To appreciate the book “Nothing but the truth” by Benedict’s secretary, there is only one way: read it.
Newsroom (30/01/2023 09:51, Gaudium Press) Contrary to what Hernán Reyes Alcaide expressed in Religión Digital, the reading of “Nothing but the truth”, which we will soon conclude, did not give us even remotely the impression of an effort of “hours and hours to shape a book […] [to] seek to oppose the figure of the [Pope] emeritus to that of the reigning one”. They are simply the memoirs of the secretary to his admired boss and spiritual father, in which picturesque facts of Benedict’s life are recounted, calibrated brushstrokes are given of the personality of a Pontiff much distorted by the media, one or another ‘secret’ is narrated that explains certain reactions and actions of Ratzinger, and a summary of the main milestones of his magisterium, very characteristic.
Of course, the mainstream media, always eager for headlines and sensationalism, has highlighted the points in the work that would show a contradiction between Benedict and Francis; but to be guided by what the media says would result in a biased and impoverished assessment. We simply recommend reading.
We continue, then, in this space, revealing some of the ‘pearls’ that are kept in “Nothing but the truth” – by the way, they are asking for a clue about the book In buona fede, by Cardinal Muller – always trying to make sure that these revelations are not spoilers for the great number of readers that the work has and will have, and also clarifying that they are not a summary of it, but simply some lines that we highlight.
The Cardinal who Convinced Cardinal Ratzinger
Since Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, also criticized the work, saying that it was an “unseemly indiscretion”, let us then take this opportunity to tell that this cardinal confirms what Archbishop Ganswein said in “Nothing but the truth”. In the conclave, when the number of votes was indicating that Ratzinger could be elected Pope, in anguish, he felt that a “guillotine” was going to fall on him. However, at this moment, an anonymous “confrere” Cardinal, that is, Schonborn, sent him a letter that moved him greatly, reminding him that at the funeral mass of John Paul II, days before, he himself had honored the figure of Cardinal Wojtyla of Krakow, because at every stage of his career, and in a sense perhaps not desired by him, he responded with a yes to the Lord who said to him “Follow me”. And that, if Jesus Christ indicated to him, Ratzinger, that he should follow him, carrying the heavy cross of the Papacy, he should be obedient as was the praised John Paul II. Ratzinger, already as Pope, declared that these words of Schonborn struck his marrow, and so it may be then that Schonborn is partly to blame for the existence of a Pope named Benedict XVI. Nothing to be ashamed of, but something to be ‘proud of’, right?
A man who Listened to Everyone, Respecting each Person’s Dignity
Indeed, it would have been easier to attack if Ratzinger were the Rottweiller or Panzerkardinal that some have caricatured him as. But Ganswein’s lines confirm the serene, participative, gentle, elegant person, and aware of the gigantic weight of the mission God entrusted to him in 2005.
For example, the Archbishop of Urbisaglia reports that, within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger strongly encouraged personal human relations, and that when a topic had to be analyzed together, the debate began with the exposition of the opinion of the one who had a lower rank, so that no one was embarrassed to contradict the opinion of a high official. Of course, the prefect had the last word, but he always listened carefully to the various opinions. When the solution proposed by his collaborators seemed adequate, he gladly accepted it; when not, he summarized and expressed with category something like: “You have evaluated from a perspective that in itself is correct, but perhaps not complete. There is this other aspect that can lead to a different solution…”
The Fear of ‘Wolves’
Ratzinger was aware, perhaps too clearly, that the cross of the Papacy weighed much more than his shoulders could bear: “on the one hand, a feeling of inadequacy and human constraint by the responsibility entrusted to me before the universal Church, as successor of the Apostle Peter in this see of Rome.” Those were the words as Pope in his first message to the members of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel the day after his election.
That sense of superhuman task would be repeated in the Mass at the beginning of his Petrine ministry on April 24, when he took on this great task that “truly exceeds all human capacity.” But from that Mass, the phrase that the media repeated the most was the request to “pray for me, that I may not flee, out of fear, in the face of the wolves.” However, Msgr. Ganswein stressed that at that time such expressions “did not refer to specific fears related to the future of his pontificate,” but that he would be strongly attacked by the ‘wolves’.
The cardinal who Wanted to Slap the Pope
Ganswein tells another of many picturesque anecdotes, this one from the very conclave that elected Ratzinger, that of the ‘Cardinal who wanted to slap the Pope’.
Ganswein wonders who Cardinal Ratzinger voted for in the conclave, and says he is convinced that it was the then Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna, Giacomo Biffi, for whom Ratzinger had a strong admiration because he was “a block”, “guided only by the light of truth” and of “extraordinary” intelligence and training.
It turned out that already in the first vote of the conclave, Cardinal Biffi had received one vote, but only one vote, which held true in the first three votes. Already at lunch, after the third vote, Biffi vents to an archbishop, and tells him: “If I find out who insists on voting for me, I will slap him. Then the archbishop replies, “We are close to the election of the new Pope [Ratzinger was already unbeatable] and it is quite evident that he is the one who always gives you the vote. So you want to slap the Pope, sir?”
Those promoted who are not of your line
Why did Ratzinger (unlike others…?) never want to appoint to high positions personalities only in line with “his own theological vision”? Msgr. Ganswein gives concrete examples, which do not fail to raise various suspicions, among other reasons because of the positions of importance they still hold in the Church, but because they are at the center of heated debates: Cardinal Mario Grech (Bishop of Gozo, 2005), now Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops; the late Cardinal Hummes, whom Ratzinger appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in 2006; Cardinal Tobin, who became secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life in 2010; Cardinal Braz de Aviz, who became prefect of that same Congregation in 2011; the much criticized Jesuit Cardinal Hollerich, who became archbishop of Luxembourg also in 2011; and Cardinals Tagle (archbishop of Manila, 2011) and Zuppi (auxiliary bishop of Rome, 2012), current president of the Italian episcopate, the last two often included among those whom Vaticanists love to call ‘papable’.
Finally, as the pages of “Nothing but the truth” go on, the reader begins to feel that he is getting to know this man, with his various nuances, who reached the Pontificate not by “chance”, but by something that was converted into sincere conviction by many and finally into acclaim, and who left a solid magisterial construction that must necessarily serve as a reference for the centuries to come. To want to run away from that, humm…, complicated and dangerous. (Gaudium Press / Saul Castiblanco)
