God's Choice

by George Weigel

If you are looking for a book which is all biography on Pope Benedict XVI -- as I was -- you won't find it in George Weigel's God's Choice. If on the other hand you've read Weigel's masterly Witness To Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, it's possible to see this book as its conclusion and transition to the new pontiff. At first, I confess I was a tad disappointed--not that I don't love JPII (I do!) but I bought and was reading this book looking for insight into his successor. But as I read and listened to the last debilitating days our Polish Pope spent on this earth in humble suffering, I was gently chastised, and the stage was set for the book's overriding theme, which is, come what may, the Eternal King will have His Way, thanks be to Him. And gradually I came to see the wisdom, ne the necessity of such a beginning. Weigel is seeking to show through God's Choice how indeed -- strange and unexpected though it may have seemed to the world at large -- the selection of the Bavarian Cardinal as Pope was indeed Divine, and to do so he needed to set the stage.

Roughly the book can be divided into thirds.

The first third deals with JPII's last days, his death, funeral and the conclave. Gradually Cardinal Ratzinger is introduced by Weigel and event-by-event, he is shown to be the inevitable, the only, if the somewhat reluctant choice of his church to be their leader-the reluctance being mostly on his side. As a scholarly, quiet, professorial sort of priest, Cardinal Ratzinger tried to retire home to his library in Germany several times during JPII's pontificate and was not allowed to do so.

The middle third of the book provides a brief and rather unsatisfying biography of Pope Benedict. There are some amusing anecdotes, helpful spiritual insights and facts about the man himself. On the whole it is fascinating reading, but it only whets your appetite. My guess is Weigel plans a comprehensive biography of the reigning pontiff sometime down the road to complete the trilogy begun with Witness to Hope and continued here. But the little that I did learn about the man was so enlightening, inspiring and surprising, it left me wanting to know and read him more!

The book concludes with a discussion of managerial, liturgical and inter-religious initiatives PBXVI will probably undertake during his years as pope, some of which have already been proven prophetic.

Below I have included some of my favorite anecdotal selections about Pope Benedict XVI:

In 1974, 'Josef Pieper, the German philosopher who Cardinal Ratzinger had admired during his student days urged him to get in touch with Cardinal Wojtyla who had made such a deep impression on Pieper. Ratzinger and Wojtyla began exchanging books!' ☺ (p. 178) A very propitious beginning to one of the most important friendships of the last century, don't you think?

In the post-WWII years when our current Holy Father was in seminary, he was a great lover of novels especially those by: Dostoevsky, Claudel, Bernanos and Mauriac. In fact, the book says, he "devoured" them"! ☺ (p. 164)

When his Pontificate was announced, 'amid the veritable hurricane of commentary, analysis, celebration, and toy- making*, an intriguing analysis came from what some might regard as an unexpected source: Professor Timothy George, a prominent American evangelical theologian and dean of the interdenominational Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, a Baptist institution in Alabama. Dr. George suggested to his fellow Protestants that Benedict XVI could be the "harbinger of a new reformation" and that, in any event, "his pontificate will be one of great moment for the Christian Church, not least for the evangelicals." Why?' Dr. George gave five reasons: 'because Benedict "takes truth seriously"; because his theology is Bible-focused"; because "his message is Christocentric"; because he is Augustinian in perspective"; and because "he champions the culture of life."' (p. 154) *there was a hand-made toy teddy bear made named Benedict XVI

Our current pope's 'parent's name's were Joseph and Mary (which provoked innumerable jokes in later life), and he was their third child, following his sister, Maria, born in 1921, and his brother, Georg, born in 1924.' (p. 159)

Pope John Paul's selection of Cardinal Ratzinger 'as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) disclosed several things about (his) thinking on the state of Catholic theology and its importance in the Church. The first was that John Paul II took theology very seriously indeed. Rather than appointing an experienced Church bureaucrat to head the congregation, John Paul chose a man whom everyone, including his critics, regarded as a scholar of the first rank, one of the finest Catholic theological minds of the 20th century. The appointment also suggested that the Pope, far from wanting to drive theology back into the lecture hall, wanted it to engage the world--but in a distinctively theological way. Thus he chose Ratzinger who had come to embody an updating of the Church based on a return to the sources of Catholic spiritual and intellectual vitality. And in the third place, the appointment underscored John Paul's commitment to a legitimate pluralism of methods in theology. Joseph Ratzinger was the first head of the Vatican's doctrinal office in centuries who did not take Thomas Aquinas as his theological lodestar. Both the Pope and his new prefect respected Thomas and Thomists. They also wanted a wide-ranging theological conversation to shape papal teaching.' (p. 181)

My favorite of all the stories Weigel has told about the Holy Father is this one. It concerns his choice of one of the symbols Pope Benedict chose to include in his episcopal coat of arms when he was 'appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising: a bear with a pack strapped to its back. The image came from the legend of St. Corbinian, the first bishop of Freising, who, as the legend goes, was on his way to Rome when a bear attack his horse and killed it. Corbinian scolded the bear and made it haul the pack the horse was carrying all the way to Rome. The story reminded Ratzinger of Augustine's reflections on several psalms in which the great patristic theologian speaks of having become a draft animal--a "good sturdy ox to pull God's cart in this world," as Ratzinger puts it. The paradox is that that was how the scholar, Augustine, who might have preferred not to be the bishop charged with pulling God's cart through history, came closer to God. "Just as the draft animal is closest to the farmer, doing his work for him, so is Augustine closest to God precisely through such humble service, completely within God's hand, completely His instrument." That was how Ratzinger understood his own translation from scholar to bishop: "The laden bear that took the place of Saint Corbinian's horse, or rather donkey--the bear that became his donkey against his will. Is this not an image of what I should do and of what I am?" As St. Augustine had put it, "A beast of burden have I become for you, and this is just the way for me to remain wholly yours and always abide with you." And that, in the end, was how Joseph Ratzinger had come to understand himself and his service to John Paul II.' (pp. 204-205)

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