There is speculation that Bergoglio’s “tears” were actually the result of frustration on account of this group—a collection of reformist cardinals known in Vatican circles as the St. Gallen group—using him as an anti-Ratzinger pawn, when he had no desire whatsoever to become pope. Austen Ivereigh believes that “what upset Bergoglio was that he was the focal point of a fracturing, one destined to polarize, as in the 1970s, into ideological blocs. It upset him at a purely psychological level, in the sense that overcoming this divide had been a major part of his life’s work.”
Whatever his emotions, Bergoglio was certainly relieved to return to Argentina. His brush with power made him thankful for the freedom his grounded and humble life as archbishop of Buenos Aires afforded him. Now aged sixty-eight, he had just seven years until he was eligible for retirement, and he wished to live them out peacefully among the poor and needy in the city. Peace, however, was perhaps wishful thinking. The impressive support Bergoglio had received during the conclave and the great power his continent commanded had not gone unnoticed by Benedict, who later stated as pope, “I am convinced that here [Latin America] is decided, at least in part—and in a fundamental part—the future of the Catholic Church; for me it has always been evident.” The church, therefore, still had plans for him, and in October 2005 he was elected to join the council of the Synod of Bishops; followed by yet another election as the leader of all Argentinian bishops in December of the same year.
The endorsements he received from those within the church were not mirrored by the Argentine government, and Bergoglio and Kirchner’s relationship continued with its pattern of tit-for-tat critical statements laden with oblique subtexts about each other’s failings. So antagonistic was their relationship that Kirchner was reported to have referred to Bergoglio as “the true leader of the opposition,” but there were times, it seems, when the cardinal was so incensed by the president that he played right into his hands.
In December 2004, Bergoglio published an open letter condemning a Ministry of Culture–sponsored exhibition by the award-winning Argentine artist León Ferrari, among whose works were several pieces depicting Benedict XVI, most notably a green glass bottle filled with condoms and with a picture of the pope stuck to the front. Of particular offense was a piece entitled La Civilización Occidental y Cristiana (“Western Christian Civilization”), featuring a cheap souvenir figure of the crucified Christ pinned to a U.S. fighter jet, originally made in 1965 as a statement against the Vietnam War. In his letter, Cardinal Bergoglio said he was “very hurt by the blasphemy” and complained that the event was “supported by the money that the Christian people and people of good will bring with their taxes.” He closed the letter by appealing to the people to “make an act of reparation and a request for forgiveness” by observing a “day of fasting and prayer, a day of penance in which, as a Catholic community, we ask the Lord to forgive our sins and our sins from the city.”
The attack, it would seem, was a misjudged act of artistic intolerance on the cardinal’s part, and after Ferrari responded, reportedly stating, “The difference between me and Bergoglio is that he thinks that people who don’t think like him should be punished, condemned, while I think not even he should be punished.” Bergoglio said no more on the issue.
Relations did not improve when Néstor Kirchner’s two-term limit came to an end in 2007 and his wife, Cristina, replaced him as president. Bergoglio had begun to suspect that his office was being bugged by the Argentine security services and took to playing classical music at full volume to disrupt any recording devices when discussing issues to do with the government. It is highly probable, therefore, that music was blaring out of the archbishop’s office in the months leading up to July 2010, when a vote was scheduled to take place to legalize same-sex marriage.
Bergoglio had attacked Néstor Kirchner publicly in 2006, condemning an attempt to legalize abortion in cases of rape and other clearly extenuating circumstances. Now he took an even stronger stance on the proposed changes to the institution of marriage. In a private letter to four monasteries in Buenos Aires, Bergoglio described same-sex marriage as “the Devil’s envy, through which sin entered the world, which artfully seeks to destroy the image of God: man and woman who are mandated to grow, multiply and dominate the earth. Let’s not be naïve: it is not a simple political struggle; it is the destructive pretension against God’s plan.”
The bill was amended to give same-sex couples the freedom to adopt children, and this hardened opposition among those previously on the fence, but when Bergoglio’s letter was leaked to the media it played right into the hands of Kirchner, who declared, “It’s worrisome to hear phrases such as ‘war of God’ and ‘projects of the devil,’ which are things that send us back to medieval times and the Inquisition.” When the bill passed, many jubilant supporters in the Senate were reportedly happier about beating Bergoglio than they were about increasing people’s human rights.
Although he had lost the battle and, possibly, the opinion many had of him as a tolerant pastor, Bergoglio had toed the Vatican doctrinal line and proved himself capable of publicly defending the faith. In the world outside Rome, Bergoglio was—and would remain until his election as pope—an unknown figure. Back home in Argentina, his commitment to the poor and to social justice would never be eclipsed in the minds of those living in the villas miserias, but he had begun to alienate himself from the population living above the poverty line. Austen Ivereigh quotes an unnamed senior priest who had “spent many years working to connect the business world with the Church’s social teachings” as saying that Bergoglio “showed no interest at all in the middle-class world of Catholics—not the world of business, or banking, or the arts or university.”
Ivereigh draws an interesting comparison between Bergoglio’s devotion to the poor and his perceived dismissal of the middle classes with the parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospels, in which a father welcomes home with great festivity his errant youngest son, who has been away squandering his inheritance on prostitutes, much to the chagrin of his elder brother, who has remained at home toiling in the fields. The parable seeks to illustrate that those who have sinned are always welcomed back by God if they confess. However, the poor, on the whole, had not sinned and were victims of circumstances beyond their control, and therefore it feels more that Bergoglio’s conscious decision to favor those in need over those who perhaps attended mass more frequently and lived better lives is more akin to the Good Samaritan, who, when he saw someone in need, “had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds.”
As criticism also came from left-wing circles, who accused him of collusion with the junta during the war, there was essentially no way Bergoglio could satisfy all parties, so he “made the decision, from the start, to focus on these peripheries [villas miserias], choosing to spend some time every weekend in the new barrios” and so “evangeliz[e] the city from its margins.”
PREPARATIONS FOR AN IMPORTANT BIRTHDAY
A little over a year after his very public defeat by the Kirchner government, Jorge Bergoglio was growing weary. Having resigned his post as president of the Argentine bishops when his six-year tenure came to an end in September 2011, he had just one thing on his mind: his seventy-fifth birthday, on December 17.
Giddy at the thought of being released from high office, he began to make plans for how he would spend his retirement. He selected the bedroom he wanted at the clerical retirement home in the Flores neighborhood he had grown up in. He began to mull over completing the thesis he had abandoned during the period of despondency in Frankfurt and contacted the publishers of his previous theological writings to discuss which of his other works might be of interest.
When his birthday came, Bergoglio mailed his official letter of resignation to Pope Benedict XVI. As Ivereigh describes, resignation letters “are offered nunc pro tunc (‘now for later’), for the pope to act on at some point in the future, unless health or some other imperative requires an immediate
acceptance. But he [Bergoglio] could expect his successor to be announced perhaps late in 2012 and installed in early 2013.” All he had to do was wait.
At the height of the Vatileaks scandal, in which a string of documents exposed high-level corruption, blackmail, and homosexuality within the Vatican, Bergoglio was summoned to Rome to attend a consistory in February 2012, at which a tired and frail Benedict appointed twenty-two new cardinals. But he returned to Argentina without an answer to his letter, and as 2012 drew to a close he began to feel that something might be amiss. Rather than let his concerns get the better of him, he continued working, putting his house in order by giving away to friends some of his vast collection of books and sorting through documents in his office.
Bergoglio was therefore completely ready for his retirement when once more he traveled to the Vatican, this time for the consistory for the canonization of the martyrs of Otrano—the elevation to sainthood of 813 Italians who were killed in 1480 by Ottoman soldiers for refusing to convert to Islam—on February 11, 2013. He told friends, “I want to leave as little as possible behind me when I take my leave from this world.”
Little did he know the enormity of the news that awaited him in Rome.
3
CONCLAVE
Eight years earlier, when the choice of the new pope by the conclave was announced, the pontiff-elect, Pope Benedict, was described by Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne as looking “a little forlorn.”
Traditionally, it is the responsibility of the dean of the College of Cardinals to ask the new pope if he accepts his role, but as the dean was Ratzinger himself, it fell to the vice dean, Cardinal Sodano. While those in the room waited, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor remembered in particular “the silence that reigned. He looked very solemn, and not only lucid, but calm.” When his answer of acceptance finally came—in Latin, of course—Joseph Ratzinger officially became the 265th pope. And when asked which name he wished to take, he did not pause for consideration. He had his answer ready. He would be known as Benedict XVI. Why “Benedict”? During his first general audience, on April 27, 2005, he stated that St. Benedict was “a courageous and authentic prophet of peace” and “a fundamental reference point for European unity and a powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian roots of his culture and civilization.”
Each of the cardinals congratulated Benedict and kissed his hand.
It is both fascinating and tragic to realize that, of the two leading candidates in the 2005 conclave, both are on record as saying they didn’t want to be pope. Benedict, upon his election, said it was like a guillotine had fallen on him. Francis said that anyone who wanted to lead the Catholic Church didn’t care very much for themselves: “I didn’t want to be pope.”
But then, who ever does want to be pope? It’s a cross. It’s too onerous. It ends only in death. There is a reason the small room Benedict was next whisked into is called the Sala delle Lacrime, the Room of Tears. Within those walls, countless popes have dissolved in tears under the weight of the responsibility that would be their end. Pope John XXIII famously said that no one tells the new pope whether they are tears of joy or of sorrow. He has to find out for himself.
But new popes must quickly put personal tears aside. Even in the minutes after their election they become the face of the Catholic Church. As Benedict later described it himself:
Actually, at that moment one is first of all occupied by very practical, external things. One has to see how to deal with the robes and such. Moreover, I knew that very soon I would have to say a few words out on the balcony, and I began to think about what I could say. Besides, even at that moment when it hit me, all I was able to say to the Lord was simply: “What are you doing with me? Now the responsibility is yours. You must lead me! I can’t do it. If you wanted me, then you must also help me!” In this sense, I stood, let us say, in an urgent dialogue relationship with the Lord: if he does the one thing he must also do the other.
“HABEMUS PAPAM”
As Benedict was choosing from the three white papal cassocks handmade by the Gammarelli family, papal tailors since 1903, seasoned Vatican correspondent John Thavis remembers sitting in the heaving press office, having “just finished prewriting two stories: one saying Cardinal Ratzinger was the new pope and the other, much shorter, saying Italian Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi had been elected,” when the first hint of smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel chimney at 5:40 P.M.
Thavis and his colleagues knew that any smoke that emerged this early in the day must mean that Ratzinger had reached a two-thirds majority in the first ballot of the afternoon, since the cardinals could not have gone through two ballots within such a short space of time. But as the crowds in St. Peter’s Square and the press corps alike strained to ascertain the color, the smoke continued to pour out of the chimney for twenty minutes without an accompanying chorus of bells. Once again, the elaborate smoke system had failed. Inside the Vatican, it was a chaotic scene, with Swiss Guards and members of the curia dashing about to alert the bell ringers that a pope had been elected, as heightened security measures meant that the phones were down around the chapel.
Even more confusion followed when the hourly chimes rang out at 6 P.M. After the previous evening’s debacle, the crowds in the square were completely flummoxed as to whether to celebrate.
Finally, when the bells of St. Peter’s, and thereafter nearly three hundred other churches in Rome, finally began to ring, at around 6:10 P.M., there could be no more doubt in the minds of the gathered faithful: they had a new pope. But back in the Room of Tears, Benedict, too, was encountering his own episode of farce. Despite having tailored the last nine popes, the illustrious Gammarellis’ tried-and-tested method—of making three ivory satin wool cassocks with silk cuffs in sizes small, medium, and large and then making a few small tweaks on the day to fit whoever had been elected pontiff—was failing. At a reasonable five feet seven inches, Benedict could hardly be described as tiny, but none of the prepared robes or shoes fit him. Still, eager to get out on the balcony and greet his people, he instructed the tailors to pin the cassock as best they could—and, for good measure, decided to keep his black sweater on underneath, due to the cold he had been suffering from during the conclave.
At 6:43 P.M. local time, Pope Benedict XVI was announced to the world with that iconic phrase first used to announce the election of Pope Martin V in 1417, “Habemus papam!” (We have a pope!) Stepping out onto the balcony, the newly elected bishop of Rome smiled broadly, raised both hands in the air toward God, and then clasped them together in thanks to the crowds. Following a brief speech and prayers, Benedict returned to the hotel with his fellow cardinals for a modest celebratory dinner of traditional German thick bean soup, dried beef salad, and champagne, followed by some Latin hymns.
On that day in 2005 when the small, quietly spoken, snowy-haired figure stepped out onto the world’s most famous balcony to raise his aged hands to the crowd of thousands in St. Peter’s Square and the millions around the world watching on television, there was not the usual rush (as attends the surprise elevation of a previously obscure cardinal) to learn something about the man suddenly thrust into the leadership of 1.1 billion faithful, because so much, good and bad, was already known about him, not only by Catholics but by the world at large. Throughout his years as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had, sometimes cruelly and sometimes gently, accumulated a great many nicknames, not just God’s Rottweiler and Panzer Kardinal, but also Cardinal No and Papa-Ratzi. As these names suggest, opinions on Cardinal Ratzinger were polarized. Some perceived him as an “aggressive German of lordly air, an ascetic who carries the cross like a sword,” while others saw him as quite the opposite: as a virtuous, simple, Fanta-drinking Bavarian scholar who had devoted his entire life to the observance of divine laws and the humble veneration of sublime and unchanging truths.
Which version was to be believed, and who exactly was the man behind this double-edged reputation?
&nbs
p; A CHILDHOOD BY THE RIVER
Born on April 16, 1927, in the small Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn, near the border with Austria, Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was the youngest of Joseph and Maria Ratzinger’s three children. The day he was born was Holy Saturday, and the devoutly Catholic family would always remember the “deep snow and teeth-clattering cold that reigned” that day. His birth on the eve of Easter meant that Joseph was baptized immediately, much to the disappointment of his elder brother, Georg, and sister, Maria, who were not permitted to attend the ceremony for fear of their catching cold.
Joseph Ratzinger Sr. was a provincial policeman, and he and his family were frequently posted to various small rural towns, though they always remained within “the triangle formed on two sides by the Inn and Salzach rivers.” This was the picturesque backdrop to what Ratzinger, in his Milestones: Memoirs 1927–1977, portrays as a bucolic childhood spent immersed in nature, scrambling up hills and tramping down valleys, or visiting the numerous churches packed into this Catholic heartland of Germany. His early life held “many beautiful memories of friendship and neighborly aid, memories of small family celebrations and of church life,” but in his memoirs he does not shy away from the great hardships faced by the family during a time of deep economic depression.
Following the end of the First World War, in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles curtailed any military strength that the German nation had left and, crucially, crippled it financially. The treaty was explicit in laying all the blame for the conflict, in black and white, at Germany’s door.
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