Pope Recalls 'Fright' at Being Elected

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI recalled the "fright" he felt at being elected pope, telling cardinals during his year-end speech Thursday that he never imagined he would be chosen and only agreed to it because he had great faith in God.

Benedict reviewed what he called the "great events" that affected the Roman Catholic Church in 2005, highlighting the suffering and death of Pope John Paul II, the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne, Germany.

He left the April 19 conclave that elected him pope to the end of the lengthy speech, saying he felt "not a little bit of fright" when he was chosen by the College of Cardinals to succeed John Paul.

"Such a job was completely beyond anything I could ever have imagined as my vocation," he told the cardinals and Roman curia gathered in the Sala Clementina of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. "As such, it was only with a great act of faith in God that I could say in obedience my 'yes' to this choice."

Benedict has spoken infrequently about his election, although in one of his first public audiences he quipped that he felt like a "guillotine" was falling on him when he realized the votes were going his way. The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected after four ballots in 24 hours in one of the fastest conclaves in a century.

Benedict, wearing a fur-trimmed red and gold-brocade cape over his white cassock, opened his Christmas greeting to the prelates by recalling the April 2 death of John Paul, and the weeks and months of suffering that preceded it.

"No pope has left us with such a quantity of texts that he left us with; no pope in history has been able to visit all the world and speak directly to the men of all continents as he did," he said.

"The Holy Father, with his words and his works, gave us great things; but no less important is the lesson that he gave us from the cathedral of suffering and silence."

The speech, which lasted over 20 minutes, also covered Benedict's recollections of his first major encounter with young Catholics at World Youth Day in August, as well as the October meeting of the world's bishops in Rome.

He devoted a substantial portion of the speech to the significance of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings on reforming the Catholic Church. The Vatican officially marked the 40th anniversary of the council's conclusion earlier this month.

The pope attended the meetings as a young theologian and is among those who interpreted it as less of a liberalizing break that brought the church into the modern world as a recovery of the church's traditional identity.

Benedict said Thursday that the council's outcome had been received with difficulty in many parts of the church because it had been wrongly interpreted — in part by the mass media — as a rupture with the past and not a recovery. He called Thursday for a correct interpretation of the council's spirit.

"The Second Vatican Council, with the new definition of the relation between the faith of the church and certain essential elements of modern thought, has reviewed or corrected some historical decisions, but in this apparent discontinuity it has rather maintained and deepened (the church's) intimate nature and its true identity," he said.

Vatican II was a turning point for the church. The council's reforms allowed Mass to be celebrated in languages other than Latin and priests to face their congregations instead of having their backs to them.

The council also called for efforts to bridge differences between Catholics and other Christians, and produced a document in which the Catholic Church deplored anti-Semitism and repudiated the "deicide" charge that blamed Jews as a people for Christ's death.

VATICAN CITY, DEC 22, 2005 (VIS) - This morning in the Clementine Hall, the Holy Father held his traditional annual meeting with the cardinals, archbishops, bishops and members of the Roman Curia for the exchange of Christmas greetings.

In his address, Benedict XVI mentioned "the great events that profoundly marked the life of the Church," such as: the death of John Paul II, World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany and the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the closing of Vatican Council II.

Benedict XVI pointed out that no Pope had written as many texts as John Paul II, or visited "the whole world and spoken directly to human beings of all continents. Nonetheless, in the end, his was a journey of suffering and silence," and from this cathedra, Pope Benedict added, "he taught us an important lesson."

Speaking of John Paul II's last book, "Memory and identity," the Pope explained how "it left us with an interpretation of suffering that was not a theological or philosophical theory, but a fruit matured over a personal journey of endurance which he underwent, supported by faith in the crucified Lord." In this work, Benedict XVI went on, the late Pope "shows how deeply touched he was by the spectacle of the power of evil during last century." Faced with the dilemma of whether some limit against evil exists, the response from his book is: "divine mercy."

"Of course we have to do all we can to alleviate suffering and to prevent the injustice that causes the suffering of the innocent," said Benedict XVI. "Nonetheless, we must do everything possible for human beings to discover the meaning of suffering, to accept suffering and to unite it to Christ's suffering. In this context, he emphasized how the worldwide response to the Pope's death became a recognition of his complete submission to God for the sake of the world.

On the subject of World Youth Day in Cologne, which was held in August, the Holy Father indicated that the theme of that event, "We have come to adore Him," contained two distinct images: that of pilgrimage, of man who "goes in search of truth, of just life, of God," and that of adoration. This word, he added, takes us through to October's Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, and the Year dedicated to this Sacrament.

"It moves me to see," the Pope continued, "how the joy of Eucharistic adoration is increasing throughout the Church, and how its fruits are appearing. During the period of liturgical reform, Mass and Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass were often seen as being in opposition." However, "receiving the Eucharist means adoring Him Whom we receive."

Benedict XVI then offered some reflections on the 40th anniversary of the closure of Vatican Council II, considering the outcomes of the event and how it had been received.

"Problems in its reception," he said, arose from "two contrasting interpretations: ... the interpretation of discontinuity and rupture," which found favor among the media and a certain segment of modern theology, and "the interpretation of reform," of renewal and continuity within the one Church. The former of these two interpretations, said the Pope, "risks leading to a fracture between pre-conciliar Church and post-conciliar Church."

As for "the interpretation of reform," Benedict XVI recalled "Pope John XXIII's well known words, ... when he said that the Council 'wishes to transmit doctrine pure and whole, without attenuating or falsifying it." It is necessary, added Pope Benedict, "for this certain and unchangeable doctrine, which must be faithfully respected, to be more deeply studied and presented in a way appropriate to the needs of our time."

"It is clear that the commitment to express a particular truth in a new way calls for fresh reflection and for a new and living relationship with that truth. ... In this sense, the plan proposed by John XXIII was extremely demanding, just as the synthesis of faithfulness and dynamism is demanding. But wherever this interpretation has been the guideline for the reception of the Council, there new life has grown and new fruits have matured. Forty years after the Council, ... the positive aspects are greater and more vibrant than they appeared in the years around 1968."

Benedict XVI then went on to observe how Paul VI, in closing the Council, indicated "a specific motivation for which the 'interpretation of discontinuity' could appear to be the more convincing. In the great debate concerning the human being that characterizes modern times, the Council had to dedicate itself specifically to the subject of anthropology," to raise questions "on the relationship between the Church and her faith on the one hand, and man and the modern world on the other." In other words, "the Council had to find a new definition of the relationship between the Church and the modern age."

The Pope outlined the difficulties that have marked this relationship: including the trial of Galileo, the French Revolution, the clash with liberalism, the two world wars, and without overlooking the ideologies that gave rise to nazism and communism, or the questions raised by scientific progress and the historical and critical interpretation of Holy Scripture.

"It could be said that three tiers of questions were formed that now awaited a response: ... a new definition of the relationship between faith and modern science; ... a new definition of the relationship between the Church and the modern State, ... which is associated more generally with the problem of religious tolerance; ... and a new definition of the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel."

The Holy Father indicated how all these sectors risked giving rise to some form of discontinuity which, nonetheless, was not without a certain continuity of principles. "It is precisely in this continuity and discontinuity at various levels that the true nature of reform lies. And in this process of novelty in continuity we found we had to learn to understand, in more concrete terms than before, that the Church's decisions regarding contingent things (for example, certain forms of liberalism or the liberal interpretation of the Bible) had themselves to be contingent, precisely because they referred to a particular real situation which was itself changeable. We had to learn to recognize that, in those decisions, the lasting element was expressed only by principles, principles that remained in the background and motivated decisions from within."

Benedict XVI then dwelt on the subject of religious freedom and recalled that Vatican Council II, recognizing an essential principle of the modern State and adopting it with a Decree on religious freedom, returned to the most profound heritage of the Church. ... The ancient Church's natural practice was to pray for emperors and political leaders, considering this to be her duty but, ... she refused to worship them, and thus clearly opposed the religion of State. ... A missionary Church, knowing she is held to announce the message to all peoples, must commit to the freedom of faith."

"Vatican Council II, with the new definition of the relationship between the faith of the Church and certain essential elements of modern thought, reconsidered and even corrected certain historical decisions. But in this apparent discontinuity, [the Church] actually maintained and deepened her intimate nature and her true identity." Yet "those who expected that with this fundamental 'yes' to the modern age, all tensions would melt away, and that this 'openness to the world' would render everything harmonious, had undervalued the interior tensions and contradictions of the modern age."

"In our time too, the Church remains 'a sign of contradiction.' ... The Council could not seek to abolish this Gospel contradiction in the face of the dangers and the errors of mankind. What it did seek to do was to set aside erroneous and superfluous contradictions and present to our world the requirements of the Gospel in all its greatness and purity."

He concluded: "The step taken by the Council towards the modern age ... is part of the perennial problem of the relationship between faith and reason, which is presented in ever new forms. ... And so, today, we can turn our gaze back with gratitude to Vatican Council II: if we read and accept it guided by a correct interpretation, it can become a great force in the ever necessary renewal of the Church."

AC/CHRISTMAS GREETINGS/ROMAN CURIA VIS 051222 (1400)

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