The Quiet Genius of Pope Benedict XVI

The press already had branded him Panzerkardinal, the humorless German commandant of the Vatican’s doctrine police. I had read his bracing work, and the label seemed implausible. I still wasn’t prepared for his personal simplicity and humility. He gave no hint of impatience in his manner, no divided attention, no self-important ego. That can be said of few public figures, including churchmen.

Decades have passed, along with many of the people and issues we discussed. But I still remember the unexpected feeling our conversations produced: hope. Like the early Christian saint and scholar Augustine, who helped shape his thinking, Ratzinger wasn’t an optimist. But also like Augustine, he was a man alive with unshakable trust in

Jesus Christ

and the God of Israel.

Pope Benedict XVI was one of the great religious minds of the past century. He belonged to an era of Catholic genius, alongside thinkers like

Henri de Lubac,

Yves Congar,

Hans Urs von Balthasar

and Pope

John Paul II.

All had been formed by Europe’s deep cultural fractures after World War I. All lived through the church’s struggle with the great atheist ideologies, the bloodbath of World War II, and reactionary impulses within the church herself. They were attuned to suffering on an industrial scale.

As a peritus, or scholarly expert, at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) the young Ratzinger was an unabashedly progressive priest. Yet he saw the council as a task of continuity and faithful development. He believed it was a project of renewal based on a return to the sources of Christian life, not a revolution. His stress on fidelity split him from more-radical colleagues like

Hans Küng,

who became a venomous critic of Ratzinger.

For all the criticism he inspired, Ratzinger himself was a quiet man averse to conflict. He was a scholar of refined tastes in music and art. His greatest…