The New Ratzinger

He was not very loved in his native country, but after his election as Pope his reputation changed completely. Pope Benedict is not Cardinal Ratzinger anymore.

Germany did not always have the great respect and love
for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that it does today. During the student unrest of 1968, the young theologian Ratzinger in Tubingen was seen as a representative of a cosmopolitan, modern Catholic Church and was frequently referred to as a "theological Mozart" because of his fineliterary style and the early completion of his unities.

This image remained the perception of
the general German public when Ratzinger became the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in early 1982. But, while some criticized him then
as the "iron cardinal" who would brook no
dissent, others came to hope that he would preserve the Catholic Church against the rather conformist and lukewarm Church in Germany.

With his election to the papacy, this reputation has changed completely. A wave of near rapture won over even the skeptics, and outspoken critics of his positions fell silent or at least decided to take a careful waiting posture.

The rapture found its succinct expression in the headline of
the tabloid Bild newspaper: "We are the Pope," so strong was
the identification of Germans with the new German pontiff.
This feeling of rapture also spread to non-Catholics and
non-believers much in the way that excitement of winning a
soccer World Cup engages even indifferent sports fans.
Only two days after his election, almost every book ever
written by Joseph Ratzinger had been sold out in Germany's
second-hand bookshops. And, as the months passed, book-
stores continued to announce record sales of titles penned by
author Ratzinger.
His books which had been out of print for decades were
reissued with lightning-like speed and were sold in huge quantities. Persons who knew the new Pope from earlier times were
in as much demand as media stars. The places of his childhood
and youth became real places of pilgrimage.
TV stations in Germany produced innumerable broadcasts
about the life and work of Joseph Ratzinger. Some older pro-
grams were replayed repeatedly. Even private TV stations recognized the profitable possibilities of this media hype.

Among young people, the enthusiasm for the new Pope
found a worldwide visible expression at World Youth Day 2005
in Cologne in the unexpectedly high participation of young
Germans. Theological faculties also registered a recognizable increase in the number
of enrolling students. This phenomenon soon came to be known as the "Benedict
effect" Even the Swiss theologian Hans Kung, who was among Ratzinger's most vocal critics, suddenly found he had something positive to say: "There are not two Ratzingers; he has stayed the same person, but what has changed is his role," Kung said. "He no
longer has to control the teaching and censor the teachers. Now he is responsible for spreading the Christian message in the Church and in the world."
The visit of Benedict XVI to his Bavarian native country became a true triumphal march. When his predecessor, John Paul II,
had visited, there were many critical voices
raised against him; there were few or none during Benedict's
visit. There were no protest demonstrations.
However, this is not only due to the general enthusiasm for
the fact that a German came here as Pope to Germany. Sadly,
this is also due to the fact that the Catholic Church in Germany
no longer stands at the center of public intellectual discussion.
Many Germans are simply disinterested in the Church.
The election of Joseph Ratzinger has opened doors for the
Catholic Church to the German public. Whether the Church
will use these open doors, however, remains to be seen.
Already there are voices saying the Church has not used
these new chances sufficiently. So far, the writings of the Pope,
not the German clergy, are the best intermediaries between the
Church and the public. Benedict's new book Jesus of Nazareth
has been a top seller since its appearance. Bookstores present
his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, as the ideal reading present for Valentine's Day. But as Benedict said on his six-day
homecoming tour in the basilica of Allotting on Sept 11, 2006:
"In the so-called West, in Germany, and also in the expanses of
Russia, the harvest could be large. Yet the people are lacking
to gather the harvest."


Alexa von Kunsberg, 30, is a German writer who lives in
Munich. She is the director of the Benedictus Foundation, a
Munich-based foundation working to promote a Christian
understanding of human dignity.
INSIDE THE VATICAN APRIL 2008