Uppermost in his mind

On 19 April 2005, on the fourth ballot, the Conclave elected to the Throne of Peter the 78-year-old Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who assumed the name of Benedict XVI. On the previous day, in his homily at the mass pro eligendo pontifice , he had said that “the small bark of the thought of many Christians” is adrift in a sea agitated by “a dictatorship of relativism that recognises nothing as definitive and that leaves as the ultimate criterion nothing but a person’s own ego and own desires”. Through this stormy sea John Paul II had steered the Church from the second to the third millennium with the compass of Vatican Council II. Benedict XVI immediately expressed his desire to continue the course his predecessor had set. Pope Benedict is saying, however, that his pontificate is not just a facsimile of that of John Paul II and that his top priority is to dedicate himself to the “cultivation” of the Church. It’s not by chance that, on appearing on the balcony of St. Peter’s on 19 April, he called himself “a simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord”. So signals have not been lacking in the first year of his pontificate that enable us to glimpse some of his priorities. It is clear, for example, how close the formation of Christians in an adult faith is to the heart of Benedict XVI: “An adult faith – he himself has explained – is a faith profoundly rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship which opens up to us everything that is good and gives us the criterion to discern between true and false, between illusion and truth”. These are words that have also entered the hearts of the young, who are experiencing in this Pope, starting from WYD in Cologne, an essential continuity with John Paul II, albeit in a diversity of styles of communication. It seems equally clear that the Pope has closely at heart the question of collegiality and the reform of the way in which the Petrine primacy should be exercised. At the same time he confirms his willingness to take on “as a priority commitment the task of rebuilding the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers” and, in this perspective, considers interfaith dialogue as important and urgent as ecumenical dialogue. Uppermost in his mind, however, remains the relation between faith and reason which, in the appeal to “widen the horizons of rationality”, recalls the theme of conscience which he has always deeply loved and studied. The very choice of the Pope’s name reveals a programme. It was interpreted as an important signal. Nomen omen : the name is an omen. Benedict XV led the Church in an historic period in turmoil due to the First World War. And Benedict of Norcia is the first patron of Europe, a continent that has always been close to the heart of Joseph Ratzinger and has inspired his determination to stimulate Catholics to serve history with love. Not by chance, in his first encyclical “Deus caritas est”, did he reaffirm the significance of political commitment as a demanding form of charity. He thus indicates, also in the European dimension, how the baptized should conduct themselves to ensure that the social thought of the Church be present and effective, in full respect for the separation between church and state, pluralism and the democratic rules; how to conduct themselves when they form a minority; and how to reconcile witness of the faith with collaboration with all men of good will. Such questions take first place in reflection on and commitment to a Europe that is ever greater, ever more united and ever more open to the world.