As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI served as head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His job, simply stated, was to watch over and enforce theological orthodoxy. He was, as it were, the main ideas man for the oldest continuous institution headquartered in the Western world.
Now, however, he has a bigger and different job. His immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was himself a towering intellectual, as he demonstrated in everything from papal encyclicals to beautiful poems, from sophisticated philosophical meditations to pointed public addresses. But John Paul the Great, as he is already being called, was, more profoundly, a great pastor, a religious servant-leader, and a charismatic spiritual being who often managed to transcend hatreds by touching hearts.
As we witnessed over the last two weeks, even many who disagreed strongly with Pope John Paul II respected, liked or loved him.
The incredible challenges facing the new pope will grow or shrink depending not only on what ideas he emphasizes but, more so, on what concrete actions he takes and what symbolic gestures he makes.
The Roman Catholic Church is growing by leaps and bounds in Africa and other places even as it seems to be receding in much of the West. Catholics in the United States and Europe are far more divided on moral and social issues, and generally far less open to theological orthodoxy, than are Catholics in the church’s main growth regions.
Still, the divisions in America and Europe matter greatly, if only because those Catholics are, on the whole, wealthier and more influential than their Catholic cousins around the globe. The new pope’s clear early message concerns unifying Christians, and that will be a tall order even if it means only unifying Catholics.
Whatever the doctrinal or other conflicts that have characterized his career to date, Pope Benedict XVI’s future works could unify Christians and non-Christians alike. For the necessary intellectual guidance, he will need to look no further than two church documents he himself helped to craft.
First, there is Pope John Paul II’s 1995 papal encyclical “Unum Et Sint,” translated as “On Commitment to Ecumenism.” This action-minded call for Christian unity echoed the same call made by the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism, and enshrined as official Church doctrine ever since.
“The consistency and honesty of intentions and of statements of principles,” the encyclical teaches, “are verified by their application to real life,” including “the relief of spiritual and bodily distress, the education of youth, the advancement of humane social conditions, and the promotion of peace throughout the world.”
On the global stage, this encyclical challenges the new pope to help rally the human and financial resources necessary to everything from a more effective response to the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa to a more forthright response to poverty and disease, even in the industrialized world.
Second, there is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was updated and revised in English, largely under then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s close supervision, in the mid-1990s. Benedict XVI will be a great pope if he is able, by his own deeds and example, to get Catholics in America and elsewhere to honor and uphold the Catechism in its entirety.
As the Catechism teaches, faithful Catholics, including Catholic political leaders, should be not only pro-life and pro-family, but also, and no less compromisingly, pro-poor and compassionate toward all God’s children. It speaks repeatedly about our moral duty to attack “sinful inequalities” that are in “open contradiction of the Gospel – God blesses those who come to the aid of the poor and rebukes those who turn away from them.”
Likewise, while plainly forbidding any sexual relations outside the context of “conjugal fidelity” between a man and a woman, it is explicit in stating that homosexual persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
Of course, to do good works with the same success that he promoted theological ideas, the new pope will need more than intellectual guidance. He will also need spiritual guidance and the prayers and good wishes of all including those, Catholics and non-Catholics, who may feel that his reputation as “enforcer” of the faith not only precedes him but precludes him from being a great pastor.
As a Catholic, I believe that the Holy Spirit will guide him and test him, and the rest of us, too.
(c) 2005, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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