The first year
Why did he choose the name of Benedict XVI? It was immediately stressed that in Subiaco a few days before the Conclave he had spoken in praise of the saint who had founded the Benedictines. He now with great significance makes known a precise additional motif, drawn from Benedict XV who courageously defined war as «futile slaughter»
Giulio Andreotti
Benedict XVI
It seems to me that that text confirms the thesis, stated in the same words by Paul VI and John Paul II, according to which the Vicar of Christ must in his magisterium express novelty in continuity. And this is all the more easy now that Pope Wojtyla has been succeeded by his “trusted friend Joseph Ratzinger”.
Why did he choose the name of Benedict XVI? It was immediately stressed that in Subiaco a few days before the Conclave he had spoken in praise of the saint who had founded the Benedictines. He now with great significance makes known a precise additional motif, drawn from Benedict XV who courageously defined war as «futile slaughter».
The steadfast opposition of the popes to war (let me also mention Pius IX who rejected co-belligerence against Austria that was the condition for heading the Italic Confederation, something that at least for the moment would have saved the Papal States) has been a central motif of the modern Christian social doctrine. War must be made on poverty, on injustice, on discrimination. Peace is, precisely, a work of justice. Pius XII did everything to prevent Italy from joining in the war in 1940, even going in person to the Quirinal to solemnly express that hope of the Italian people.
The new Pope several times quoted the Council constitution Gaudium et spes according to which peace is the «co-existence of individual citizens in a society governed by justice, in which the personal good of each of them is also achieved».
Paul VI on the bank of the Jordan, the Homeland of Jesus
Very relevant in the present text is the quotation of a passage from John Paul II: «To presume to impose with violence on others what one takes to be the truth, means violating the dignity of the human being and, inescapably, of committing outrage on God, of whom he is the likeness».
Of course that firmness did not bring the dead pontiff the good wishes of the powerful and the misusers of power, but «verbum Dei non est alligatum».
The message – of exemplary brevity – concludes with a positive stress. Things are not going so badly and the Pope was pleased to record some promising signs on the way to building peace (such as the decrease in armed conflicts) and as prospect for a more tranquil future, in particular for the martyred peoples of Palestine – the Homeland of Jesus – and for the inhabitants of certain regions of Africa and Asia «that have been waiting for years for a positive outcome of the ongoing processes of peacekeeping and reconciliation».
A word occurs in the text that is nowadays almost forgotten: disarmament, rightly invoked but so far with little success. I remember that there was a moment of great hope when, under the leadership of Reagan and of Gorbacev, the nuclear arsenals were cut by half. But it was a brief rainbow in a sky that quickly turned dark and threatening.
Let us pray to God that the message for 2007, the second year of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, may see other positive signs. The expression «the truth of peace» is a very fine one indeed.