Benedict XVI begins papacy with message of openness
After extending a hand to other Christians, Jews and “nonbelievers,” Pope Benedict XVI made a meeting with religious leaders his first public appointment today.
Following the midmorning ecumenical gathering at the Vatican, the new Pope was to receive many of the estimated 100,000 Germans who journeyed to Rome to attend yesterday’s ritual-marked ceremony in St Peter’s Square in which the firs German in centuries was officially installed as Pontiff.
Religious leaders who attended the ceremony included the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; Metropolitan Chrisostomos, a top envoy for Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Christian Orthodox Church; and a senior representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Kirill.
Most Jewish leaders could not attend the Mass to formally invest Benedict with the Papacy because it coincided with the week-long Passover holiday.
Benedict, who has a reputation as a hard-liner for leading Vatican crackdowns on dissidents, said in his homily yesterday that he wanted to shape his Papacy by being a “listener” and not set off by imposing his own ideas.
Addressing more than 350,000 pilgrims crowded into the square, the new Pope made a point of leaving divisive issues out of his first major homily and repeatedly expressed respect for the late John Paul II.
As German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the new Pope had served John Paul as doctrinal orthodoxy watchdog since 1981, three years after the Polish Pontiff was elected.
“My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole church, to the word and the will of the Lord,” Benedict said in his inauguration homily.
He did not elaborate, but the speech suggested his Papacy could study some pressing issues, such as greater social activism and ways to reverse the decline of church attendance and dwindling number of priests in the West. In his previous role as guardian of church teaching, he had staunchly opposed calls for fundamental changes such as ending bans on contraception or for allowing women to become priests.
In 2000, while serving at the Vatican’s powerful office that guides doctrine, the then-cardinal issued a document that angered other Christians and faiths by framing salvation in only Catholic terms – the kind of message underlying his reputation as a rigid, dogmatic Vatican insider.
Since being elected Pope on Tuesday, Benedict has sought a more inclusive image.
Yesterday, the Pope noted “a great shared spiritual heritage” with Jews, whom he called “brothers and sisters”.
Benedict’s effort to reach out to Jews carries an added dimension because of his membership in the Hitler Youth and later as a German army conscript during the Second World War. He said he was forced into participating.
“With his German background, I certainly believe he will be sympathetic towards Jews and I think he will continue the path of John Paul II, who made some very significant symbolic gestures,” said Menachem Friedman, a sociology professor at Bar Ilan University in Israel. “But I think it is much too early to comment.”
The Pope made no direct overture to Muslims, but he said that “like a wave gathering force, my thoughts go out to all men and women of today, to believers and nonbelievers alike”.
In yesterday’s ceremony in which he was given symbols of the pontificate, including the Fisherman’s Ring, the Church’s 265th pope proclaimed humility in assuming “this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity”.
He repeatedly invoked the aura of John Paul, who died on April 2 after a 26-year papacy during which he reached out to other faiths and helped bring down communism with his support for Poland’s Solidarity labour movement.
Some pilgrims carried portraits of the late Pontiff. Benedict echoed John Paul’s words from his 1978 installation Mass: “Do not be afraid.”
He also drew sustained cheers when he described the late Pope as being accompanied by the saints. Many Catholics have called for swift sainthood for John Paul, but Benedict did not mention possible canonisation.
One measure of the 78-year-old Pope will be whether he keeps up John Paul’s world-spanning travel. US Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, said he was confident the Pontiff would rise to the challenge.
“We are very impressed by his extraordinary energy,” Rigali said on CNN television.
Rigali said American bishops are also looking to the Pope to help them confront the fallout from priest sex abuse scandals in the US church.
He said he was confident Benedict “will do everything possible to support the bishops of the US in their efforts to extricate, to eradicate, to wipe out any of this abuse that has indeed taken place and that is deplorable.”
Dignitaries attending yesterday’s ceremony under heavy security included German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Prince Albert II of Monaco and Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the US president’s brother.
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