Despite what many had hoped for, the Roman Catholic Church did not stabilize after the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The euphoric atmosphere of the mid-twentieth century was followed by a “process of demise.”² The pontificate of John Paul II was “the worst crisis since the protestant Reformation.”³ Hardly anything was left from the euphoria of the council.⁴ Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) had sped up the crisis with his liberality—he allowed for the annulment of some marriages, the laicizing of priests, the concession of the resignation from religious orders, and the toleration of independent local churches. During this period there also developed a friendlier atmosphere toward religion in society at large, but neither Rome nor the churches of the Reformation could profit from this.

The “Restorer” from Poland

The Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla, elected as Pope John Paul II on October 17, 1978, was the first non-Italian pope in 450 years. Both traditional and progressive forces within the Catholic Church hoped to find strong support for their respective agendas. Even in the non-Christian world people remembered the Polish poet Juliusz Slowacki’s prediction that in the nineteenth century the world would be saved by a Polish pope.⁵ Initially, the new pope seemed to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of both church and world. One had the impression that the aggiornamento—that is, the “becoming modern” of the church (John XXIII)— finally took shape. The dynamic pope liked to joke and converse with journalists; he appeared to be open and worldly. He waived the pluralis majestaticus, the “us” in his speeches, and simply said, “I.” He despised the sedia gestatoria, the papal armchair upon which the pope was customarily carried. He held World Youth Days to meet with young people. He used modern media and traveled on more than one hundred mission trips throughout the world. A darling of the masses,⁶ he seemed to be considered almost a superstar. He was “more beautiful than Jesus Christ,”⁷ as some nuns enthused. To the countless masses of pilgrims on St. Peter’s Square, he appeared as “showpiece of the church” and “a gift of heaven.”⁸ John Paul II promoted “interreligious ecumenism” with the World Prayer Meeting in Assisi (1986 and 2002) and promoted a new openness toward Jews, Muslims, and representatives of other religions. Thus, this pope quickly became the “most well-known person” of his time.⁹ With 960 beatifications and three hundred canonizations he supported the piety of Catholic believers. The masterpiece of his political influence, however, was his involvement in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Lech Walesa, the well-known leader of Solidarność, the Polish labor union, and later president of Poland, correctly stated, “Without the Pope no Solidarność and no liberation of Poland from Communism.”¹⁰ This declaration sheds light on what a commission of the Italian parliament claimed to have uncovered: that Leonid Breschnew himself, the Russian president, had given orders to assassinate the pope in 1981.¹¹ Soon, however, it became clear what the Polish pope actually intended within the church. The outward openness was followed by a consistent inward consolidation. His closest associate, cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, played a large part in this theological regression toward pre-conciliar positions. One Catholic ecumenist saw in Ratzinger the “great inquisitor” of the church during this period. Now the laicizing of priests was stopped, the law of celibacy was confirmed,¹² the preaching of laity was forbidden, liberation theology was attacked,¹³ and women in the priesthood were conclusively excluded¹⁴ because male priests alone represent Christ.¹⁵ Just like Pius XII, who had eliminated the Nouvelle théologie with utmost rigor, i.e. he removed theologians like Henri de Lubac and Yve Congar, now theologians who were wary of supporting progressiveness were reprimanded. One could name liberation theologians like Ernesto Cardenal and Leonardo Boff, moral theologian Jacques Pohier, dogmatic theologians like Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeecks, and Tissa Balasuriya as well as ethicist Charles E. Curran, who had criticized Pope Paul VI because of his encyclical Humanae vitae in which he had spoken against the birth control pill.

This ambivalence between outward openness and a tightness within the church led to the accusation that Pope John Paul II had betrayed the council¹⁶ and that he was “the most contradictory Pope of the 20th century.”¹⁷ He was seen as a reactionist, clothed as a reformer, brotherly in his demeanor and yet authoritarian, a spiritual autocrat, but cordial in his social interactions. In common parlance he was called “Papa Jekyll and Karol Hyde.” Journalists spoke about Pope John Paul II as a paradoxical “bridge builder and misanthrope” at the same time,¹⁸ and a critical theologian called him “very intend not to reform.”¹⁹ The fact that John Paul II was a sympathizer of Opus Dei—an ultraconservative secret fraternity whose purpose was “to get the council [Vatican II] eliminated from our minds,”²⁰ and who in 1989 demanded an oath of allegiance from all clergy that was stricter than even the one proposed by Paul VI (1967)²¹—fits this perspective. His Marian piety was interpreted in the same traditional sense. His motto was Totus tuus, “Fully yours.” He credited Mary for saving him from the intended assassination, and in his eyes the final victor was not Christ but His mother: “When the victory comes, it will be a victory through Mary.”²²

With this ambivalence, the Polish pope created many “construction zones” within the church. Regarding ecumenical questions, hardly anything was clarified. While the pope issued a confession of guilt in 2000, it is remarkable that the darkness of the Catholic Church’s past was relegated more to certain individuals than to the institutional church. Much remained “contradictory”²³ and “half-hearted.”²⁴ The Roman Catholic dogmas retained their significance and are still indispensable presuppositions for the unity of Christians. Similarly, the primacy of the papacy remained in force as regulatory “principle of unity” and the papal decisions that were made Ex cathedra to restore this unity remained untouched.²⁵ Even reaching out to other churches and religions—1982 with the Anglican Church, 1986 with the Jews, and 2001 with the Muslims—could not hide the fact that Rome still boasted to possess “Catholic fullness” over against the “Protestant deficiencies.”²⁶ The pope, so one commentator said, dealt with others as “a wolf clothed in the sheep skin of communication.”²⁷

This consistent refusal to change one’s own position while at the same time expecting others to stretch to the limit can be seen in ethical areas like the issues of birth control and abortion. Rome’s unflinching position earned the church the recognition of being a “moral superpower,” while at the same time the church was criticized of thereby indirectly fostering misery and poverty in the world.

When John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, the longest pontificate since Pius IX (1846–1878) ended. Karol Wojtyla had a splendid beginning as an ever-smiling man but died as an incurably sick person. Some have seen in this a picture of the hoped-for change for the church and its actual regression.²⁸ While many church members demanded immediate canonization (santo subito),²⁹ some clairvoyantly saw in his fate a symbol of a “Potemkin Church”³⁰—from the outside still shiny and radiant, but inside old and fossilized.³¹

The Strategic Thinker from Germany

The election of cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 came as no surprise. He was his predecessor’s closest colleague, responsible for much of John Paul II’s course of restoration. Many of the progressive Catholics were deeply disappointed.³² In Italy Ratzinger was called Cardinale No and in England he was labeled “Panzerkardinal” and “God’s Rottweiler” (an aggressive German dog).³³ For German theologians, Ratzinger’s election was seen as a far-reaching “catastrophe for the church,”³⁴ for some saw in him the “reelected John Paul II.”³⁵ He chose the name “Benedict,” referring back to the founder of the Benedictine order, Benedict of Nursia in the fifth/sixth century, indicating a program of “Re-Christianization of Europe.”³⁶ Benedict is considered to be one of the most theologically learned popes in recent history. While John Paul II was a pope of mission, the German professor presented himself to the world first of all as a “teaching Pope.”

The goal and modus operandi of the new pope could be seen in his attempt to lead the church even closer to the pre-Vatican II position. Critical voices called him a pope of “past anterior.”³⁷ In 2007 he reinstalled the old Latin rite for the mass (Tridentine Mass), while Vatican II had promoted mass in the vernacular language of the believers. He rehabilitated four bishops of the Pius fraternity, a fraternity very critical of the second Vatican council. Ratzinger avoided structural reforms and suppressed tendencies of the so-called “church from below,” or the clergy and lay initiative We Are Church, which had called for a cancellation of the prohibition on lay preaching and had also called for the possibility of women’s ordination.³⁸ Hot potatoes like the celibacy of priests he put off as long as possible. To the ordination of women he turned a deaf ear, because this was considered to be a “doctrinal matter” (Lehrpunkt), and he did not condone the medical use of birth control.³⁹ While he declined the kiss on the hand and chose the bishop’s cap instead of the Tiara, he nevertheless began to use the majestic plural “us” again.⁴⁰ According to one of Ratzinger’s former colleagues, all these restrictive steps gave the impression that the Roman Church risked becoming an isolated sect.⁴¹

Ratzinger, a highly trained theologian who had studied the doctrine of grace of the church father Augustine (fourth/fifth century) and the mysticism of the medieval saint Bonaventure (twelfth/thirteenth century), tried to assert himself especially through his publications. His goal was to point out the deficits and weaknesses of “western individualism” with its “empty freedom” and the “dictatorship of relativism.” He declared war on a world shaped by “positivistic, agnostic-intolerant contemporary culture.”⁴²

From the four encyclicals of Benedict the first stands out.⁴³ It carries the title Deus caritas est (“God is Love”). It is considered to be his “favorite encyclical”⁴⁴ and can be seen as “the clef ”⁴⁵ or leitmotif of his entire pontificate. Benedict wanted to free the Christian Agape and the serving love (caritas) from Eros, the love that desires. With it he unambiguously affirmed marriage. It is only within marriage that human sexuality in its bodily expression can be lived. According to Benedict, these truths are at home especially in the Roman Catholic Church.

The highpoint of his literary productivity, however, is found in his “Jesus-Trilogy.”⁴⁶ The first volume, published in 2007, was considered a “foundational work of the Christian faith.”⁴⁷ Several million copies of his Jesus books were printed, and translated into some twenty languages in more than seventy-two countries. He wrote his works out of the awareness that a Christology built on biblical texts is indispensable for the Christian faith: “If we do not recognize Jesus anymore,” he wrote, “then the church is finished.”⁴⁸

The learned pope did not evade the results of the so-called “historical-critical method”⁴⁹—he calls it the “historical method—and was convinced that this method “does not prohibit faith.”⁵⁰ The positive aspect of his research is that he took very seriously the New Testament texts. Benedict consistently avoided the trap of the classical liberal Protestant “Life of Jesus” research (Leben Jesu-Forschung) from Samuel Reimarus to Albert Schweizer. The latter had speculatively tried to reconstruct the history behind the biblical text and by and large had failed in the attempt. Recent scholarship is convinced that every liberal interpreter only found the Jesus he was looking for. In contrast to such liberal approaches in Christological research, Benedict trusted the authenticity of the biblical texts to give answers to who Jesus was, what His message is, and about His divinity. In this he was in harmony with the tradition of other Roman Catholic Jesus scholars such as Karl Adam, Romano Guardini, Giovanni Papini, and Henri Daniel-Rops.⁵¹ Benedict did not evade modern Protestant Jesus research. He interacted with radical scholars like Rudolf Bultmann and more moderate ones like Joachim Jeremias, even though other important Protestant scholars like Günther Bornkamm, Ernst Käsemann, and Gerhard Ebeling were not considered. His Jesus books breathe a spirit of piety and hopeful joy. One can even detect an “Adventist” orientation, when Benedict confesses, “The anticipation of the second coming [of Jesus] must shape the Christian life and prayer.”⁵² Seen from that perspective it is understandable that his Jesus books were praised by evangelical commentators as “through and through Bible abiding,” whereas more liberal Protestants derided his books as “icon-paintings.”⁵³ Catholic critics speak about a picture of Jesus “from above” that is shaped by the Christology of the ancient church and the decisions of the major councils in the early church.⁵⁴

While the Pope published his theological concerns and made them available to the public, the moral crisis within the Vatican and the worldwide church deepened. Obviously, the reform efforts of Vatican II did not have much impact on the lives of some officials. According to Hans Küng, “alcoholics, deceivers and pedophiles”⁵⁵ tarnished the image of the church with their scandals. Attempts to end the corruption of the Vatican bank succeeded only partially. The pope “wanted to do more than he could.”⁵⁶ Some four hundred priests were dismissed because of sexual misconduct.⁵⁷ The scandal surrounding the ultraconservative Bishop Williamson, who denied the Holocaust, was one of the “dark moments” and turned out to be a turning point in Benedict’s pontificate.⁵⁸ In addition, the scandal regarding the so-called “Vatileaks” added new problems, when papal documents were stolen by a chamberlain and made public. In 2001, even while he was still a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had tried to keep the sexual misconduct of many clergy under lock and key.⁵⁹ But now more and more cases of sexual misconduct were uncovered in the United States, Germany, Austria, and other countries. Benedict’s successor, Francis, spoke of a “gay-lobby” in the Vatican.⁶⁰ Benedict himself talked about “filth in the church.”⁶¹ Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Benedict’s successor, tried unsuccessfully to do away with these charges as a negative “campaign against the church.”⁶² The pope was no longer able to control the crisis. These incidents may have contributed to Benedict’s premature resignation in 2013. He himself spoke of his declining power and strength. One critic called his pontificate “broke, misfortunate, and full of glitches”⁶³ and said there were “intrigues and power struggles in the Vatican as in the time of the Renaissance.”⁶⁴

But there were more problems than those glitches. Benedict also did not have a lucky hand when it came to church politics and ecumenical relations. At the very beginning of his pontificate he enraged the Muslim world with statements made in his Regensburg speech (2006). Benedict quoted the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1350–1425), who had said that violence in Islam was the only new thing that Mohamed had introduced in religion.⁶⁵ While, historically speaking, one could see some validity in the emperor’s complaint, because Christian Byzantinum had suffered for centuries under the attacks of Islamic Arabs and Turks, one wondered whether it was helpful for the current dialogue to fan the flames in such a way. The pope received a wave of protest from the Islamic world. Some called it “hate speech” and critics within his own church even questioned his adequate knowledge and understanding of world religions.⁶⁶

He made similar missteps in his dealing with the Jewish community. While he changed the wording for the intercessory prayer for the deliverance of Israel on Good Friday, 2008, from “blindness” and “darkness” to “illuminating the people” and the “knowledge of Christ,” he also reinstalled bishop Richard Nelson Williamson, who denied the Holocaust. Some accused him of anti-Semitism because of this.⁶⁷

But especially in the ecumenical dialogue with churches of the Protestant Reformation, the pope was rather unsympathetic. Ratzinger, born in a small rural town in Bavaria that was essentially left untouched by the storms of the sixteenth century, considered the Reformation of Martin Luther to be “superfluous” and unnecessary.⁶⁸ As cardinal, he had denied the Protestant churches the description and essential nature as “churches” in the declaration Dominus Iesus (2000).⁶⁹ Those denominations in which the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery are not preserved “are not Churches in the proper sense” but only ecclesial communities.⁷⁰ For him, “there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.”⁷¹

Similarly, Benedict called the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification⁷² between the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church in the year 1999 “a milestone on the way to unity,” but this did not eliminate significantly different interpretations of this central Christian teaching.⁷³ He saw “disunity” amongst the Protestants as a problem and preferred to dialogue with the Orthodox churches instead.⁷⁴ But even there the primacy of the pope remained the great obstacle to unity.⁷⁵ Benedict considered the Orthodox churches not as “sisters” but “lost daughters.”⁷⁶

Within the Protestant world Benedict found the easiest access to the Anglican Church, because they had preserved the so-called “apostolic succession,” which is so important in the eyes of Rome. But even they were not considered to be confessional equals. When the Anglican Church started to ordain women Benedict challenged Anglican clergy “to return to Rome.”⁷⁷ This led to the rebuke Rome would “fish in Anglican waters.”⁷⁸ His decision to call back Anglican priests to Rome and his anti-Protestantism came across as hurtful and slowed down ecumenical convergence.

On February 11, 2013 Benedict announced his resignation. His decision was called “a courageous step.”⁷⁹ No other pope since Pope Coelestin V (1294) had resigned. With his resignation a “pale pontificate” came to an end. The crisis, however, continued and the church appeared to be “seriously sick.”⁸⁰

The “Gutmensch”81 from Argentina

For many centuries Italian popes controlled the fate of the Roman Catholic Church. With the Polish Karol Wojtyla and the German Joseph Ratzinger this development came to an end. But they still reflected European Catholicism. This would change with Jorge Mario Bergoglio from South America. With the election of the Argentinian the conclave wanted to set a signal. He originated from the world of the so-called “poor church,” the “church from below,” where people were more concerned with their struggle of survival than with the survival of traditions. The “religion of regulations”⁸² that the two previous popes tried to steer was not the church’s way to the hearts of the people.

A man was needed who, like the “good Pope” John XXII, would seek closeness with the people, who understood their needs and problems. This person was found in the cardinal from Buenos Aires. From the very beginning he appeared to the people as a “counterpart to the past.”⁸³ The new pope from the “margins of the world,” as he called himself, is the first Jesuit on the papal throne and the first pope to choose the name Francis. With his name he indicated that he wanted to be “a Pope of the Poor,” for “Peter did not have a bank account.”⁸⁴ The “Church of the Poor” did not play a role with his predecessors. Only John XXIII made some remarks about it. Thus, Bergoglio’s election seemed to start a “Vatican spring”⁸⁵ that was interpreted as “a raid of the Holy Spirit on Rome”⁸⁶ and the hope was expressed that “more profound reforms”⁸⁷ would come.

Catholic believers around the world were electrified when the new pope greeted the masses in a very humble manner and declined to wear the costly Mozetta gown. “Now the carnival is finished,” he is reported to have said.⁸⁸ His popularity increased when the news spread that he paid his bills himself, drove an old car, and did not live in the apostolic palace but in the papal guest house. His criticism of some clerics’ luxurious lifestyles received enthusiastic approval with the people.

Francis wanted a “new church.” He does not wear a Mithra, he washes the feet of women and African people, and in his blessing Urbi et Orbi he does not use many foreign words. He appeared as an almost foreign object in the ossifying system of the Vatican. The people were fascinated with his affability. A pope who kisses babies, wears a clown’s nose, and pays the entrance fee to the bathing beach for the poor could be expected to introduce more “far-reaching reforms”⁸⁹ and initiate “a new epoch.”⁹⁰

But when the reforms tarried many became disappointed and impatient. The pope should not just “speak flippantly,”⁹¹ but also act, as some observed. He should start getting active in dealing with the church dogmas, and should advance the process of modernizing the church.⁹² Some entertained the suspicion that the pope was using his friendly and approachable manner to create an “alibi” to cover up his inactivity.⁹³

While one could detect a new way of doing things, the dogmatic positions remained the same as in “classical” Catholicism. Some critics even accused the pope of wanting to “distinguish himself at the church’s expense,”⁹⁴ with words not followed by any action. One has to keep in mind, however, that the strength of resistant forces in the Vatican was and still is so great that some clear-sighted observers feared him unable to change much.⁹⁵ There is a gap between the “teaching of the church and the reality”⁹⁶ that is simply part of the life of the church. The pope himself called it a “malicious resistance” that tried to make his work in the Vatican more difficult.⁹⁷

Some traditionalists “did not like this Pope.”⁹⁸ He was mocked as “lunatic Gaucho” and as a “compassion junky.” He faced open rejection and even hate. Some felt his election was a mistake. One Vatican expert even claimed that he would not have been elected today.⁹⁹ In comparison to his predecessor he has been called “a theological zero.”¹⁰⁰ One American cardinal accused him of leaving the church “without a leader.”¹⁰¹ Some even spoke of negative campaigning against him. In a writing of protest in 2017, some traditionalist theologians accused the pope of propagating “heretical standpoints,”¹⁰² on account of his friendliness toward divorced people and his stance on other ethical questions (marriage, sexual morals, the receiving of sacraments).

Indeed, Francis seemed to fight a “campaign of destruction” against the Curia.¹⁰³ This became evident in his remarkable Christmas speech in 2014. In it he denounced the Curia as sick. Its representatives are full of haughtiness, he said, and characterized by a greed for luxury. They are sick of “spiritual Alzheimer’s.” They suffer a “memory loss of Jesus” and are “godless bureaucrats.”¹⁰⁴ It seems that with the demission of the ultraconservative director for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, and his replacement with the Jesuit and Spanish archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, the pope tried to buy some time for changes to be implemented.¹⁰⁵

This is remarkable because in matters of faith and morals Francis is quite conservative. While he rejects a return to the Latin mass, he nevertheless allows confession with the ultraconservative Pius fraternity. He also rejects the ordination of women and praises celibacy as a “positive experience.”¹⁰⁶ Just as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis also is a great admirer of Mary and opposes the violent liberation theology. In ecumenical dialogue he also tends to be more open with Orthodoxy than with Protestants and has refused communion with Protestants. In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013) one finds a brief appeal to “interreligious dialogue,”¹⁰⁷ but it simply recalls what has been said earlier.

However, because Francis criticizes the competitiveness among Christians and other religions, traditional forces within the Roman Catholic Church were vehemently opposed. When he visited a Pentecostal church in Italy, he was criticized of driving Catholics into the arms of sectarians and cults that spread rapidly in South America. Similarly, his visit with the Waldensians, from whom he asked forgiveness for the repression and persecution they had suffered in the Middle Ages by the Catholic Church, led to disapproving comments. Francis went beyond John Paul II and did something that Benedict would never have done: he did not just denounce individuals but spoke in the name of the church.

A new theological accent was set in his “green” encyclical Laudation si (2015). As was to be expected, it contained massive criticism of the capitalistic economic system, something that only Pope John XXIII ventured to do before. The new element in this encyclical is the joining of the church in the protection of the environment—a cause that had already existed in the secular realm for a long time.

If one asks about Francis’ theological role models, one always finds people who were progressives in their time but who at the same time were staunch defenders of Rome. All are Jesuits: Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, Franz Xaver the Missionary, and more recently the French Henri de Lubac and Michel de Certeau.¹⁰⁸

The remarkable thing in the current pope’s approach is his unusual commentary on current problems like divorce, remarriage, or homosexuality, while simultaneously indicating a hesitation to solve these very problems. Open questions—like women in the diaconate¹⁰⁹ or the reception of communion for those who have remarried—were addressed, but then immediately referred to seemingly never-ending commissions. The 2015 synod of the bishops in Rome was supposed to find solutions to the above-mentioned problems, but did “not find a direct answer,”¹¹⁰ as one cardinal bemoaned. There was only a “timid openness,” deliberately kept rather vague: a “cautious compromise” that allows leaders of local churches to make the final decisions. Of course, this openness also caused reactions from hardliners who accused the pope of weak leadership.

The ambivalent character of this pontificate—his closeness to the people and the willingness to recognize areas in need of reform on the one hand,¹¹¹ and on the other hand his reluctance to really change things—leaves the observer with many open questions. Does Francis want to be the “man of practical reforms,” as his predecessor Benedict remarked,¹¹² hampered by resistance within the Vatican? Or is he just a “clever tactician” and “a superior strategist” who is not really interested in reforming and innovating the church?¹¹³

Since people today can no longer be reached with dogmas and strict regulations, the pope seems to keep members engaged by seeking dialogue with the world—as in the year 2016, which was called the “year of compassion.” Through announcements, small compromises, and much verbalizing he seeks to accommodate the people, but the substantial teachings of the church are not changed, just as was the case with his predecessors. When faced with questions in regard to the pope’s infallibility—that this concept is exaggerated and that some decisions of church councils ought to be rescinded, as was done three times in church history¹¹⁴—the pope simply keeps silent. This raises legitimate questions for any critical observer: what is the worth of this compassion if the system remains inflexible, even with those church laws that may be changed, like mandatory celibacy? Thus, even the current pope, in all his humbleness and kindness, cannot hide the fact there is resistance to change within the church. In light of this, some clear-sighted observers have even called this crisis of the Roman Catholic Church “hopeless.”¹¹⁵ The church and its highest representatives are apparently unable to set them free from the girdle they have imposed upon themselves.

We are left with the sobering insight that Rome still has the same ambivalent face: there is cautious change through adjustment and adaption, while at the same time one notices a marked continuity in essence. Rome is willing to undergo secondary reforms but in its dogmatic substance it remains persistent and static.