{"id":54,"date":"2005-04-22T17:56:27","date_gmt":"2005-04-22T21:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/04\/22\/outline-of-a-ratzinger-papacy\/"},"modified":"2005-04-22T17:56:27","modified_gmt":"2005-04-22T21:56:27","slug":"outline-of-a-ratzinger-papacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/04\/22\/outline-of-a-ratzinger-papacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Outline of a Ratzinger Papacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

The following
\narticle (always click on titles for links to originals) appeared
\nshortly before the election of the pope. Thanks to James Murphy for
\nsending it to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

By John L. Allen, Jr., National Catholic Reporter<\/span><\/p>\n

… In his memoirs, “Milestones,” Ratzinger reflected on the German
\nchurch’s struggle to hold onto its schools under the Nazis. “It dawned
\non me that, with their insistence on preserving institutions, [the
\nbishops] in part misread the reality. Merely to guarantee institutions
\nis useless if there are no people to support those institutions from
\ninner conviction.”   In the case of at least some colleges,
\nRatzinger’s instinct would thus be to drop the pretense that these are
\nstill Catholic institutions. He spelled this out in a book-length
\ninterview called Salt of the Earth: “Once the church has acquired some
\ngood or position, she inclines to defend it. The capacity for
\nself-moderation and self-pruning is not adequately developed …. it’s
\nprecisely the fact that the church clings to the institutional
\nstructure when nothing really stands behind it any longer that brings
\nthe church into disrepute.”  The point applies also to hospitals,
\nsocial service centers, and other institutions…
\n 
\nBecause Ratzinger is the prime theoretician of papal authority, it is
\noften assumed that under him the Vatican would take on even more
\nmassive proportions. In fact, like most conservatives, Ratzinger feels
\nan instinctive aversion to big government. …  “The power typical
\nof political rule or technical management cannot be and must not be the
\nstyle of the church’s power,” Ratzinger wrote in 1988’s “A New Song for
\nthe Lord.” “In the past two decades an excessive amount of
\ninstitutionalization has come about in the church, which is alarming. …
\nFuture reforms should therefore aim not at the creation of yet more
\ninstitutions, but at their reduction.”   While Ratzinger
\nwould not hesitate to make decisions in Rome that others believe should
\nbe the province of the local church – revoking imprimaturs, replacing
\ntranslations, dismissing theologians – he would not erect a large new
\nVatican apparatus for this purpose. Ratzinger would encourage bishops’
\nconferences and dioceses to shed layers of bureaucracy where possible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article (always click on titles for links to originals) appeared shortly before the election of the pope. Thanks to James Murphy for sending it to us. By John L. Allen, Jr., National Catholic Reporter … In his memoirs, “Milestones,” Ratzinger reflected on the German church’s struggle to hold onto its schools under the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[781],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}