Really?

In my first entry, I blurted out that Benedict XVI, Pope from 2005-2013, now Pope Emeritus, is ‘one of my heroes’.  But I am a young man in Britain — in the twenty-first century!  Am I mad?  What am I saying?

Well, I probably am mad, but that’s a different question from whether, of the prominent figures of the past decade — intellectual, political, certainly religious — Benedict XVI is among the greatest.  He is a man both fiercely intelligent and steadfastly good: Cardinal Joachim Meisner said of him that ‘[er ist] einerseits ein ganzes Dutzend hochstehender Theologieprofessoren, andererseits ist er so fromm wie ein Erstkommunionkind [He is worth a dozen prominent theology professors and is as pious as a child on the day of his first communion].’   A good and learned Pope was precisely what was needed in a world — particularly the Western world — laden down by secularism, by materialism, by cynicism, by impoverishment of culture, by faithlessness and by selfishness.

This goodness is all the more remarkable because of the circumstances in which it has been tested, and thereby proved.  When conscripted into the Hitler Youth at the age of fourteen, he risked serious punishment by playing truant.  More courageously still, he later deserted the German army in 1944 and made his way home — where, seeing that Mass was being said in the parish church, and wishing to avoid a commotion, he did not go in, but waited for his family to come out at the end.

His goodness has also been tested where we have all been able to witness it.  The trials and missiles came relentlessly during his pontificate, perhaps precisely because of his intelligence, perception and lucid words.  The architects of not merely secular but anti-Christian society felt threatened by him, as their equivalents had been by St John Paul II, and they responded with falsehood and rage.  Many in the media (though by no means all) treated him unsympathetically, either by action or omission.  Yet he remained patient and steadfast in the pursuit of truth.  He did not flee for fear of the wolves; he did not falter in the face of the ‘dictatorship of relativism’, and in response to the prevalent belief that the only absolute is ‘one’s own ego and desires’ he presented, again and again, ‘a different goal: the Son of God, the true man.’  He has left for us both an intellectual defence of the Catholic faith and an example, itself founded on Christ’s example, fit to shine forth in the twenty-first century. 

And he knew about young people. Which other public figure — apart now from Pope Francis —  in our era’s vain and brittle superficiality will, for example, begin an address with the simple sincerity of "Dear young friends!", and mean it?  Who else will refuse to patronise them or to water down his wisdom for them?  Who else will, as he did at World Youth Day in Madrid, decline to flee a freak thunderstorm and instead remain with the million-strong gathering of young pilgrims?  And who else knows that this works?  Who would have thought that an uncharismatic and grandfatherly gentleman could earn the cheers of 80,000 young people (and your correspondent’s) in Hyde Park, during the magnificent and unforgettable Papal Visit to Britain in 2010?  It works of course because it is not really about him: he never forgot that he was the servant of the servants of God.  And since what he was bound to teach is as true for the young as it is for the old, he could say with conviction in his introduction to the new Youth Catechism:

“Many people say to me: The youth of today are not interested in this. I disagree, and I am certain that I am right. The youth of today are not as superficial as some think. They want to know what life is really all about.”

Vigil at Hyde Park in London, 18th September 2010, on the eve of the beatification of Bl. John Henry Newman.  No relation: he is a Blessed, after all!