Presentation of the volume of Roberto Regoli

Beyond the Crisis of the Church: The Pontificate of Benedict XVI

(Lindau, Turin, 2016)
Eminences, Excellencies, dear brothers, ladies and gentlemen!
In one of the last conversations that he was able to have with Benedict XVI, the
biographer of the Pope, Peter Seewald of Munich in Bavaria, asked him as he was
leaving, Are you the end of an age, or the beginning of a new one? The response
of the Pope was brief and sure: Both one and the other, he replied. The recorder
was already switched off; therefore this last light-hearted exchanged is not found in
any of the book-interviews of Peter Seewald, not even in his famous Light of the
World. One finds it only in an interview which he gave to Corriere della Sera on
the day after the Declaration of resignation of Benedict XVI, in which the
biographer recalls these key words which now serve, in a certain way, as a maxim,
with regard to the book of Roberto Regoli which we today are presenting here, at
the Gregorian.
In fact I must admit that it is perhaps impossible to more concisely summarize the
pontificate of Benedict XVI. And anyone who, in all these years, has had the
privilege of experiencing at close quarters this Pope as a classical homo
historicus, a Western man par excellence, who has incarnated the richness of the
Catholic tradition like none other, would affirm it; and who at the same time
has been so bold as to open a doorway to a new phase, through that historic turning
point that no one, even five years ago, would have been able to imagine. Since
then, we are living in a historic epoch without precedence in the two thousand year
old story of the Church.
As at the time of Peter, even today the Church, one, holy catholic and apostolic,
continues to have one single legitimate Pope. And yet, for the past three years, we
are living with two living successors of Peter in our midst who do not have a
competitive relationship with each other, and yet, both with an extraordinary
presence! We could add that the spirit of Joseph Ratzinger previously had left a
mark in a decisive way on the long pontificate of St. John Paul II, whom he
faithfully served for a quarter of a century as the Prefect of the Congregation for

the Doctrine of the Faith. Many continue to perceive even today this new situation
as a sort of exception, willed by Heaven.
However, is it now already the [appropriate] time to make an evaluation of the
pontificate of Benedict XVI? In general, in the history of the Church, it is only ex
post that the popes can be judged and framed correctly. And as proof of this,
Regoli himself mentions the case of Gregory VII, the great reformer pope of the
Middle Ages, who, at the end of his life, died in exile in Salerno a failure,
according to the judgment of so many of his contemporaries. And yet, it was
Gregory VII himself who, in the midst of the controversies of his time, shaped in a
decisive way the face of the Church for the generations that followed. The attempt
of Professor Regoli to trace an evaluation of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, still
among the living, seems so much more audacious therefore, today.
The quantity of critical material for this task that he has inspected analyzed is
weighty and impressive. In fact, Benedict XVI is, and remains, extraordinarily
present also through his writings: whether those produced as Pope the three
books about Jesus of Nazareth and the sixteen (!) volumes of Teachings that he
delivered in his pontificate or whether as Professor Ratzinger or Cardinal
Ratzinger, whose works could fill a small library.
And so, this work of Regoli is not lacking in footnotes, as numerous as the
memories that it awakens in me. For I was present when Benedict XVI, at the end
of his mandate, removed the Ring of the Fisherman, which is normally done on the
day after the death of a pope, even if in this case he was still alive! I was present
when he, on the other hand, decided not to give up the name he had chosen, unlike
what Pope Celestine V had done when, on December 13, 1294, only a few months
after the beginning of his ministry, he became again Pietro dal Morrone.
Therefore, from February 11, 2013, the papal ministry is no longer what it was
before. It is, and remains the foundation (base, fondamento) of the Catholic
Church; and yet, it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and
permanently (enduringly, durevolmente) transformed in his pontificate of
exception (Ausnahmepontificat), with respect to which the sober Cardinal Sodano,
reacting with swiftness (immediatezza) and simplicity, immediately after the

surprising Declaration of resignation, profoundly moved and almost overcome by

grief, had exclaimed that this news had resounded among the gathered Cardinals,
as a bolt from the blue (fulmine a ciel sereno). It was the morning of the same
day in which, in the evening, a mile-long lightning bolt, with an incredible crash,
hit the top of the cupola of St. Peters, built right over the tomb of the Prince of the
Apostles. Seldom has the cosmos accompanied in a more dramatic way, a turning
point in history. However, that morning of February 11, the Dean of the College of
Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, concluded his reply to the Declaration of Benedict XVI
with an earlier, and analogously cosmic evaluation of the pontificate, when at the
end he said, Certainly, the stars in the sky will continue to shine always, and
similarly, the star of your pontificate will shine among us always.
Equally brilliant and illuminating is the exposition, profound and well documented
by Don Regoli, of the various phases of the pontificate. Above all, its beginning in
the Conclave of April 2005, from which Joseph Ratzinger, after one of the shortest
elections of the history of the Church, emerged elected after only four scrutinies,
following a dramatic battle between the so-called Salt of the Earth Party,
including Cardinals Lpez Trujllo, Ruini, Herranz, Rouco Varela and Medina, and
the so called Group of St. Gallen, including Cardinals Danneels, Martini,
Silvestrini, and Murphy-OConnor; a group that, recently, Cardinal Danneels of
Brussels himself, in a joking way, has called as a type of mafia-club. The
election was certainly the outcome of a clash, whose key Ratzinger himself had
supplied, as Cardinal Dean, in the historic homily of April 18, 2005, in St. Peters;
and it is precisely there where to a dictatorship of relativism which does not
recognize anything as definitive, and that leaves as the final measure only ones
own I and will, was opposed another measure, the Son of God is truly man,
and the measure of true humanism. This part of the brilliant analysis of Regoli
reads today like a breathtaking whodunit (giallo mozzafiato) of events of not too
long ago; meanwhile, instead, the dictatorship of relativism in the course of time
is experienced in an overwhelming way through the various channels and new
media of communication which, in 2005, one could barely imagine.
The name that the new Pope took right after his election already signalled a
program. Joseph Ratzinger did not become John Paul III, as perhaps many would
have hoped. He reached back (reconnected, riallaci) instead to Benedict XV

the unheeded and unfortunate great Pope of peace during the terrible years of the
First World War and to St. Benedict of Nursia, patriarch of monasticism and
patron of Europe. I could appear as a super-witness to give testimony that, in the
preceding years, never had Cardinal Ratzinger campaigned (pressed, premuto) to
rise to the highest office of the Catholic Church.
Instead, he dreamed vividly of a situation which would permit him to write in
peace and tranquility, some final books. Everyone knows that events took a
different course. During the election, then, in the Sistine Chapel, I was witness that
he experienced the election as a true shock, and a disturbance, and that he felt
as if he was dizzy and did not yet understand that the sword (cleaver, la
mannaia) of the election had fallen on him. I do not reveal here any secret,
because it was Benedict XVI himself who confessed all this publicly on the
occasion of the first audience given to pilgrims from Germany. And therefore, it is
not surprising that it was Benedict XVI who was the first Pope, who right after his
election, invited the faithful to pray for him, a fact of which this book once again
reminds us.
Regoli sketches the various years of ministry in a fascinating and moving way,
calling to mind again the mastery and the assurance with which Benedict XVI
exercised his mandate. And what has emerged since: a few months after his
election, he invited for a private conversation both his long-time (dogged,
accanito) antagonist, Hans Kng, as well as Oriana Fallaci, the combative,
agnostic grande dame, of Jewish ancestry, of the secular Italian mass media; or
when he nominated Werner Arber, a Swiss evangelical Nobel Laureate, as the first
non-Catholic President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Regoli does
not fail to mention the lack of judgment concerning men, who often moved the
brilliant theologian in the shoes of the Fisherman; who was able to evaluate in a
brilliant manner texts and difficult books, but nevertheless, who, in 2010, confided
frankly to Peter Seewald how difficult he found coming to decisions concerning
persons, because no one can read the heart of another. How true that is!
Rightly Regoli defines that year, 2010, as the black year for the Pope, and
precisely with respect to the tragic fatal accident suffered by Manuela Camagni,
one of the four Memores Domini who belonged to the small Pontifical family.

I can absolutely confirm this. Faced with such disgraceful sensationalism from the
media of that year from the case of the traditionalist Bishop Williamson, to a
series of attacks increasingly malevolent against the Pope while having a certain
effect, they did not affect the Pope as much as the death of Manuela, snatched so
suddenly from our midst. Benedict was not an actor Pope, and even less an
unfeeling automaton Pope; even on the throne of Peter he was and he remains a
man; or rather, as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer said, not an ingenious book but a
man with his contradictions. And so he is, which I myself have been able to
know and appreciate every day. And so he remains until this day.
Regoli observes, however, that after the last encyclical, Caritas in Veritate of
December 4, 2009, a dynamic and innovative pontificate, with a strong position
(carico) from the point of view of liturgy, ecumenism, canon law, suddenly comes
to be, as it were, slowed down, blocked, bogged down. Even if it is true that in
the years that followed, the contrary wind increased, I cannot affirm this judgment.
His trips to the United Kingdom (2010), to Germany and to Erfurt, the city of
Luther (2011), or even to the inflamed (infuocato) Middle East, to the worried
Christians of Lebanon (2012) have all been ecumenical milestones of recent
years. His decisive conduct for the solution of the question of abuse was, and
remains, a decisive indication of how to proceed. And when, prior to him, has there
ever been a Pope who alongside his most grave responsibilities has also
written books about Jesus of Nazareth, which perhaps will be considered his most
important legacy?
It is not necessary here that I dwell on how he, who was already so affected by the
sudden death of Manuela Camagni, a little later suffered also the betrayal of Paolo
Gabriele, a member also of the same Pontifical family. Nevertheless, it is good
that I say, once and for all, with total clarity, that in the end Benedict did not resign
because of the poor and misguided butler, or because of the delicious tidbits
(ghiottonerie) [of gossip] coming from his apartment, which, during the so called
Vatileaks affair circulated around Rome like a false coin, but were exchanged in
the rest of the world as an authentic gold ingot. No traitor, or crow, or journalist,
of any kind could have pushed him to this decision. That scandal was too small for
a step of this kind, and so much more, and well considered, was the historic step of
millennial historical significance, which Benedict XVI took.

The exposition of these events by Regoli merits consideration also because he does
not pretend to probe and explain completely this last, mysterious step; not, thereby,
adding more to that swarm of legends with ulterior motives, that have little or
nothing to do with reality. And I myself, an immediate witness of this spectacular
and unexpected step of Benedict XVI, must admit that to me, there comes to mind
again, the note and general axiom with which, in the Middle Ages, John Duns
Scotus justified the divine decree of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of
God: Decuit, potuit, fecit.
That is to say, it was fitting, because it was reasonable. God could, and therefore
God did (Dio poteva, perci la fece.) I apply this axiom to the decision to resign in
the following manner: it was fitting (conveniente), because Benedict was aware
that the strength necessary for the grave burdens of the office was fading. He was
able to do it, because for a long time he had reflected from the depths, from a
theological point of view, on the possibility of Emeritus Popes for the future.
And therefore, he did it. (Cos, lo fece.)
The epochal resignation of the theologian Pope represented a step forward
essentially because of the fact that on February 11, 2013, speaking in Latin in front
of the surprised Cardinals, he introduced into the Catholic Church the new
institution of the Emeritus Pope, declaring that his strength was no longer
sufficient to exercise in an adequate way the Petrine ministry. The key word of
this Declaration is munus petrinum, translated as happens most of the time as
Petrine ministry. Nevertheless, munus, in Latin, has a multiplicity of meanings: it
can mean service, task, guide, gift, and finally, prodigy. Before and after his
resignation, Benedict intended and intends his task as a participation in such a
Petrine ministry. He has left the Pontifical Throne, but nevertheless, with the
step of February 11, 2013, he has not at all abandoned this ministry. Instead he has
integrated the personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, almost a
ministry in common, as if, with this, he wished to call to mind again the invitation
contained in that motto which the then Joseph Ratzinger took as Archbishop of
Munich and Freising, and which he has then naturally maintained as Bishop of
Rome: cooperatores veritatis, which means exactly, cooperators of the truth. It
is in fact not singular, but plural, taken from the Third Letter of John, where in the

8th verse it is written, We should welcome these persons in order to become

cooperators of the truth.
From the time of the election of his successor, Francis, on March 13, 2013, there
have not been actually two Popes, however, de facto there has been an expanded
ministry (minstero allargato) with an active member and a contemplative
member. This is why Benedict XVI did not renounce his name, neither that white
cassock. This is why the correct form of address for those who call on him even
today is Holiness, and this is why, moreover, he has not retired to an isolated
monastery, but remains inside the Vatican as if he only took a step to one side,
to make room for his successor, and for a new stage in the history of the papacy,
which he, with this step, has enriched with the center of his prayer and
compassion, positioned in the Vatican Gardens.
It was the least expected step in contemporary Catholicism, writes Regoli, and
yet, it was a possibility about which Cardinal Ratzinger had reflected publicly
already on August 10, 1978, in Munich in Bavaria, in a homily on the occasion of
the death of Paul VI. Thirty-five years later, he did not abandon the office of Peter
a thing that would have been totally impossible, following his irrevocable
acceptance of the office in April 2005. With an act of extraordinary boldness he
has, instead, renewed this office (even against the opinions of well intentioned, and
without doubt, competent, advisors), and with a final effort, he has strengthened it
(potenziato) (as I hope he has). This, of course, history alone will be able to
demonstrate. However, in the story of the Church, it will remain, that in the year
2013, the celebrated Theologian on the Throne of Peter became the first Pope
emeritus of history. From then on his role please permit me to repeat this one
more time is completely different from that of, for example, Pope Saint
Celestine V, who after his resignation in 1294, desired to return to being a hermit,
and became instead the prisoner of his successor Boniface VIII (to whom today, in
the Church, we owe the institution of the jubilee years). A step such as the one
taken by Benedict XVI has never actually been taken before until today. This is
why it is not surprising that it was perceived as revolutionary by some, or, on the
contrary, as absolutely in conformity with the Gospel; others, meanwhile, view in
this a secularized papacy, as never before, and with that [a papacy that is] more
collegial, functional or even simply, more human and less sacral. And others are

even of the opinion that Benedict XVI, with this step, has almost speaking in
theological and historical-critical terms demythologized the papacy.
In his panorama of the Pontificate, Regoli explains all this clearly, as no one before
him. The part perhaps most moving for me, while reading this, was where, in a
long citation, he recalls the last general audience of Benedict XVI on February 27,
2013, when, under an unforgettably limpid and clear sky, the Pope who would
soon retire, summarizes his pontificate thus:
It has been a portion of the Churchs journey which has had its moments of joy
and light, but also moments which were not easy; I have felt like Saint Peter with
the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee: the Lord has given us so many days
of sun and of light winds, days when the catch was abundant; there were also
moments when the waters were rough and the winds against us, as throughout the
Churchs history, and the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But I have always known
that the Lord is in that boat, and I have always known that the barque of the
Church is not mine but his. Nor does the Lord let it sink; it is he who guides it,
surely also through those whom he has chosen, because he so wished. This has
been, and is, a certainty which nothing can shake. (Translation from the Vatican
website.)
I must admit that, re-reading these words, I can once again almost feel tears
coming to my eyes, and more so for having seen in person, and close up, how
unconditional, for himself, and for his ministry, was the adhesion of Pope Benedict
to the words of St. Benedict, for whom nothing is to be preferred to the love of
Christ, nihil amori Christi praeponere, as it says in the rule handed down to us by
Pope Gregory the Great. I was a witness to this at that time, but even now I remain
fascinated by the precision of this ultimate analysis in St. Peters Square, which
sounded so poetic, but was nothing other than prophetic. In fact, they are words to
which today even Pope Francis could subscribe and certainly, would subscribe.
Not to the Popes, but to Christ Himself, and to no one else, belongs the barque
(navicella) of Peter, lashed by waves of a tempestuous sea, when always again we
fear that the Lord is asleep, that he does not care about our necessities, while only a
single word of his would be sufficient to quiet every storm; when instead, more

than the high waves and the moaning of the wind, it is our disbelief, our little faith,
and our impatience, that causes us to fall continually into panic.
And so this book, one more time casts a consoling glance at the pacific
imperturbability and serenity of Benedict XVI, at the helm of the barque of Peter
during the dramatic years 2005-2013.
At the same time, however, with this illuminating account, now even Don Regoli
himself takes part in that munus Petri, of which I have spoken. As Peter Seewald
before him, even Roberto Regoli, as priest, professor and scholar thus enters
into that expanded Petrine ministry around the successors of the Apostle Peter; and
for this, today, I thank him from the heart.
Mons. Georg Gnswein, Prefect of the Pontifical Household
May 20, 2016.