{"id":98142,"date":"2023-01-03T11:52:04","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T18:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=98142"},"modified":"2023-01-04T14:04:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T21:04:42","slug":"benedictus-est","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/01\/benedictus-est.html","title":{"rendered":"Benedictus est"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sailko's<\/a>
Bernini\u2019s great Baldacchino, in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, Vatican City
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image by \u201cSailko\u201d)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

His death has received (to me) surprisingly little coverage, probably because he was no longer the reigning pope and because he had gone into fairly complete seclusion since resigning the papacy nearly a decade ago.\u00a0 Those are, of course, very much the reasons why his funeral \u2014 although it will take place in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica and although the currently reigning Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, will preside over it (which is, to put it mildly, a rarity) \u2014 will be a rather small one.\u00a0 But Pope Benedict XVI was a consequential Catholic thinker and leader even apart from his tenure as the Supreme Pontiff.\u00a0 Here, to help to illustrate that fact, are two groups of short appreciations of him by a number of prominent Catholic writers (including Robert Royal, a historian whose work I\u2019ve enjoyed, and Anthony Esolen, who is currently my favorite translator of Dante):<\/p>\n

The Catholic Thing<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBenedict XVI: A Tribute\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The National Catholic Register<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBenedict\u2019s Books: Unpacking the Late Pope\u2019s Theological Impact: Six prominent theologians illustrate Benedict XVI\u2019s great contributions to the life and mind of the Church by reflecting upon some of his most significant theological works\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Vatican<\/a>
The coat of arms of the Vatican City State<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Saturday last, when I heard the news of the passing of Pope Benedict, I posted a few sentiments and a memory about him here on this blog.\u00a0 (See \u201cThe Passing of a Pope, and of a Year.\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, voices at the Peterson Obsession Board began to express their indignation at what I had written, pronouncing it a \u201cslam\u201d against the former leader of the world\u2019s Catholics.\u00a0 The parade example?\u00a0 After referring to the late pope multiple times under his regnal title of Pope Benedict XVI<\/em> (or some variant thereof), I had closed my blog entry with this statement:\u00a0 \u201cI firmly believe [that] Joseph Ratzinger has now entered into a new life after decades of attempting to serve God in the best way he could. Requiescat in pace<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 How arrogant!\u00a0 I had insulted him as having merely attempted<\/em> to serve God.\u00a0 And I had \u201cdisparaged\u201d Catholicism.\u00a0 For example, my use of the late Pope Benedict\u2019s name Joseph Ratzinger<\/em> was allegedly \u201cdisrespectful in the extreme,\u201d discourteous, \u201cmean spirited,\u201d \u201clacking simple decency,\u201d \u201chypocritical,\u201d and \u201cincredibly offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, I think that I\u2019ll briefly respond.\u00a0 (You can read or re-read my previous blog entry yourself in order to judge whether it is fairly characterized as a \u201cslam\u201d that was \u201cincredibly offensive,\u201d \u201clacking simple decency,\u201d \u201chypocritical,\u201d \u201cmean spirited,\u201d discourteous, and \u201cdisrespectful in the extreme.\u201d)<\/p>\n

I absolutely do not believe that Pope Benedict XVI would have been even slightly outraged at my summarizing his mortal life as \u201cdecades of attempting to serve God in the best way he could.\u201d\u00a0 Anybody who has read what he wrote (or glanced through the links that I supplied on Saturday) would recognize that characterization as nothing more nor less than his very own, very modest self-understanding.\u00a0 (See, too, \u201cFormer Pope Benedict XVI asks for forgiveness, thanks God in final published letter.\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0 Moreover, my personal view of our universal human condition is that \u201cattempting to serve God in the best way we can\u201d is the best that any of us can hope to achieve here in mortality.\u00a0 My description of Pope Benedict as having done so was intended to praise him, not to denigrate him.<\/p>\n

And as for the use of his pre-papal name, Joseph Ratzinge<\/em>r, please read through the tributes to which I\u2019ve linked above and notice how frequently that name is used by devout, conservative Catholics to refer to him, along with his regnal title of Benedict XVI<\/em>.\u00a0 When I wrote my final line, thinking of Pope Benedict\u2019s entry into eternity, I had in mind not only the fact that, when we die, we probably don\u2019t carry many of our earthly titles (e.g., Doctor<\/em>, Professor<\/em>, President<\/em>, Senator<\/em>, Congresswoman<\/em>, or Mayor<\/em>) with us into the next world, where they\u2019re irrelevant and count for nothing, but also a very specific ritual that has been connected with the death of popes for centuries now.\u00a0 It originated in a world where confirming death was a bit more uncertain than today\u2019s medical technology allows:<\/p>\n

When a pope is thought to have died, the papal chamberlain (who assumes temporary stewardship of the Vatican after a pontiff\u2019s death) takes a silver hammer expressly made for the occasion and taps the pope\u2019s head three times, all the while calling out the pope\u2019s baptismal name with each tap.\u00a0 Whether this was actually done in the case of the no-longer-reigning Pope Benedict XVI, I currently have no idea.\u00a0 (It\u2019s a situation without traditional precedent.)\u00a0 But it means that, in the case of Pope Benedict, the chamberlain would not have called out his regnal name, Benedict<\/em>, after each tap of the hammer but, rather, his given baptismal name of Joseph<\/em> (or perhaps, depending upon the nationality of the chamberlain, Giuseppe<\/em>).\u00a0 At that moment of transition into the world to come, Pope Benedict XVI would have been, simply, Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger<\/em>.\u00a0 If the pope does not respond to the three taps, the chamberlain then turns to the others in the room and ceremonially declares, \u201cThe pope is truly dead.\u201d\u00a0 Thereupon, he immediately falls to his knees and prays Psalm 130, the De Profundis<\/em>, which is a penitential psalm.<\/p>\n

I note, too, just as an interesting but supportive detail, that there is, so far as I can recall, only one pope who is explicitly identified in the early-fourteenth-century Paradiso<\/em> of Dante Alighieri as residing in heaven.\u00a0 It is John XXI, who briefly occupied the papacy from 8 September 1276 to his death on 20 May 1277, the only physician and the only Portuguese ever to have held the office.\u00a0 But does Dante, that great and devout late-medieval Catholic poet, refer to him as Pope John XXI<\/em>?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 He does not.\u00a0 Instead, he refers to him as Pietro Ispano<\/em>\u00a0 or Pietro Spano<\/em> (\u201cPeter of Spain\u201d).\u00a0 Pope John XXI, you see, was born as Pedro Juli\u00e3o<\/em> in what is now Portugal, and was widely known before (and, clearly, after) his pontificate as Petrus Hispanus <\/i>in Latin and, in\u00a0Portuguese, as\u00a0Pedro Hispano<\/i>.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe that anybody on the Peterson Obsession Board can plausibly argue that Dante intended to be \u201cdisrespectful,\u201d discourteous, \u201cmean spirited,\u201d without \u201csimple decency,\u201d \u201chypocritical,\u201d or \u201cincredibly offensive\u201d when he singled \u201cPeter of Spain\u201d out as being in Paradise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 His death has received (to me) surprisingly little coverage, probably because he was no longer the reigning pope and because he had gone into fairly complete seclusion since resigning the papacy nearly a decade ago.\u00a0 Those are, of course, very much the reasons why his funeral \u2014 although it will take place in 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