Claims of support from Pope Benedict for Synodality

"We can live on two different planets in one Church - but in the depths we are one" 

Letters from Joseph Ratzinger.

After the death of Benedict XVI, he appeared in many an obituary as a great theologian who had little to do with a synodically constituted Church. Letters from him to the East of Germany shed a different light on him.

On New Year's Eve morning 2022, Pope Benedict XVI, whose real name was Joseph Ratzinger, died. Many obituaries and tributes, including critical analyses of his pontificate, his work as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as Archbishop of Munich and Freising and as a theologian, have been written since then.

Whoever hears Joseph Ratzinger and Germany thinks first and foremost of his native Bavaria; perhaps also of Tübingen, where he taught at the university. Few people think of eastern Germany, i.e. the area that formed a separate German state alongside the Federal Republic for forty years as the GDR. Nevertheless, it is worth looking for traces of Joseph Ratzinger here, too.

After all, Joseph Ratzinger visited East Germany several times, both as a theologian and as a Cardinal and Pope.

Eastern Germany is one of the least religious regions in the world. Just 20 percent of the people living here profess the Christian religion, not to mention other religions. 

One reason is certainly the strongly repressive policy in the communist GDR, which succeeded in many ways in restricting the work of the churches in the GDR. Those who remained religious often had a hard time. So the exchange with the churches in other countries, especially with West Germany, helped in many places to be able to bear this situation. And so this exchange was also natural for Joseph Ratzinger and he travelled to the GDR several times. 

The GDR State Security assigned several informants to spy on him and his hosts. Ratzinger met with theologians, students, gave lectures and "represented" Pope John Paul II at the GDR's first and only Catholic meeting in 1987, where more than 100,000 Catholics gathered in Dresden. After the collapse of the GDR, he came to Erfurt as Pope in 2011, to the place where Martin Luther studied theology, and met with representatives of the Protestant Church. He visited the Eichsfeld and gave a speech in Berlin in the German Bundestag that is still relevant today. In this search for traces, however, two of Joseph Ratzinger's correspondences, which he conducted with two Leipzig Oratorians, come into focus.

The Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Leipzig was for a long time a pioneer of theological development, not only in eastern Germany. Joseph Ratzinger had studied with Siegfried Hübner, a dogmatist. Now they lived in different German states and wrote letters to each other from time to time, one to "dear Joseph", the other to "dear Siegfried". Their correspondence over the decades is an exciting - exceedingly polite - controversy. At one point Joseph writes to Siegfried: "We can live in a church on two different planets - but in the deepest we are one." Both will return to this image again and again.

In 2013, Joseph, now as Benedict XVI, wrote: "You aim ... for man to find the very centre, the ultimate humble and trusting yes to the Lord. ... But I would now like to add that alongside this focus on the ultimately simple yes to God in Christ, there must also be joy in the fullness, richness and beauty of faith. Faith must not appear as heavy baggage to be lightened as much as possible. Rather, it should be understood as wings that carry us and give us height and therefore be powerful.... Certainly we are all saddened by the decline in church attendance, by the melting away of our congregations. ... At the same time, however, we certainly agree that we must not expect to be able to re-establish the people's church. In the cultural situation of today, believing Christians will inevitably form a minority. Well, you know, I am betting precisely on the creative minorities. It is they who hold the key to the future." (Source: "Dear Joseph - Dear Siegfried - Friendly Conversation between Two Planets" HG: Hans Jürgen Sträter, Adlerstein Verlag 2022)

43 years before these words, in 1970, a second Leipzig Oratorian took up the pen. Wolfgang Trilling, one of the leading figures of the Meissen Synod, asked the now famous theologian Ratzinger for an expert opinion because the Synod had come into the crosshairs of clerical criticism. It is worth illuminating the background a little. Bishop Otto Spülbeck was one of the first bishops in the world to accept the decisions of Vatican II. 

As early as 1965, he announced the Synod for the Diocese of Meissen, which took place in Dresden from 1969 - 1971. From the beginning, lay people were intensively involved in the work in a way that was new and unusual for the Catholic Church. The chairman of the Berlin Bishops' Conference, Alfred Cardinal Bengsch, was very critical of the image of the Church represented by the Meissen Synod and the upgrading of the laity in the Church.

In the conflict over its results, several expert opinions were requested which illustrate the division of opinions. The Mainz canon lawyer, Georg May stands here for a very clerical understanding: "That a public opinion could grow out of the "insight and judgement of all members of the church" which could give "room to the spirit of Christ" ... is one of the worst utopias of this document, which is certainly not lacking in blatant distortions of the situation. We pastors know very well what Everyman thinks and wants. We should teach him what he should think and want."  May was not alone in this assessment.

(Cathcon: Georg May is a wonderful writer, now aged 97- will publish more on him).

Joseph Ratzinger was quite different: "I must confess that I find it difficult to understand the attacks ...made. I consider this text to be a very careful, biblically sound and dogmatically prudent application of the conciliar view of the Church to the concrete situation of a diocese. ...Ultimately, I suppose it all depends on the spiritual climate in which things take place. Where there is a climate of trust and a common search for what is in accordance with the faith, there is nothing to fear from decisions on the one hand and no need to fear that "consultation" will be treated as meaningless on the other. Conversely, where such trust does not exist, one will fare badly in one case or the other." (Source for both quotes (G. May and J. Ratzinger): Grande, Dieter / Straube, Peter-Paul, Die Synode des Bistums Meißen 1969-1971. Die Antwort einer Ortskirche auf das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil. Benno-Verlag Leipzig 2005.)

(Cathcon: One wonders if he would take the same line 60 years later....)

The Meissen Synod was probably ahead of its time, was "stifled" and its results were almost hushed up in the GDR period.  In these letters to the East, Joseph Ratzinger appears to be on the cutting edge of the times and his positions expressed in the letters are also relevant to the present situation of the Church and the discussion on synodality to this day.

Source

See Back to the Future- the Synod under Communism

and Still trying to implement Vatican II after all these years