David Gibson is an award-winning journalist. He worked in Rome for Vatican Radio and travelled regularly with Pope John Paul II before returning to the United States, where he writes frequently for numerous publications. Some of those publications include: The New York Times, Boston Magazine, Fortune, and America.
A convert to Catholicism, Gibson is the author of The Coming Catholic Church. His new book The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World was just published by HarperSanFrancisco.
I reached Gibson in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife and daughter.
Gerry McCarthy: In The Rule of Benedict you write that: "By repeatedly using Marxism as the easy foil for his conservative preferences, Benedict unfortunately implies that social justice efforts are automatically suspect, and can only lead to socialist utopianism that would subvert the Gospel. Moreover, by associating Catholic social activism with the specter of Communism, Benedict presumes the worst about the many devoted Catholics working so faithfully for social justice." It's unfortunate that social justice Catholics are frequently viewed as one-dimensional isn't it? Can you talk to me about this?
David Gibson: It's a problem in that we have this divide in the Church between "social justice Catholics" and "moral authority Catholics" --those who just emphasize the purely inner transformative dimensions of Catholicism to the exclusion of the necessary co-working with God and the Christian community to build up justice. The social justice Catholics are seen as do-gooders who have no deep faith in forming what they're trying to do. Too often Benedict XVI (and certainly Cardinal Ratzinger) played into that dichotomy --which is a false one.
Everybody I know in the social justice world of Catholicism is there because of Jesus Christ. Jesus said: "Man does not live on bread alone." But every time he talked to them he made sure everyone had enough to eat.
What you cited is characteristic of Benedict's personality: He will see things in the extreme. He tends to be someone who sees things in worst-case scenarios. For example: If you have a Catholic agency working for social justice --and carry this on to its logical extreme-- it would be utopianism as opposed to communism or Marxism. That's just an extreme view. It's not the reality.
GM: It was interesting how you contrasted Benedict XVI's first press conference (which you attended in 2005) with the first one given by John Paul II in 1978.
DG: It was a powerful moment for me. There were several powerful and telling moments, which I try to recount in the book --even 18 months after Benedict was elected Pope. One of those was the music he chose to play as soon as his installation Mass finished. It was the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ by Bach --which is a beautiful piece of classical music. But most people are going to associate it with that jarring beginning on the organ, which is like the theme from "Tales From the Crypt."
One quotation I didn't include in the book (and wish I had) was from a curialist in the Vatican who protested that Benedict wasn't so much a conservative as he is old-fashioned. He is a conservative, but he is an old-fashioned guy.
The other powerful moment I remember is the press conference you mentioned. Benedict spoke in a few languages (not Spanish --which was a remarkable oversight) and took no questions. He just came out and talked to us. We in media were cordoned off from him, and he was up on a stage. He came out and read a few paragraphs. It was a boilerplate thank you. Then he walked off stage. It was so different from John Paul II.
But Benedict has grown more comfortable in the role. His older brother Georg (who's not quite the Billy Carter of the papacy, but is good for a colourful quote or two) wasn't happy about the election. He wanted his brother to come and retire to Regensburg where they could live out their lives together (Georg is also a priest). Georg said of his brother after the election: "Maybe the sight of huge crowds will loosen him up." That has happened to a degree. But while Benedict is a kind and sweet man one-to-one, he's not comfortable in crowds. But that's not what he wants to be. He doesn't want to be a celebrity Pope. He doesn't want the papacy to focus on the person of the Pope, but rather on the person of Christ. There's both a question of style and intent going on here.
GM: In the book we learn that Benedict does not see dialogue the way modern Catholics do, in which competing visions and claims are hashed out to reach a consensus. You explain that: "Because Joseph Ratzinger is not a pastoral priest by nature, his papacy, not surprisingly, stresses the educative over the emotional side of the faith; he is the professor explaining --to those who decide to attend his lectures --the subject matter as he sees it." So Benedict isn't inclined to dialogue at all?
DG: No --he's not. When I say professorial it's important to put into context the different ideas of university that we have in North America as opposed to Europe --and especially Rome where the learned professor comes in and gives a well-thought out (and often beautiful) lecture, but there is little feedback and challenging. It's the professor teaching to the students. It's less so that way in Germany, but still to a much greater degree than in North American colleges and universities ideally.
Benedict is a brilliant lecturer. He can talk off the cuff (which he usually does to priests --the audience he feels most comfortable with) for 30 minutes elucidating beautifully various aspects of Bible verses, tradition, or spirituality.
He likes forums and academic seminars where you go back-and-forth in your responses. But that's using intellectual and academic terms. He's not someone who wants to dialogue with people about the content of the faith or pressing day-to-day needs.
The recent crisis with Islam over Benedict's remarks was interesting, because in part of the follow up he called in all of the ambassadors from Muslim nations accredited to the Holy See, and read a five-minute address to them in French. Then he shook all their hands for a photo-op and that was the end.
He said his speech to the ambassadors was an invitation to dialogue. It was an odd invitation. It was not well done on his part. He tends not to talk about Islam. He tends to talk about larger issues of faith and reason. I'm not sure about what sort of dialogue he's thinking about, because he hasn't set anything up yet in terms of a formal dialogue mechanism. He downgraded the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. It was one of the first things he did when he became Pope. He also sent Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald (who is a top Arab and Muslim expert) off to a diplomatic post. As a consequence you have this crisis. He didn't intend this to happen. That's clear. But he's a solitary figure. He lives in his head quite a bit --and doesn't let anybody else look over his speeches (especially those of a personal nature).
Benedict writes much less than John Paul II. But John Paul II had numerous collaborators in his work. Benedict is more of a solitary writer and ivory tower Pope. That can produce some brilliant writing. But it can also produce brilliant blunders as we saw on his remarks on Islam --which he spent 10 days trying to patch up.
This is not to be pushing some equivalency between what Benedict said and Islamic reaction. There is none. It's inexcusable to be burning churches and the Pope in effigy. But this is not where the Pope wanted to go --especially with his visit to Turkey at the end of November where he's going to be freighted with potential pitfalls, but also great opportunities for dialogue.
GM: Has Benedict's meeting with the Muslim ambassadors defused the tension between the Catholic Church and Islam?
DG: No --I don't think it has. There will always be a lingering suspicion of Benedict. This did not grow out of nothing. There was a background. Benedict has always had a certain skeptical and critical view of Islam by comparison to his predecessor John Paul II. John Paul II was heralded in the Muslim world as their Pope in so many ways. He was the first Pope to visit a mosque in 2001. In 1985 he went to talk to 80,000 Muslim youth in Morocco. You're not going to see Benedict doing that.
It's also a different world now. It's a post-9/II and post-Iraq invasion world. Benedict will be viewed with a little more suspicion by the Islamic community such as it is today.
But the whole controversy is rife with contradictions. For example: Benedict was the leading voice against the American invasion of Iraq. He said flat out: It was not a just war. Just a few weeks ago before his comments on Islam, he was critiqued by many for being critical of Israel's invasion of Lebanon. If you look at the scorecard --it's a mixed bag. But this episode and his "non-apology apologies" have compromised his image in the Muslim world. Would he have had any success doing something else? I don't know. The tensions are so high between anybody perceived as connected with the West today.
In recent decades the Vatican has always been seen as a vital, honest broker between the West and the Muslim and Arab world. Now because of what Benedict has said --and the hair-trigger temperament in the Muslim world-- that has changed. They're now talking about Benedict and the Vatican in cahoots with Israel and the Bush administration. Nothing could be further from the truth.
GM: In the aftermath of his remarks on Islam, Benedict explained he was interested in "self-critical dialogue." What are your thoughts?
DG: It's interesting, because in that lecture he wasn't focused on Islam, and it certainly didn't seem like there was any invitation in the talk to dialogue. It wasn't explicit or implicit. But he hasn't been a fan of inter-religious dialogue. He wants to see it cast in different parameters. It's such a complex thing. Is he talking about theological dialogue? Was he giving a critique of Islam or of Muslims who may be following Islam in an improper way? That's not clear.
There were two issues that became conflated in Benedict's Regensberg's lecture. You had Ratzinger speaking as a theologian. But you also had Benedict speaking as a Pope. Those are two different roles, and you can't separate them. Once he could have thrown this out as a starting point for debates or dialogue. He's now the head of state and a diplomat, which is something he's not too keen on.
It's interesting because Benedict's new Secretary of State Cardinal Tarciso Bertone was welcomed into the office with this crisis. In an interview he said he almost preferred to be called Secretary of Church rather than Secretary of State. But you're in the world if not of the world as a Pope. Historically Popes have spent most of their time trying to protect the Church and Christians. That often takes some savvy politicking and diplomacy.
Someone said Benedict had his "Larry Summers moment." That's a reference to the President of Harvard who tossed out that comment about whether women were qualified to advance in the sciences. Benedict tossed his comments out, but now he's in a different role.
Benedict isn't a naturally self-critical apologetic sort. I'm not sure what he means by self-critical dialogue. He did not agree strongly at all with John Paul II's "theology of apology." More than a hundred times John Paul II formally apologized in his papacy for Galileo, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and to Muslims and Jews. Benedict saw the tendency to this "self-flagellation" as "masochistic." He's not one to look critically at the history of the Catholic Church either recently or in the past.
If he wanted to illustrate this issue of faith and reason he could have cited any number of examples from Catholic history to show when Catholics or Christians have gone too far in fanaticism.
GM: In the book we learn that Benedict sees the "dialogues" of Jesus as "polemics." What does he mean?
DG: He uses those words. He often says we overlook the hard sayings of Jesus, because he thinks the modern world has often come to see Jesus (and by turn Christianity) as an accommodating nurturing environment where Jesus is my best friend rather than Christ on the Cross --and the Son of God. His Christology is beautiful and is the focus of his pontificate. He wants people to enter into a real relationship with Jesus Christ. But he wants it to be more of a rigorous relationship than the kind you often see in the spiritual-but-not-religious faith (especially in North America) where people are professing love of Jesus, but leave off the Christ part. He doesn't want to do that. He sees Jesus not just as someone who came to make us feel better about ourselves, but who came to challenge. That's something he's going to do, albeit in a very different way. My short take on Ratzinger versus Benedict is that he's the same guy in a different job. That's going to entail some changes.
GM: Toward the end of the book you write that: "In fact, Benedict foresees the Catholic future in terms of the Catholic past, a church somewhere between the catacombs of imperial times and the monastic outposts of the Dark Ages. He believes that the beloved parish system, which he points out is only a few centuries old, will be downsized, and that the emergent and often controversial 'movements,' such as Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ, the Neocatechumenal Way, and Communion and Liberation, are the wave of the future." Is this something that Catholics (especially in North America) are going to find startling?
DG: I almost wanted to entitle one of the chapters in the book "Is the Pope Catholic?" Benedict has such a pure view of the faith. It's almost a sola fide Christianity and theology that he professes.
In many ways he's a classic conservative. Not one of our neo-conservatives, but a classic conservative. At one point he said his entire life is about reducing the "encrustations" that have grown up around the faith so that we can see the light of Christ and the Gospels (and be drawn to that). For him that's significant. Anything else that serves to obscure that light can be done away with.
He doesn't like bureaucracy or institutions. His one critique of the Catholic Church in Germany during the Nazi era is that it made too many compromises with Hitler in order to preserve things like universities, parishes, and schools. He doesn't want to banish the parish system in any way. For him, the parish system is only a few centuries old. At one point I say that if John Paul II is a medievalist then Benedict is a primevalist.
Aquinas was beloved by John Paul II. For Ratzinger and Benedict it's been Augustine. He wants to go back to the basics of faith. If we're into some kind of rote, reflexive religion based on going to the parish church or Catholic university that is no longer truly Catholic --then he would say pare it away and we'll get down to the real essence of faith. That's what he's interested in.
It is a startling view of the Catholic Church. This is not to say Benedict is going to take out the shears and start hacking away. But there will perhaps be a few universities and colleges that might be de-commissioned. However it will be more purgation by default. In other words: Those who are not in line with his vision (or with this passive vision of the faith) will fall away --as they have been consistently doing-- without a vigorous outreach or investment in some of these Catholic institutions.
Will people find a home in the Church? Where I wind up in the book is the crux of ecclesiology and Christology. For Benedict his Christology almost mirrors his ecclesiology. In other words: You can't tinker with the Church without messing about with Christ himself. Benedict is a wonderful writer and speaker on his faith in Christ. He can tell us a lot about why we should be Christians. But what he's less successful at is telling us why we should be Catholics.
I have a more sanguine view of the culture, especially in the United States. There are a great number of people with faith or belief of some sort, but there are fewer in number that want to call the Catholic Church their religious home. That's where we need to put some effort. But that's not what Benedict sees as necessary. For him reform is anathema to the faith. The faith is about the faith. Everything else is given by God, and should not be tinkered with.
GM: You make it clear in the book that the Vatican will not talk about women's ordination or lifting the ban on birth control. But they will talk about optional celibacy for priests. Is this something Benedict would possibly look at?
DG: Interestingly if you read between the lines (and you talk to some people who are close to him) it's something that he believes may be coming. He's ruled out so many things: Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and women priests (which he calls the "canon of criticism" for the progressive agenda). On the issue of married priests he'll say it's a Church law. It's not an infallible teaching by any stretch of the imagination. He hasn't discussed it in dogmatic terms. For him it's Church law and tradition, which is powerful. In all of his discussions regarding the issue he's indicated that priestly celibacy should be here to stay. He's only stated solution so far is to pray.
The other thing that is in play here is that Benedict doesn't see himself as a long-term Pope. In the book I talk about papal retirement. More specifically: What happens if the Pope doesn't die and becomes incapacitated? The idea of a transitional Pope is obsolete with modern medicine. Benedict is 79. He's not the most energetic man. But he could still live for 10 to 15 more years. There's no mechanism for a Pope to retire. And what do you do if a Pope becomes incapacitated?
But Benedict sees himself as a short-term Pope. He's always talking about "in the short time that I have left." He'll say "I'm an old man" and those kinds of phrases. So he sees himself here for a few years --and I don't think he wants to be the Pope who changed 900 years of Church law. He may think that married priests are coming in the next generation (if not sooner), but he won't be here.
GM: You write that: "Pope Benedict has vowed that the Church under his direction will not 'meddle' in politics, yet his willingness to try to influence political decisions on matters relating to sexuality and biotechnology, for example, also leaves many wondering why he would not bring some of that activism to social welfare issues." How would Benedict react if he was confronted with this?
DG: To a lot of people there seems to be a double standard going on. It comes down to several issues in Benedict's worldview. First: His cultural conditioning. Anything that is seen as trying to do the work that Christ should do when he returns is usurping the role of God. In other words: Building up the Kingdom of God and working for social justice is attempting to make ourselves and the world perfect-- which is a mirage. He has this innate conservative suspicion of social activism as something that can only lead away from the Spirit. But he sees things like abortion, gay marriage, and homosexuality as violations of Church teaching. They are violations of the black-and-white principles that he holds dear. For example: Life is sacred --so we can't have abortion. Marriage is between a man and a woman --so anything that would sanction gay marriage is obviously an abomination.
To my mind the crying poverty of the Southern hemisphere is an abomination. But Benedict wouldn't see that as a violation. How do you explain this? It baffles me. It's part of his conservative and theologian's worldview. He's about sanctifying principles -the God--given natural law on life and marriage and all these other issues. As far as social justice in the world goes, that enters another separate arena (which is unfortunate).
The other point is that Benedict is much less politically active even than John Paul II. That's something people are a bit surprised about. Even though he speaks out in the defense of life, he's not as active as John Paul II was on communism and the Soviet bloc --for example-- or on social justice in the Third World. But Benedict will speak out on the principles of the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and life. But he's not a political infighter or arm-twister in any way.
What's striking is how little he goes after those hot-button issues. Look at the recent trip to Bavaria. Not a word about homosexuality or birth control. You'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of those broadsides in his talks. Things that people would hook on to and say "Aha! There's the panzerkardinal." Even though John Paul II talked about those things all the time --people still loved him (he was the good cop to Ratzinger's bad cop). But Benedict sees the things I mentioned as out-of-bounds. They're just not up for discussion. For him it's all about the faith. If we believe --and believe with the Church-- everything will be okay.
People loved Benedict's first encyclical Deus Caritas Est. There's some beautiful language in that document. But it's interesting that he privileges charity over justice to such a great degree. Rather than a community overcoming structural sin or social sin, for Benedict it's all about individuals acting as Christ would want them to act. Then the rest of the problems would simply take of themselves. In other words: Individual souls are better Catholics than all this talk about social justice, because charity makes justice possible.
GM: At one point you explain that: "It's important to recall that in his powerful jeremiad at the Mass before the Cardinals went into conclave, when Cardinal Ratzinger diagnosed the ills of the modern world and the challenges to the church from the "dictatorship of relativism," he reserved not a single word for the masses of the poor and marginalized growing under the weight of economics and social injustice across the globe." You would think that there would be some mention of social injustice in the world wouldn't you?
DG: But that's not where his focus is. For him the right beliefs (orthodoxy) come first. Devotion, piety and a relationship with Jesus --and acting as Christ would have you act-- are what come before everything else. That's the predicative for every other action one takes in the world. If one has the right heart then one would do the right actions. Everything else will take care of itself. He sees those often involved in social justice as getting it backwards. He sees them soft peddling or overlooking the reasons that Christians should be promoting these kinds of things.
But it's not an either-or type of thing. It's both-and. A lot of people come to social justice from the Church and are motivated by the Christian faith --as we should be. But social justice is also a great witness in the world. It's a way to bring people in. For so many people in the modern world, preaching to people is just words. The greatest and most powerful witness for the Church today is action in the social justice sphere. People who are not convinced even by those elegant preachers speaking to them about the truths of Catholicism may be convinced --or at least intrigued-- by the actions of Catholics in the Church.
Benedict would see it all necessarily starting at the altar and spreading out from there --without seeing that it can also be a two-way street and that social justice can form our own faith life.
It's the same when it comes to reform within the Church. Benedict doesn't see that as a priority, because if they were better Catholics there wouldn't be scandals or crisis. In Church terms, he sees reform as trying to take the place of God and make the Church better. He doesn't see that as correct.
It's also important to note that Catholics want the Church to reflect --to some degree-the social teachings of Catholicism. Social justice is not just for Catholics today as simply something happening out there in the world. It also needs to be reflected in the way we regulate and construct our lives in the Church. I don't want to view these things in two completely cordoned off worlds.
It goes back to the earlier point. Benedict can tell us why we should be Christian. But he's less convincing on why we should be Catholics.
GM: As you researched this book was there anything that surprised you about Benedict?
DG: Yes --what a beautiful spiritual writer he can be. At one point I say he may become the Dalai Lama of Catholicism. That's something he would detest (and it's a half a compliment). He writes so beautifully and luminously about things that he loves. I hope that comes through in the book. Also: He's such an intellect. He has the capacity to synthesize the information at his command in beautiful terms. But I was also struck by his harsh language towards things he does not like. He loves what he loves --and does not like at all what he doesn't like.
In memoirs and other interviews he'll talk beautifully about the search for meaning in the modern world. Then he'll issue a harsh denunciation of something. For example in Salt of The Earth he says civil peace is not the first duty of the bishop. He says a bishop who wants a nice church where he can keep everybody happy is an image he find "repulsive." It's an extraordinarily sharp diagnostic tone he's taken in the past. So you have dark and light with Benedict.
I found the cover photograph for The Rule of Benedict on a conservative website. It's striking that it's half in light --and half in dark. It's almost a Rorschach test when you think of Benedict. Conservatives will look at it and say how beautiful it is with the light shining on him. Liberals and progressives tend to look at him in the dark. It's funny, when people look at that picture their reaction is a perfect mirror of where they are versus Benedict on issues facing the Church. But at the center of that photo is his pectoral cross with the sun gleaming off it --and that's very telling too.
Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.
[Editor's Note: For more information on David Gibson you can visit his website at www.dgibson.com]
for internet marketing, web site design, development, promotion, and maintenance.
