A Sordid Legacy
A Twitter handle and Gucci loafers do not a modernizer make.
The announcement of Pope Benedict XVI’s impending resignation (the first in nearly 600 years) forces Catholics, and the world at large, to determine the legacy of a pontiff who served at one of the most trying times in history for the Catholic Church. Caught in the headwinds of a changing world and a decaying Church, Benedict will be remembered for his missteps and poor judgment based on an outdated traditionalist ideology.
Benedict made a name for himself as a prolific conservative theologian, writing numerous books — including a biography of Jesus and a history of early Church figures. Known for his solid grounding in Catholic doctrine, Benedict rose to prominence in John Paul II’s Vatican as the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the position in charge of monitoring priests’ behavior and adherence to conservative Catholic practice. He sought to silence those calling for female priests, the abolition of the chastity requirement for priests, and the endorsement of the use of birth control among lay Catholics.
As Pope, Benedict continued his crackdown on liberalizing forces in the Catholic world, despite the continued decline of Church membership in Europe. Before he could do so, he had to put a lid on the raging sex abuse scandal that has plagued the Church for over a decade. The Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) accuses Benedict of having covered up over 12,000 abuse cases. Lawsuits remain open throughout the world against priests and the Church, while Benedict himself has limited the Church’s response to lukewarm apologies and light slaps on the wrists of accused priests, including a frequently-used policy of removing the offending priest from his home parish for a cushy job in Rome. For someone who built a career on enforcing the morality of the priesthood, such malfeasance will forever be a black mark on an already flawed legacy.
Benedict also mounted a robust campaign against secularism, arguing that it threatens to destroy “marriage, family, the concept of the common good and objective right and wrong.” Being objective on matters of right and wrong has not always been the Vatican’s strong suit. However, only the most conservative of Catholics rejected the changes of Vatican II, the major overhaul of Catholic doctrine that took place under Popes John XXIII and Paul VI in the early 1960s. Among those who rejected the changes were members of the Society of Saint Pius X, many of whom were excommunicated for their disobedience to Rome. In 2009, Pope Benedict sought to heal the schism between the Church and the Society of Saint Pius X and renounced the excommunications on many of its members. One of the most prominent members of the group, Bishop Richard Williamson, was subsequently revealed to be an adamant Holocaust-denier. Such a damaging piece of information undoubtedly made its way into the vetting process that accompanies the reconsideration of an excommunication. In his haste to shore up his standing with the most conservative Catholics, Benedict and his Vatican staff seemed to have calculated that it was worth the public relations risk to rehabilitate a Holocaust denier.
The Bishop Williamson debacle showed the Pope to be a poor successor to John Paul II’s ecumenical leadership. While he exonerated the Jews in the killing of Jesus (to the relief of this author), the Pope upset many Jews not only for the Williamson affair but also for his decision to elevate Pope Pius VI to sainthood, despite his inaction during the Holocaust and questionable relationships with both Hitler and Mussolini.
Early in his papacy, Benedict stoked anger and unrest with his quotation of a 14th century Byzantine emperor: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” For a pope more accustomed to enforcing Catholic orthodoxy, religious tolerance did not come naturally.
Pope Benedict leaves behind a legacy full of poor decisions and disappointing rigidity. He will be remembered for his failure to close the book on the ever-burning priest sex abuse atrocities, his reluctance to endorse the use of contraceptives even for those with AIDS (he made an exception for prostitutes in a widely-anticipated interview in 2010), and the unavoidable fact that he is a white European when the Church’s membership is strongest in the developing world. Benedict tried to anchor the Church in conservatism- what he really did was shackle its necessary evolution.
Correction: This article originally misstated the Holocaust-era pope. It was Pius VI, not Innocent X.