One of the most important Polish magazines, Wprost, welcomes Benedict to Poland with this cover: "A Protestant Pope". The cover article is available here: a conservative pope who will want reform? A man in a crusade for the heart of Europe?
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UPDATE: Below, we present a translation of the most important excerpts. For copyright reasons, we do not present the whole text of the article:
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UPDATE: Below, we present a translation of the most important excerpts. For copyright reasons, we do not present the whole text of the article:
A Protestant Pope"Wprost" Weekly, Nr 1224 (28 May 2006)“Oh, mein Gott!” was the reaction of the liberal German daily “Die Tageszeitung” to the election of Josef Ratzinger as Pope. Today that same choice should gladden the liberals in the Church, indeed liberals generally – for Ratzinger-the-conservative, as Pope, may be signaling his overall direction to be on a liberalizing path, particularly for the renewal of the state of the Church, in its fundamentals, for the secularized West. Visiting Poland is a conservative who has been sentenced to liberalism. And his visit is not merely to pay tribute to John Paul II, but above all to initiate the chief plan of his Pontificate - the recovery of the West for Catholicism.During this pilgrimage, the Crusade of Benedict XVI to Europe will begin. John Paul II had frequently spoken of such a Crusade, and had even prepared himself for it, but was, finally, not in a fit state to begin it. An interesting fact is that Benedict’s Crusade will use methods developed not by John Paul II but by the interaction between Catholicism and the protestant churches.Ratzinger, like Sharon?The visit of Benedict XVI to his predecessor’s homeland will really be the debut of a new role for the Pope, since this is necessarily a “programmed visit”. Benedict's appearences in Cologne at World Youth Day were fundamentally in a role written for for John Paul II. It is another question whether the choice of his predecessor's homeland for the goal of his first foreign "programmed visit" was a good one. Poland, on the background of European Catholicism, seems problem-free, an oasis of peace and quiet. Probably that is the reason Benedict chose to come here – for here at least he can count on a lively reception. In the Polish parade-ground there are no mines waiting for a German Pope, as perhaps there might be if he began his Crusade in France or in his native Germany.Can Ratzinger-the-conservative expect success for his plan – recovering the West for Catholicism – and will he really stand for a liberalization of the political structure of the Church? In this setting we should recall the experience of the previous Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon. A hard-liner, he earned for himself the epithet "The Hawk" during the course of the several wars in which he took part. Sharon-the-hawk seemed incapable of any kind of compromise with the Palestinians. And yet he embarked on the most daring policy towards them, even risking to appear as a traitor, by forcibly ejecting Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Ratzinger, the “Panzerkardinal”, became known as the greatest conservative in John Paul II's circle, apparently incapable of initiating any liberalization, and even of allowing liberal thoughts. And, yet, now Ratzinger is on the new track - with the help of liberalization - of pressing on with the dialogue between the Church (including even the whole of Christianity) with the contemporary world. This is the strategy by which the Church would be able to hold its current position and regain lost territory. And a pillar of the strategy would appear to be acceptance of "protestantization" of the Catholic Church.
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A Theologian Beloved of ProtestantsFor many years Josef Ratzinger has been known as one of the most progressive of today’s Catholic theologians. To be a Progressive is not to be a Liberal, but to to be a Modern. The fundamental question which Ratzinger has asked himself from the beginning sounds like this: How can faith in God be made to fit the realities of the contemporary world? Burning questions for journalists – contraception, divorce, married priests – for Ratzinger always remained in the background. Perhaps because of this he can regard such problems without emotion or dogmatism.
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Ratzinger contra WojtyłaEven though Ratzinger and Wojtyła are of the same generation, their outlooks are unmistakeably different. Karol Wojtyła’s religiosity was formed by such mystical writers as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. From the experience of two totalitarianisms there arose for the Polish Pope the recognition that besides depth of theology, the realization of Christianity in society was essential. The Communist years also taught him that the Church retains considerable political power when it has the strong support of society. As Bishop of Krakow he brought this experience to the grounds of the universal Church. Mass demonstrations such as those during the millenium celebrations of Polish Christianity in 1966, the pilgrimages to Czestochowa, and the other mass manifestations of the faith of the people, showed him that the faithful have a great need to live and show their faith in a public setting. Joseph Ratzinger, even during the life of John Paul II, hardly hid his skepticism as to the value of such manifestations. Indeed not long before the death of the Polish Pope he spoke critically of the crowd Masses, and publically opined that celebrations of the Eucharist in sport stadiums could damage or destroy its mystical character.
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The future German pope considered the divisions in Christianity as a weakening of its witness. Certainly he shared his views with John Paul II, who not only made ecumenism a sign of his pontificate, but even as bishop of Rome dedicated an encyclical letter to the subject in 1995: Ut unum sint / On commitment to Ecumenism. This revolutionary document has the stamp of Cardinal Ratzinger’s thought in many of its parts. It is enough to say that for the first time Rome opened for discussion the role of the Papacy, admitting that it represents a difficulty for Christian unification. The encyclical caused a storm in the conservative wing of the Church. Criticism of the document was so great that in 2000 Ratzinger was obliged to publish the declaration Dominus Iesus, which stated, among other things, that the fullness of the means of salvation were to be found only in the Catholic Church.
