The recent reports about Pope Benedict XVI express their inability to spell him out. “Full of surprises,” “neither conservative nor liberal,” they say.
It is easy to spell him out. He is just like the other great Popes… though with a slight difference.
Pope Gregory the Great: He lived during the fall of the Roman civilization, dated officially around 476. Barbarians ruled Rome. The German Odoacer ruled in Ravenna. Then there was another barbarian Theodoric, the Ostrogoth. St. Gregory was born when Rome was recaptured by Emperor Justinian. Then Totila the Goth followed.
Hilaire Belloc and Roger Coleridge, S. J. believed that we have returned to the age of barbaric paganism. Newspaper headlines are more than enough proof. Three Christian girls were beheaded on their way to school. Their heads were found one mile away from their bodies, reports the news. This is just a sample of daily fare in the newspapers.
Pope Gregory was elected Pope against his will. He begged the Emperor not to ratify his election (those were times when Emperors meddled on Church affairs). The Cardinals did not convey his message but reported to the Emperor that everyone had approved his election. As Pope, he applied himself with vigor to his duties. Those holy great bishops of old often would have declined being made bishops or Popes.
Does that sound familiar? Pope Benedict was hesitant to be Pope. But chosen, he applied himself to the task.
For Pope St. Gregory the Great, the Liturgy was of utmost importance and he singled out the homily and its importance in the Mass. Likewise, Pope Benedict’s interest is, also, the Liturgy. And he seems to like concentrating on his catechesis, which is the homily.
St. Gregory protected the Jews. He returned a synagogue, confiscated by some Christians, to the Jews, ordering the reverend removal of the cross and image of the Blessed Virgin already installed. The same advances of Pope Benedict towards the Jews are noted, perhaps in anticipation of the prophesy regarding the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah by the Jews.
Pope Gregory’s “Pastoral Rule,” a manual on how Bishops should handle souls, was so popular and well received in Greece and Spain. Charlemagne ordered all the bishops in his realm to study it. We should’nt be surprised if Pope Benedict hands a copy of this great book to all Bishops, together with his Compendium of the Catechism.
To convert England, Pope Gregory used the classical way of missionary activity: to send a community of monks (40 in fact, with a few slave Angles, aged 17-18) to Christianize England. The monks preached in accordance to the Apostolic Commission and at the same time showed what they were preaching by their way of life.
Pope Benedict knows what and how the truth must be taught.. But he is looking for a community similar to those 40 monks from the many emerging communities, like the comunity Communion and Liberation. I hope he soon finds that community so he, too, can start the re-evangelization of Europe the classical way as he desired.
Pope Gregory loved and popularized St. Augustine; Pope Benedict, too, loves St. Augustine.
Pope Gregory was a Benedictine monk. Pope Benedict is very much endowed with the spirit of St. Benedict. As Pope Gregory might be aptly described as a Benedictine monk under a Tiara. Austen Ivereigh had rightly described Pope Benedict XVI as a “Monk under a Miter.” Lastly, just as Pope Gregory first used the title “Servus Servorum Dei” to describe himself, Pope Benedict, too, had described himself, upon his election, as the “humble servant in the vineyard of the Lord”
Pope Benedict is not holding back any surprises! He is exactly like those holy and great Popes of old, sensitive to the slightest movement of the Holy Spirit, and as a result, full of surprises.
(Painting is by Michael Pacher, “St. Gregory the Great,” 1480, with the Holy Spirit dictating at his ears.)