Benedict XVI and the commentariat

I’ve just finished reading Benedict XVI: Commander of the Faith, Rupert Shortt’s biography of the Pope Emeritus. First published in 2005, it’s quite a slim volume at 164 pages. One thing that interested me about it was its author: Rupert Shortt wrote an extremely important, though also rather chilling, book last year called Christianophobia. That book deals with the persecution of Christians in various countries of the world and is well-written and researched. The idea of Shortt applying his keen intelligence and writing skills to the Pope Emeritus’s life was an enticing one.

Benedict XVI: Commander of the Faith is more an intellectual biography than an account of the last Pope’s life. One section deals with Joseph Ratzinger’s academic career; another with his experiences at the Second Vatican Council; another with his term as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982; another with his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; another with his career as polemicist and author of books critical of modern liberalism, such as the Ratzinger Report; and another with the beginning of his pontificate.

The book has been praised for its even-handedness, and it does try to give both sides of each question it discusses. Yet sometimes Shortt seems unable to avoid seeing the world through liberal-tinted glasses. He devotes a great deal of space to the supposed silencing and browbeating of priests and theologians who incurred the censure of the CDF. He is given to generous and uncritical quotes from the Tablet, without acknowledging how far to the Catholic left that paper is. (The Pill’s Robert Mickens is quoted approvingly on a couple of occasions; this is the man who, as Damian Thompson likes to remind us, once whined that Benedict XVI was “not a trained liturgist,”, a complaint that makes it difficult to take anything else Mr Mickens has to say seriously.) He describes an incident at a papal Mass in Bavaria in the 1980’s, when a young woman giving a welcoming address to John Paul II departed from her script in order to berate him about celibacy and women priests, as a “victory for free speech”. (As if one could not constantly read similar criticisms of John Paul in newspapers throughout the western world!)

In one passage, he refers to a decision Cardinal Ratzinger made as “unpopular.” Unpopular with whom, the reader wonders? The next paragraph gives the answer: “commentators” had apparently been dismayed by it. Oh. Commentators. Those infallible oracles of Catholic truth. Better fall into line, then.

Still, the book gives some useful background information about Benedict’s life and some of his major theological and intellectual concerns. It contains a useful explanation of the way the CDF actually operates (hint: far more creaking bureaucracy than fearsome inquisition). It is well-researched; Shortt gives the impression of having read Benedict’s writings with some care. And he does try to be objective most of the time. (Hans Küng is quoted a number of times, but Shortt frankly admits that he has a “weakness for self-promotion”.) It is a pity that the book appeared before Summorum Pontificum and the lifting of the decree of excommunication on the four bishops of the Society of St Pius X; it would have been interesting to see how Shortt approached those subjects. (Though he mentions Bishops Fellay’s meeting with Benedict only in passing, and mistakenly says that the SSPX does not recognise the validity of papal conclaves after 1958, he presumably knows more about the Society now.)

He also includes quite a lovely anecdote about Joseph Ratzinger’s ordination to the priesthood. It took place in 1951, at the cathedral in Freising. At the moment the Archbishop laid his hands on him, “a little bird, perhaps a lark, flew up from the high altar in the cathedral and trilled a little joyful song.” Though not a superstitious man, the future Pope could not help seeing it as a good omen;  a sign that he was “on the right way.” Many faithful would no doubt agree.