No Longer Orphans: Our New Holy Father

Around 6:00 pm on April 19^th, the bells of St. Peter’s rang out again, and peo­ple all over the city dropped every­thing to race to the Vat­i­can. Habe­mus Papam! We have a new pope! Every­one gath­ered in the square waited for the announce­ment of who it was: Car­di­nal Joseph Ratzinger! Crowds of young peo­ple hugged each other with joy, and, elec­tri­fied by his appear­ance on the bal­cony, began to chant: Ben-​​e-​​dic-​​tus. In this les­son we will learn more about our new Pope, who he is, what he stands for, and why we the young peo­ple look ahead to his pon­tif­i­cate with hope.

Grow­ing Up in Tough Times

Joseph Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Ger­many. That area of Ger­many (Bavaria) is known for the strong Catholic faith of its peo­ple and their con­ta­gious joy. 

This joy was trun­cated, how­ever, when Adolf Hitler took over Ger­many in 1933 and even­tu­ally launched the coun­try into Word War II. Joseph’s father, a retired police­man, opposed the Nazi regime, and as a teen Joseph him­self refused to join the Hitler Youth orga­ni­za­tion, even though this meant he would be given less finan­cial help by the gov­ern­ment for his studies. 

He had felt attracted to the priest­hood since a young age, and dur­ing his teens he joined a high school sem­i­nary. Even­tu­ally he and all his com­pan­ions were forced, like all other Ger­man youth, to enter the army. Joseph was 16 years old when he was con­scripted in 1943.  He tes­ti­fies that “the next two years were very dif­fi­cult”, and at the end of the war all sol­diers were taken pris­on­ers, but even­tu­ally he was able to return home. 

As a priest, bishop and car­di­nal, Joseph Ratzinger has often spo­ken out about the evils of the Nazi system.  

He resumed his stud­ies for the priest­hood imme­di­ately after his release, even though his old sem­i­nary had been destroyed by the war.

Gift for Theology

He was ordained a priest when he was 24. Even dur­ing his sem­i­nary years it was clear that he had a spe­cial gift for the study of the faith (the­ol­ogy), and so he was asked to become a pro­fes­sor at the sem­i­nary and then at the uni­ver­sity. He served the Church many years as a priest and the­ol­ogy pro­fes­sor, study­ing and instruct­ing oth­ers on dif­fer­ent points of Catholic teach­ing. His classes were very pop­u­lar among the stu­dents for the depth of under­stand­ing that he showed and for the love of Christ that his expla­na­tions stirred in them. He very much loved his work as professor.

Dur­ing the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil (1962-​​1965) he was named a spe­cial con­sul­tor to the bish­ops, in spite of the fact that he was much younger than almost all the other experts. 

Wider Mis­sion

At the age of 50, much to his sur­prise, Pope Paul VI asked him to head the large arch­dio­cese of Munich, Ger­many. He was con­se­crated as arch­bishop, and a month later was named a cardinal. 

In 1981, when he was 54, Pope John Paul II asked him to take a dif­fi­cult posi­tion in Rome as the Pre­fect of the Con­gre­ga­tion for the Doc­trine of the Faith. It was not a job he wanted, because it often entails receiv­ing vicious crit­i­cism, but he knew this was the way Christ had called him to serve the Holy Father.

This respon­si­bil­ity gave him a spe­cial role of safe­guard­ing the integrity of the Catholic Faith, and answer­ing ques­tions of how to be faith­ful to Church teach­ings. He worked very closely with the Holy Father on these projects. The Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church that we cur­rently use was one of the projects that he and his com­mis­sion worked on for six years.

Unim­pressed with himself

What is this man who has accepted Christ’s call to be our Holy Father like? The first word used by those who know him is always “hum­ble”. As Car­di­nal, one could often see him walk­ing across St. Peter’s Square on his way home or on his way to a meet­ing with the Pope, stop­ping to greet any­one who approached him along the way, and often giv­ing direc­tions to those who did not even know who he was. 

An Ital­ian jour­nal­ist, Vit­to­rio Mes­sori, says that he is a “man, among other things, of sub­tle humor, quick smile.” This sense of humor helps him not take him­self too seri­ously, or react to the crit­i­cism of oth­ers. “I remem­ber one after­noon,“ wrote Mes­sori, “when we were at table, after he received an award for some­thing. He wanted me to tell him some of the jokes cir­cu­lat­ing about him in the parishes. I told him some of them and real­ized that he was really amused.”

True spir­i­tual fatherhood

Pope Bene­dict XVI under­stands from the exam­ple of the John Paul II that a true father gives every­thing he is and has to care for his chil­dren. The word “Pope” means father, papa, or dad, and so we call him the Holy Father. 

A father is the one who can help us when we have an impor­tant ques­tion, when we are con­fused about some­thing. Through his teach­ing at the uni­ver­sity level, his kind advice to sem­i­nar­i­ans, his books and arti­cles, and his state­ments as Pre­fect of the Doc­trine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, now our Holy Father, has always been there to coun­sel and instruct in the truth.

A good father is brave, and unafraid of any­body when it comes to pro­tect­ing us. Even in the face of crit­i­cism, he knows how to dis­tin­guish good and evil, and stand up for what is right. A father believes in us and builds our own sense of con­fi­dence in who we are. He is respon­si­ble and faith­ful to his chil­dren, whether they be nat­ural chil­dren, or those entrusted to him in a spir­i­tual level. 

A Hero Lost 

John Paul II was a rock and a light for young peo­ple around the world. In the midst of a soci­ety that treated us with con­de­scen­sion and con­tempt, telling us we were dream­ers and uncon­trol­lable, he showed us we could be great. 

Sec­u­lar cul­ture invited us to be mod­ern, to destroy rules of moral­ity and fol­low the waves of fash­ion with­out find­ing mean­ing to life. Pope John Paul II believed that we could be bet­ter, and hoped in us as the force that could trans­form soci­ety. He spoke to us of Christ, of the truth, and of the noble ideals we could attain. He truly loved us and gave him­self to us with­out count­ing the cost.

A Hero Found

The new Pope knows how much John Paul II meant to the young peo­ple, and has already taken steps to assure us that we are not alone. He announced imme­di­ately that he will attend World Youth Day in Cologne, Ger­many this August, gladly keep­ing the appoint­ment made by John Paul II. 

Dur­ing one of his first speeches our new Holy Father said “With you, dear young peo­ple, I will con­tinue to dia­logue, lis­ten­ing to your expec­ta­tions in an attempt to encounter ever more pro­foundly the liv­ing Christ, the eter­nally young.”

Rock Solid

Pope Bene­dict XVI speaks with the same firm­ness of faith, the coher­ence and con­fi­dence in Christ that we learned from John Paul II. He gives us con­fi­dence that adher­ence to Christ is our strong­hold and mes­sage amidst con­fu­sion. He addresses young peo­ple in a way that gives us hope for what the future can bring, if we build our lives on these same principles. 

At his Mass of Inau­gu­ra­tion as Pope on April 24^th, he said: “Today, with great strength and great con­vic­tion, on the basis of long per­sonal expe­ri­ence of life, I say to you, dear young peo­ple: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes noth­ing away, and he gives you every­thing. When we give our­selves to him, we receive a hun­dred­fold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ—and you will find true life.”

One young per­son tries to explain the enthu­si­asm that has exploded spon­ta­neously for our new Holy Father: 

“Why are we young peo­ple so excited to have this new Pope?” asked David Assad, “Because in the midst of this con­fused world God has given us a clear light, a firm faith, a solid rock on which to build our lives. 

“The shock of the lib­eral media doesn’t impress us at all, nei­ther do the ter­ri­fied faces of those aging ide­olo­gies before the light of truth.

“We live the eter­nal youth of the truth of Christ, the truth that does not change, sus­tained by the rock of Peter. This is the truth that fills us with hap­pi­ness.”

Bible Blurbs

“‘You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church … I will give you the keys of the king­dom of heaven’. (Matthew 16:18)

‘Preach the word, be urgent in sea­son and out of sea­son, con­vince, rebuke and exhort, be unfail­ing in patience and in teach­ing… As for you, always be steady, endure suf­fer­ing, do the work of an evan­ge­list, ful­fill your min­istry.’ [St. Paul, 2 Tim 4:2-5]

‘I am the Light of the world; he who fol­lows me will not walk in the dark­ness, but will have the Light of life.’ (John 8:12)

Pope Quotes

““Before my eyes is, in par­tic­u­lar, the wit­ness of Pope John Paul II. He leaves us a Church that is more coura­geous, freer, younger. A Church that, accord­ing to his teach­ing and exam­ple, looks with seren­ity to the past and is not afraid of the future.”

 “Love is the power which God exer­cises in the world.  To pray is to put one­self on the side of this love-​​….  As Chris­tians, as those who pray, this is our very high­est task.” (Approaches to a The­ol­ogy of the Liturgy By Joseph Car­di­nal Ratzinger)

“The Church is not a mar­ket, but a fam­ily… a guide and wit­ness to unity in the con­text of the famil­iar­ity of the Church with one sin­gle teacher, Christ”

Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church

882 The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter’s suc­ces­sor, “is the per­pet­ual and vis­i­ble source and foun­da­tion of the unity both of the bish­ops and of the whole com­pany of the faith­ful.” “For the Roman Pon­tiff, by rea­son of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pas­tor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and uni­ver­sal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exer­cise unhindered.”

85 “The task of giv­ing an authen­tic inter­pre­ta­tion of the Word of God, whether in its writ­ten form or in the form of Tra­di­tion, has been entrusted to the liv­ing teach­ing office of the Church alone. Its author­ity in this mat­ter is exer­cised in the name of Jesus Christ.“47 This means that the task of inter­pre­ta­tion has been entrusted to the bish­ops in com­mu­nion with the suc­ces­sor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

Saints and Heroes:

Mother Fran­cis Xavier Cabrini (Love for the Holy Father)

St Frances Cabrini was one of 13 chil­dren raised on a farm in north­ern Italy. Since she was a child, she wanted to be a mis­sion­ary in China. She received a catholic edu­ca­tion and train­ing as a teacher. She tried to join a reli­gious order at age 18, but poor health pre­vented her from being accepted. A priest asked her to teach at a girl’s school, the House of Prov­i­dence Orphan­age in Cadagono, Italy, which she did for six years. See­ing how well she worked, in 1880 her bishop asked her to found the Mis­sion­ary Sis­ters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to care for poor chil­dren in schools and hos­pi­tals. In 1888 the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII asked her to be a mis­sion­ary among the poor Catholic immi­grants in the United States who were quickly los­ing their faith in the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances there. With great love and faith she and six sis­ters arrived in New York in 1889. They worked with untir­ing ded­i­ca­tion among immi­grants, espe­cially Ital­ians. She quickly received the lov­ing title of “Mother” among every­one she met, because of her pro­found char­ity and deep sense of ser­vice. She founded 67 insti­tu­tions, includ­ing schools, hos­pi­tals, and orphan­ages in the United States, Europe and South Amer­ica. Like many of the immi­grants she worked with, Mother Cabrini became a United States cit­i­zen dur­ing her life, and after her death she was the first US cit­i­zen to be canonized.

Father Edward Flana­gan (Ded­i­ca­tion to youth)

Edward Flana­gan was born in Ire­land on July 13^th 1886. He immi­grated to Amer­ica in 1904 to fol­low a long-​​held dream to become a priest.  When he was ordained in 1912 his bishop sent him to work in Omaha, Nebraska. There he saw real poverty: hun­dreds of unem­ployed men, with their wives and fam­i­lies, lived in the most ter­ri­ble con­di­tions. He was espe­cially con­cerned about the huge num­ber of home­less boys on the streets.  After the First World War ended in 1918, he founded Boys Town, a place for young home­less or des­ti­tute boys to live. He gath­ered hun­dreds of boys and helped them by his ded­i­ca­tion and faith. His motto was “There’s no such thing as a bad boy.” By 1936 Boys’ Town was an offi­cial city of the State of Nebraska.  In 1938 a movie called Boys town was cre­ated and released based on this true story.  His courage and faith has inspired not only the boys which he helped but thou­sands oth­ers with his heroic father­hood. His work con­tin­ues to this day in the many Boys Towns around the world.

Dis­cus­sion Ques­tion Options

What are the qual­i­ties of a good father? In what ways should the Pope be a reflec­tion of this? In what ways can you remem­ber that John Paul II showed him­self to be a true Holy Father?  

Many Catholics are excited by the new pope, but many media reporters can­not under­stand why. What rea­sons could you give, to explain why we look for­ward with hope to this new Pope, and why peo­ple feel excite­ment over his election?

Why is the Pope dif­fer­ent than any other gov­ern­men­tal leader? How is the elec­tion dif­fer­ent? What types of qual­i­ties might peo­ple look for in a gov­ern­men­tal leader? What qual­i­ties would be impor­tant for a Pope?

Christ said that the gates of Hell would never tri­umph over his Church, and no mat­ter what hap­pens in the world, the rock of Peter would remain. Does this give you con­fi­dence and hope for the future? Does it give you a sense of secu­rity, no mat­ter what happens?

Do you pre­fer some­one who tells you the truth, even when it is hard, or some­one who just tells you what you want to hear, even when it is wrong? What hap­pens if we dis­re­gard the Pope just because we do not like some­thing he says?

Jour­nal Writ­ing Options

One day you will be telling your chil­dren, or other young peo­ple, what it was like this day when you heard about the new Pope. What was your expe­ri­ence? What hopes and expec­ta­tions do you have for the future?

What are some ways that you can per­son­ally back up the Holy Father, and sup­port him in his mis­sion? What are some atti­tudes you can prac­tice? Things you can say?

Res­o­lu­tion Ideas

Hold a Cat­e­chism trivia con­test, with the newest Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church. Ques­tions can come from the con­tent, as well as a knowl­edge of the gen­eral out­line and struc­ture of the Catechism.

In groups, stu­dents make short reports on the fol­low­ing ques­tions which Car­di­nal Ratzinger helped clar­ify. Stu­dents look up the ref­er­ence and the teach­ing, and give a brief sum­mary of the main points to the rest of the class:

Are all reli­gions equal?

Do Catholic politi­cians have to vote accord­ing to Catholic principles?

What is the dif­fer­ence between sep­a­rat­ing Church and State, and intol­er­ant secularism?

Is it moral to do research with human embryos?

Is homo­sex­ual mar­riage valid?

When can reli­gion become too involved in try­ing to change pol­i­tics (lib­er­a­tion theology)?

How can one show rev­er­ence in Mass and love for the true pres­ence of Christ in the Eucharist?

When should a per­son not receive communion?

Make an infor­ma­tional pam­phlet to hand out to other stu­dents, fam­i­lies, and parish­ioners, with facts to help them know Pope Bene­dict XVI bet­ter. Stu­dents can divide into groups to find quotes, pic­tures, a map of his home­town, inter­est­ing sto­ries from his youth, etc.

Resources 

To explain the papal elec­tion: http://www.catholic-pages.com/pope/

The life and story of Pope Bene­dict XVI: http://www.catholicculture.org/lit/pope_benedict/ 

Books writ­ten by Car­di­nal Ratzinger : http://www.catholicculture.org/lit/pope_benedict/pope_ben_books.cfm