Light of the World – the Pope, the Church and Signs of the Times was launched
this week in eight languages as “the first personal and direct interview” with a
pope ever.
In a Platonic format of questions and answers, the
conversation, deftly guided by German journalist and author Peter Seewald, was
recorded last summer at the pontiff’s summer residence near Rome. It provides a
lively guide to Pope Benedict XVI’s thoughts on all the major dilemmas of his
papacy and times. Seewald leaves no holes in the story, presenting his
illustrious interviewee (and readers) with an accurate portrait of public
opinion.
RELATED:Holocaust survivors dismayed by Pope's praise of PiusMiniseries glorifying wartime Pope Pius decriedJoseph Ratzinger, the man and the Pope, replies without
reticence, revealing the reflective and unpretentious traits of his personality
and an unusual capacity to listen respectfully.
He makes no attempt to
hide the uncertainties and errors behind the series of crises that have marked
his papacy, optimistically transforming them into a learning process from which
he believes the Church will benefit.
Interspersed throughout the book –
amidst talk about his world vision, self-doubts about his public role, ecology,
God, good and evil, original sin, the contradictions of modernity and
contemporary atheism, sex, bioethics, AIDS, condoms, abuse scandals, mission,
ecumenism and interreligious relations – Benedict XVI speaks extensively on
issues related to Israel and the Jewish world, confirming his unwavering
personal commitment to both. He also explains the reasons for his conviction
that Pius XII was “one of the great righteous men,” but without advocating
further moves toward proclaiming him a saint.
Ratzinger holds true to his
belief in the “intrinsic unity of the Old and the New Covenant, the two parts of
the Holy Scripture,” an awareness he says he acquired “since the very first day”
of his early theological studies. He first made his theological views on Judaism
public in 1990, when as the cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, he was interviewed in “Jews and Judaism in the Universal
Catechism,” a piece published simultaneously in
Studi Cattolici (in Italian) and
Midstream (in English).
He says, “We can read the New Testament only
together with what preceded it, otherwise, we would completely fail to
understand it.”
These affirmations implicitly contradict and override the
statements made by individual Middle East Bishops at the recent Vatican Synod
regarding Christ’s having “annulled” the Abrahamic covenant.
Turning to a
personal and historic perspective, he says, “As Germans, we were of course
shaken by what had happened in the Third Reich, which gave us a special reason
to look with humility and shame and with love, upon the People of
Israel.”
He explains why he no longer calls Jews “our elder brothers” but
rather “fathers in the faith,” stating that “the phrase ‘elder brothers,’ which
had already been used by John XXIII, is not so welcome to Jews. The reason is
that, in the Jewish tradition, the ‘elder brother’ – Esau – is also the brother
who gets rejected.”
Regarding the controversy over Benedict XVI’s
decision to facilitate diffusion of the pre- Vatican II Latin mass and his
rewrite of its prayer for the conversion of the Jews, Ratzinger says the mass
represented “internal reconciliation with our own past.” But the original Good
Friday prayer, he explains, “really was offensive to Jews” while “the new
formulation… shifts the focus from a direct petition for the conversion of the
Jews in a missionary sense to a plea that the Lord might bring about the hour of
history when we may all be united.”
“So the polemical arguments with
which a whole series of theologians assailed me,” he concludes, “are
ill-considered, they do not accurately reflect the reality of the
situation.”
On another issue, asked whether he would have signed the
decree lifting the excommunication from the four Lefebvrian Bishops if he had
known Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, Pope
Benedict replied, “No. If I had known, the first step would have been to
separate the Williamson case from the others. Unfortunately, though, none of us
went on the Internet to find out what sort of person we were dealing
with...
On our side, it was a mistake not to have studied and prepared
the case more carefully.”
Ratzinger notes, “The dialogue can easily be
damaged and is fragile. In the worldwide Jewish community… many people…
immediately vouched for me… These people know me.
In that sense, a
breakdown of the dialogue was out of the question. The greatest danger of such a
breakdown was in Germany.”
In comparison, he felt much less tension
during his trip to Israel, where “there was always a certain mutual trust. A
knowledge that the Vatican stands by Israel, by the Jewish Community around the
world, that we acknowledge the Jews as our fathers and brothers.”
His
reference to Shimon Peres is worth quoting in full.
“I was very moved,”
he says, “by the kind of cordiality with which President Peres, who is a major
figure, welcomed me. He himself of course is burdened with difficult memories.
You know that they locked his father in a synagogue that they proceeded to set
on fire. But he approached me with great openness and with the knowledge that we
are struggling for common values and for peace, for the shaping of the future,
and that the question of the existence of Israel plays an important role in that
struggle.
“On the whole I was met with great hospitality,” continues the
pope. “I would say the security measures to protect me were almost excessive. In
any case, the extent of the protection I was afforded was enormous.”
He
recalls having done “something that had not been possible with John Paul II” –
celebrating two major liturgies – “a very beautiful one in Jerusalem” and a
“very moving” one in Nazareth, which was “a great, visible manifestation of
Christian faith in the State of Israel.”
Further on in the book,
Ratzinger strongly defends the image of Pius XII who, he says, “saved thousands
of Jewish lives… by ordering the convents and cloisters of Rome to open their
doors – something only the Pope himself can do – and declaring them
extraterritorial.”
Had Pius XII “protested publicly, the Germans would
have ceased to respect extraterritoriality and the thousands who had found a
safe haven in the monasteries of Rome would surely have been deported,” he
says.
“It just recently came to light” Ratzinger adds, “that Pacelli,
already as Secretary of State, had written to all the bishops of the world in
1938, instructing them to take pains to ensure that visas were generously
granted to Jews emigrating from Germany.”
Ratzinger holds that Pius XII
did not “protest more clearly” because “he saw what consequences would follow
from an open protest. We know that personally he suffered greatly because of it.
He knew he actually ought to speak out, and yet the situation made that
impossible for him.”
Although he never mentions the beatification
process, Pope Benedict XVI’s final statement on Pius XII is one of strong
personal appreciation.
He says, “I believe that he was one of the great
righteous men and that he saved more Jews than anyone else.”