first heard when Cardinal Medina Estevez who is the senior Cardinal Deacon named “Josephus”, I knew that we had the Josephus Ratzinger, and I must admit that I felt a kind of a sense of pessimism. However when his name, his Style, as it’s technically called, was announced, Benedict XVI, I found myself changing a little bit and moving in a more cautious optimistic direction, because within Catholicism, things like names and styles, they matter, they’re important, because it’s if you like, a sacramental religion, it’s not so much a religion, well it is about words and it’s about concepts, but it’s also about style and the way things are done, and they are often even deeper symbols from the words and concepts used. Noel Debien: Why the name Benedict? Paul Collins: Well that’s the very interesting one. I think it’s simply saying “I’m not John Paul III, I’m not Paul VII, I’m not John XXIV, I’m someone completely different”. I’m myself. So I think we are going to see a serious change in style from that of the papacy of Pope Wojty³a. Clearly Cardinal Ratzinger is not a globetrotter and he’s not going to be someone whose populist in that Pope John Paul II sense. I think it’s going to be a short papacy, that’s quite clear since no-one’s eternal, and this man turned 78 on Saturday. So, in other words I think the Cardinals see him as a transitional pope. Clearly, he went into the Conclave at somewhere between 35 and 50 votes, they were the estimates that were here in Rome. He’s obviously pulled in quite a few votes more because there must have been at least some negotiation went on to get those more moderate kind of Cardinals on side. And it must have been done pretty quickly, because at most there were 4, possibly 5, ballots, and that’s pretty quick I think for a College that at the beginning of last week, was seen as very divided. Noel Debien: Are we to expect a Ratzinger that we understand and know as Pope, or are we going to get something new? Paul Collins: I think that’s an important question. Josef Ratzinger, the “Panzer” Cardinal, is no longer. Pope Benedict XVI now exists. This is a man who comes to the papacy with a clearly articulated policy, a clearly articulated approach to things. The interesting thing about that is that you can change from when you’ve articulated something, if he was a person without known or obvious opinions, then we’d all be at sea. At least we know where this man stands, and what I think he can do is move beyond and outside of the kind of categories he’s already defined for himself. So that’s the kind of source of my cautious optimism, and there’s no doubt that he comes with a big load to the papacy. I’ve already had several email messages, one of which from a priest in Melbourne, said “Where to from here? (question mark!)” You know, that is a really serious question. It may be that progressive Catholics and more open Catholics will continue to be deeply disappointed, but I still maintain a sense of cautious optimism. I may be a fool in that, but I think that he’s signalling something to us especially n the change of name. Noel Debien: Paul Collins, former priest, broadcaster, and author of “Papal Power” there on the line from Rome. And that bring the programme just about to an end. Thanks for listening - and don’t forget to follow up on all the papal election information on the web – a transcript should be up by this afternoon at abc.net.au/rn and follow the prompts to the Religion Report. Thanks to John Diamond for some high pressure Studio Production today. I’m Noel Debien, and I’ll leave you with a little music – this time by the German composer Johannes Nucius – and the word, of course, are “Tu Es Petrus”. You are Peter. MUSIC Guests on this program: Mark Coleridge Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne Frances Kissling President, "Catholics for a Free Choice" Dr Paul Collins Broadcaster, and author of “Papal Power” __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Would you Help a Child in need? It is easier than you think. 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