Cardinal Ratzinger

I wanted to say something about Cardinal Ratzinger's homily yesterday, but I couldn't think of anything really concrete to offer. I didn't find the full text of what he said, so I'm dependent on the newspapers for snippets. I like this quote.

We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires.

According to the papers Ratzinger's homily was either an impassioned defence of orthodoxy or a campaign speech. My own totally uninformed gut feeling says that Cardinal Ratzinger will not be the next Pope, but we'll see. I will be neither shocked nor disappointed if he is, but I just don't think it'll be him.

I reject the hatchet job that the Sunday Times (London) did on him. Cardinal Ratzinger was in the Hitler Youth and also the German Army. The Times's article also tells us that Ratzinger's 1987 statement on Jews, Jewish history and Jesus was "denounced by critics as 'theological anti-semitism'". I'm no theologian, not even an amateur one, but this article from Jewish Week makes no mention of Ratzinger's anti-semitism and seems to indicate that he has endorsed a major shift in thinking on Jews and the coming Messiah.

As Sam Ser writing in the Jerusalem Post notes, Ratzinger was only 14 when he joined and quit the Hitler Youth and not yet 17 when he deserted the Germany Army. He also points out that Ratzinger believes in Jesus "so strongly that – gasp! – he thinks that everyone, even Jews, should accept him as the messiah". As Ser said, "This is news?!". Ser goes on to say the following about Ratzinger:

If he were truly a Nazi sympathizer, then it would undoubtedly have become evident during the past 60 years. Yet throughout his service in the church, Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.

As prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican's revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared Memory and Reconciliation, the 2000 document outlining the church's historical "errors" in its treatment of Jews. And as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a milestone theological explanation for the Jews' rejection of Jesus.

If that's theological anti-Semitism, then we should only be so lucky to "suffer" more of the same.

UPDATE: So much for gut feelings. Cardinal Ratzinger is the new Pope. Pope Benedict XVI