Pope Benedict XVI

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Pope Benedict XVI, originally Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, elected April 19, 2005 to follow Pope John Paul II.

1 On Europe and the Church
2 On Other Faiths
3 Sex Abuse Scandals
4 Homosexuality
5 On his papacy
6 On popular culture
7 On relativism
8 Various
9 External links

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On Europe and the Church

In the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems to have become empty inside, paralyzed by a life-threatening crisis to its health and dependent on transplants."
- Values in Times of Upheaval, 2005

"The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution."
- from Zenit.org, April 11, 2005.

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On Other Faiths

"It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life. ... Islam has also had moments of great splendor and decadence in the course of its history."
- from "Ratzinger denies Christianity 'superior' to Islam," Zenit.org via Catholic News, March 6, 2002.

"That the Jews are connected with God in a special way and that God does not allow that bond to fail is entirely obvious. We wait for the instant in which Israel will say yes to Christ, but we know that it has a special mission in history now ... which is significant for the world."
- from Ratzinger's book, God and the World, published October 2000, as reported by National Catholic Reporter.

"Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place."
- from God and the World, published October 2000, as reported by National Catholic Reporter.

"Deeper understanding of the matter is bound to recognize that the Temple, as well as the synagogue, entered into Christian liturgy."
- The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000

"Truth is not determined by a majority vote"

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Sex Abuse Scandals

"How much filth there is in the church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely to Him. How much pride, how much self-sufficiency."
- At a Good Friday Mass in 2005, seen by many as a statement about the clergy sex abuse scandal

"In the Church, priests also are sinners. But I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower.
In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information nor to the statistical objectivity of the facts."
- from "Cardinal Ratzinger Sees a Media Campaign Against Church," Zenit.org, December 3, 2002.

"I think the essential point is a weakness of faith."
- from an interview with EWTN news director Raymond Arroyo in August 2003 as reported by Zenit.org, Aug. 24, 2003.

"We have such difficulty understanding this renunciation today because the relationship to marriage and children has clearly shifted. To have to die without children was once synonymous with a useless life: The echoes of my own life die away, and I am completely dead. If I have children, then I continue to live in them; it's a sort of immortality through posterity. ...
"The renunciation of marriage and family is thus to be understood in terms of this vision: I renounce what, humanly speaking, is not only the most normal but also the most important thing. I forgo bringing forth further life on the tree of life, and I live in the faith that my land is really God - and so I make it easier for others, also, to believe that there is a kingdom of heaven. I bear witness to Jesus Christ, to the Gospel, not only with words, but also with this specific mode of existence, and I place my life in this form at his disposal."
- from "Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the end of the Millennium: An interview with Peter Seewald," by Ratzinger, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997.

"... Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord."
- from "Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the end of the Millennium: An interview with Peter Seewald," by Ratzinger, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997.

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Homosexuality

The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels. This theory of the human person, intended to promote prospects for equality of women through liberation from biological determinism, has in reality inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality."
Among the fundamental values linked to women's actual lives is what has been called a 'capacity for the other.' Although a certain type of feminist rhetoric makes demands 'for ourselves,' women preserve the deep intuition of the goodness in their lives of those actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other. . . . But, in the final analysis, every human being, man or woman, is destined to be 'for the other.' . . . Therefore, the promotion of women within society must be understood and desired as a humanization accomplished through those values, rediscovered thanks to women. Every outlook which presents itself as a conflict between the sexes is only an illusion and a danger; it would end in segregation and competition between men and women, and would promote a solipsism nourished by a false conception of freedom."
- Doctrinal document On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, July 31, 2004

"Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.' They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however 'objectively disordered' and homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity.' " . . .
"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection."
- Doctrinal document Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, July 31, 2003

Ratzinger's "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," 1986, as reported by National Catholic Reporter

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs... The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in work, in action and in law."

"Cardinal Ratzinger on Laicism and Sexual Ethics," Zenit.org, Nov. 19, 2004:

"...Men and women were created to be jointly the guarantee of the future of the humanity — not only a physical guarantee, but also a moral one."

"Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people."

Because God loves us, because he wants us to grow into truth, he must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us

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On his papacy

""I too hope in this short reign to be a man of peace."
- Explaining to the cardinals his choice of name after Pope Benedict XV who worked against World War I.

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On popular culture

"Rock" [music]. . . is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."
- The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000

It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.
- Letter to Gabriele Kuby author of Harry Potter- good or evil? signed by Ratzinger, but which he now claims was written by a subordinate, March 7, 2003

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On relativism

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. ... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires... The church needs to withstand the tides of trends and the latest novelties.... We must become mature in this adult faith, we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith.""
- At a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica before the conclave of cardinals

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Various

"If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists. This norm is not at all a punishment or a discrimination against the divorced and remarried, but rather expresses an objective situation that of itself renders impossible the reception of Holy Communion: '. . . If these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage'."
- Letter to bishops, Sept. 14, 1994

"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not "manufactured" by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. . . . The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. . . . The greatness of the liturgy depends - we shall have to repeat this frequently - on its unspontaneity."
- The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000

"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation."
- The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000

"Unspontaneity is of their essence. In these rites I discover that something is approaching me here that I did not produce myself, that I am entering into something greater than myself, which ultimately derives from divine revelation. This is why the Christian East calls the liturgy the "Divine Liturgy", expressing thereby the liturgy's independence from human control."
- The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000

"The ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church."
- Dominus Jesus declaration, 2000

"A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."
- 2004 memorandum to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, D.C.

"We can be sure our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us."
"Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude."
- homily during Pope John Paul II's funeral on April 8, 2005.

"There really is an ideological, secular aggressiveness that gives cause to worry. Recently in Sweden a Protestant parson was put into jail for one month because - referring to biblical texts - he preached about homosexuality. Laicism is not any longer that element of neutrality that opens fields of freedom for everybody. It’s now turning into an ideology, which – with the help of politics – forces itself into the public and leaves no space for the Christian and Catholic conception – thereby turning it into a merely private and essentially mutilated concern. In this sense a fight has really begun in which we have to defend the religious freedom against the pretension of an ideology, that acts as if it were the only voice of reason – whereas it is only the expression of “a certain” rationalism. ... ... A society that is not at all concerned with God destroys itself. We saw that in the totalitarian experiments of the last century."
- in an interview in the German newspaper "Die Welt", April 20, 2005

"Dear brothers and sisters after the great Pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord's vineyard. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers. In the joy of the resurrected Lord, we go on with his help. He is going to help us and Mary will be on our side. Thank you"
- Full text of his first public speech as pope, upon his presentation as Pope Benedict XVI

"As the trend in the ballots slowly made me realize that — in a manner of speaking the guillotine would fall on me — I started to feel quite dizzy. I thought that I had done my life's work and could now hope to live out my days in peace. I told the Lord with deep conviction, 'Don't do this to me. You have younger and better (candidates) who could take up this great task with a totally different energy and with different strength.' Evidently, this time he didn't listen to me."
- Comments on his election during his first audience with German pilgrims, original comments given in German.

"The ways of the Lord are not comfortable, but we were not created for comfort, but for greatness, for good."
- Comments during his first audience with German pilgrims

Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.
- Inauguration homily, April 24, 2005

Unlimited trust should only be placed in the real Word of the Revelation that we encounter in the faith transmitted by the Church.
- During interview by Niels Christian Hvidt in 1999

We do not seek a Christ whom we have invented, for only in the real communion of the Church do we encounter the real Christ.
- unidentified source

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