Pope Benedict XVI a wedge or a unifier?

updated 6:16 p.m. ET April 19, 2005

TRAUNSTEIN, Germany - Two images of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stood in sharp relief during the mourning period for the pope he would eventually succeed.

With his wispy silver hair blowing in the wind, the German prelate stood before the world’s political and spiritual leaders at John Paul II’s funeral April 8 and offered an eloquent, sensitive farewell that moved some to tears.

Ten days later — just before Ratzinger and 114 other cardinals entered the conclave to select the 265th pontiff — he delivered a sharp-edged homily on strict obedience to church teachings that left liberal Catholics wincing.

“He could be a wedge rather than a unifier for the church,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit weekly magazine America.

Applause — and stunned silence
This was clear in S. Peter’s Square moments after the announcement of Ratzinger’s election and the name chosen by the first Germanic pope in 1,000 years: Benedict XVI. Amid the applause were groans and pockets of stunned silence.

“It’s Ratzinger,” French pilgrim Silvie Genthial, 52, barked into her cellular phone before hanging up.

“We were all hoping for a different pope — a Latin American perhaps — but not an ultraconservative like this,” she said.

But others hugged and toasted the new pope with red wine. “A clear and true voice of faith,” said Maria Piscini, an 80-year-old Italian grandmother, raising a paper cup filled with pinot noir.

The cardinals who selected him knew it would be received this way.

Perhaps no member of the conclave evoked such potent opinions — and has stirred more arguments — as the 78-year-old Ratzinger and the role he’s held since 1981: head of the powerful Vatican office that oversees doctrine and takes action against dissent.

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires,” he said Monday in a pre-conclave Mass in memory of John Paul. The church, he insisted, must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism.”

As prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the Vatican’s iron hand.

No flexibility shown on priestly celibacy, other issues
His interventions are a roll call of flashpoints for the church: the 1987 order stripping American theologian the Rev. Charles Curran of the right to teach because he encouraged dissent; crippling Latin Americans supporting the popular “liberation theology” movement for alleged Marxist leanings; coming down hard on efforts to rewrite Scriptures in gender inclusive language.

He also shows no flexibility on the church’s views on priestly celibacy, contraception and the ban on ordinations for women.

In 1986, he denounced rock music as the “vehicle of anti-religion.” In 1988, he dismissed anyone who tried to find “feminist” meanings in the Bible. Last year, he told American bishops that it was allowable to deny Communion to those who support such “manifest grave sin” as abortion and euthanasia.

'Smackdown on heresy'
He earned unflattering nicknames such as Panzercardinal, God’s rottweiler, and the Grand Inquisitor. Cartoonists emphasized his deep-set eyes and Italians lampooned his pronounced German accent.

“Indeed, it would be hard to find a Catholic controversy in the past 20 years that did not somehow involve Joseph Ratzinger,” John Allen, a Vatican reporter for the National Catholic Register, wrote six years ago.

But among conservatives, he rose in stature. An online fan club sings his praises and offers souvenirs with the slogan: “Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981.”

Even John Paul apparently needed him close by. Several times Ratzinger said he tendered his resignation because of his age, but each time it was rejected by the pope.

Predictions of a polarized church
In recent years, he took on issues outside church doctrine. He once called Buddhism a religion for the self-indulgent. In an interview with the French magazine Le Figaro last year, he suggested Turkey’s bid to join the Europe Union conflicted with Europe’s Christian roots — a view that could unsettle Vatican attempts to improve relations with Muslims.

“Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe,” he was quoted as saying.

In a book released last week, “Values in a Time of Upheavals,” Ratzinger also called demands for European “multiculturalism” as a “fleeing from what is one’s own.”

“If he continues as pope the way he was as a cardinal, I think we will see a polarized church,” said David Gibson, a former Vatican Radio journalist and author of a book on trends in the church. “He has said himself that he wanted a smaller, but purer, church.”

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