B16: Master Showman!

Recently I was reading an article that compared JP2’s use of crowd-pleasing zingers to B16’s allegedly more reserved, shy style.

Not so fast!

The current pontiff may be more reserved by nature, but he’s able to deliver a killing joke if he wants to.

Consider the following opening from a recent speech he gave to an ecumenical gathering in Germany:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Permit me to remain seated after such a strenuous day. This does not mean I wish to speak "ex cathedra."

ZING! Man! What a great line! A joke only the pope can tell! (At least with the same punch.)

His next line is only a step down from this:

Also, excuse me for being late. Unfortunately, Vespers took longer than
foreseen and the traffic was slower moving than could be imagined.

Again, what great irony. B16 may not have meant this one to be humorous, but I can’t get over the irony of the successor of Peter complaining about traffic jams and using the phrase "slower . . . than could be imagined" regarding them.

But maybe that’s just me. His first line totally ROCKS, though.

As the discourse goes on, he gets into more serious territory, and it is here that he shows his humility. First, he says:

I do not intend here to outline a program for the immediate themes of
dialogue — this task belongs to theologians working alongside the
bishops: the theologians, on the basis of their knowledge of the
problem; the bishops from their knowledge of the concrete situation in
the Church in our country and in the world.

This is remarkable, and may indeed by different than what JP2 would have done. JP2 was a man of remarkable self-confidence, and this does contrast with B16’s free admissions of personal inadequacy. Here B16 publicly confesses that he is not the most informed person on a matter and that others are more expert in it than him. He holds himself back from using the power that is his as pope to set an agenda and leaves this to others who can do it better in his view. THAT is humility–to refrain from doing what you could in order to allow others to better promote the greatr good.

But he does have a contribution to make, and it’s a remarkable one. He goes on to say:

May I make a small comment: now, it is said that following the
clarification regarding the doctrine of justification, the elaboration
of ecclesiological issues and the questions concerning ministry are the
main obstacles still to be overcome. In short, this is true, but I must
also say that I dislike this terminology, which from a certain point of
view delimits the problem since it seems that we must now debate about
institutions instead of the Word of God, as though we had to place our
institutions in the center and fight for them. I think that in this way
the ecclesiological issue as well as that of the "Ministerium" are not
dealt with correctly.

The real question is the presence of the Word in the world. In the
second century the early Church primarily took a threefold decision:
first, to establish the canon, thereby stressing the sovereignty of the
Word and explaining that not only is the Old Testament "hai graphai" [Greek, "the Scriptures"],
but together with the New Testament constitutes a single Scripture
which is thus for us the master text.

However, at the same time the Church has formulated an apostolic
succession, the episcopal ministry, in the awareness that the Word and
the witness go together; that is, the Word is alive and present only
thanks to the witness, so to speak, and receives from the witness its
interpretation. But the witness is only such if he or she witnesses to
the Word.

Third and last, the Church has added the "regula fidei" [Latin, "the rule of faith"] as a key
for interpretation. I believe that this reciprocal compenetration
constitutes an object of dissent between us, even though we are
certainly united on fundamental things.

Therefore, when we speak of ecclesiology and of ministry we must
preferably speak in this combination of Word, witness and rule of
faith, and consider it as an ecclesiological matter, and therefore
together as a question of the Word of God, of his sovereignty and
humility inasmuch as the Lord entrusts his Word, and concedes its
interpretation, to witnesses which, however, must always be compared to
the "regula fidei" and the integrity of the Word.

This probably sent shockwaves through B16’s audience. He may have introduced it by calling it a "small comment," but that’s just him being humble again. What he did in these brief paragraphs was to completely recontextualize the ecumenical discussion–at least in Germany (though his remarks will have repercussions far beyond that nation).

The problem he’s commenting on is that ecumenists have focused on particular doctrines–like the organization of the Church and the nature of ministry–as if they were the things we need to talk about. B16 recognizes, though, that our positions on these issues fall out from our higher-level views on how we derive doctrine–in other words the question of "authority" as many Evangelicals in America put it. To solve these lower level issues, the pope is suggesting, we need to discuss them in the context of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium (though he refrains from using the latter two terms).

In other words, ecumenists need to stop talking about the symptom without talking about the cause of the symptom.

He then says:

Excuse me if I have
expressed a personal opinion; it seemed right to do so.

WOW! Again, what humility. He has just completely recontextualized the ecumenical dialogue in Germany,  but he says that this is just "a personal opinion." He refuses to use the power that is his as pope as an agenda-setter (something that even the Lutheran ecumenists in Germany recognize) to tell people that they must proceed on these terms.

He plops an insight of crucial importance onto the table and then refuses to use the power that is his to make others take it up. He leaves it to their judgment to recognize the importance of his opinon–or not; their choice.

It’s hard to imagine JP2 doing that. He identified himself and his opinions with the office of the papacy to a far greater degree.

JP2 was a great gift to the Church. So it B16.

But they’re not the same gift. And both are marvelous in different ways.

READ THE FULL TEXT OF B16’S ADDRESS.