Benedict XVI: a teacher for the whole world

It was the morning of 19 April 2005, and I was in North Carolina. I was a senior at Duke Divinity School and was in Duke Chapel with my spiritual formation group. In Rome Joseph Ratzinger had just been elected in the first papal conclave to occur in my lifetime; someone had seen the news, flung wide the doors, and yelled in “Habemus Papam!” Meanwhile, a small shrine to John Paul II had appeared in an empty classroom and many a Methodist and Baptist was to be seen there, kneeling quietly. There’s nothing quite like an ecumenical divinity school.

I had first encountered Ratzinger at the end of my undergraduate studies when someone gave me The Spirit of the Liturgy. I had entered the Anglican tradition as a freshman in college and, having come from the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, the process of learning about wider Catholic tradition was slow and unsystematic. The Spirit of the Liturgy was incredibly formative as its combination of theology and history was joined to a rich and often moving engagement with Scripture. Having been formed in the evangelical tradition, that last part was pretty important: here was a very Catholic theologian sounding notes and even melodies that were familiar to me.

Duke also exposed me to some of Ratzinger’s non-liturgical writing (which is most of it). But it was an encounter that was almost always deeply confusing, for it was at Duke that I slowly learned that Ratzinger was perceived by some as overly-traditionalist and a stodgy rigorist. The source of my confusion was that his theological writing just didn’t seem to fit with the characterization of him as “God’s Rottweiler.” I think his Eschatology was one of his first theological books that I read. I was blown away, not only by its theological subtlety and sophistication.

It was his presentation of purgatory that was particularly arresting, for he was clear that purgatory should not be viewed through a temporal lens. My Evangelical heart was stirred as he described the encounter of the departed Christian with the face of Jesus, the merciful judge: “There is no fire, only the Lord himself. There is no temporal duration involved, only eschatological encounter with the judge.” I was even more moved when I began to read Jesus of Nazareth. It deftly moves between genres: biblical criticism, history and spiritual writing. He was not just a scholar of the first order, but also a spiritual master.

I also encountered Mariology for the first time at Duke, along with Marian piety at my little Anglo-Catholic parish nearby. Ratzinger’s Daughter Zion only multiplied my surprise. His deep and personal devotion to Our Lady was apparent. But he also wrote unexpectedly about the Assumption: it is a theological claim, an “act of veneration,” he said, not firstly a historical claim. This did not sound like an ultra-conservative, and it was immensely helpful as I wrestled with and ultimately embraced the Church’s traditional teaching about the Mother of God.

I had had the chance to meet him just once, and only in passing. I was in Rome for the first time and he had been pope for under a year. I have a photograph that I took of him, smiling broadly, just before we shook hands. A few years later, I was part of a group that accompanied Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury, on an official visit. One of the many events of the week was Vespers in the Redemptoris Mater chapel within the Apostolic Palace. The Holy Father carefully looked at each person there; our eyes met briefly and I smiled rather nervously. His mouth had the beginning of a smile as he slightly nodded his head.

It was not until I got to the Jesuit-run Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, that I realized just how deeply some Catholics disliked him. I remember sitting in a class as one of my classmates, a Catholic priest, went on for a good ten minutes about the scourge that was Pope Benedict XVI. He also threw in a choice dig about the oppressive nature of clerical dress. By then I had been ordained in the Episcopal Church; I was wearing my collar because when I left parish ministry for doctoral work my bishop said “You are there for the sake and service of the Church, so you need to dress like it.”

I came to understand cognitively where those feelings about Benedict came from. But that was is never how I encountered him. In 2017 I took part in a colloquium that focused on his work and the five-hundredth anniversary: “Joseph Ratzinger and the Healing of the Reformation-Era Divisions”. The volume of essays that emerged from it honour one of the towering theological voices of the twentieth century. When we all have passed through the Grave and Gate that stands before each of us it will be a joy to see how many had their hearts strangely warmed by this Bavarian, and who maybe even found the door to the ecclesial ark because of this servant of the servants of God.

The Revd Dr Matthew Olver is Associate Professor of Liturgics and Pastoral Theology at Nashotah House, WI. This is an edited version of a piece that first appeared on Pray Tell.

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