There is no doubt that you were the one to provide the future Benedict XVI with a decisive step upwards in his hierarchic ascent, since Tubingen was an enormously prestigious academic appointment. Someone instantly and ironically commented mentioning “the risk involved” in summoning influential professors.
I summoned the best of all my colleagues, not mediocre people; mediocre professors summon other mediocre ones, influential professors summon influential colleagues. Ratzinger was only 37 years old in 1965, and his power to influence was confirmed by his later career. During the years of the Second Vatican Council, the man I met was a pleasant one. For three years everything worked well; together we organised a series of publications entitled, "Ecumenical Research", then he went to Regensburg and became increasingly conservative. Later he became the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
So you do not regret that summons as ‘unico loco’?
No, but later on our paths within the Church took totally different directions. He and I represent two different ways of being Catholics, one in the sense of the Roman Curia, one in the sense of the Second Vatican Council. And I am not alone; there are many who share with me the persuasion that the Church is in need of reforms. For example, only a small minority shares the official doctrine expressed in Humanae Vitae which precludes responsible birth control.
As with many others, was it your temperament that destined you to play the role of a rebel?
No, it was not my destiny. It was simply necessary for me to fight my battles. It is true that I have a powerful sense of freedom, arising from my childhood in Switzerland, during years marked by Nazism and Fascism just across the border, but also the result of my family’s culture. There were also the seven years I spent in Rome, at the Germanic and Hungarian College and at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Then there was the Second Vatican Council, which enriched me greatly, although it also led to some conflicts. It was a very interesting period. But I was not a rebel, I was capable of being obedient and of cooperating with others; I have always had many friends, I am deeply-rooted within the Catholic Christian community. I am not a lone wolf.
Conflict with the Church’s “Roman Party” has been present throughout your life. You have describes the controlling methods very crudely; the inquisition and the inquisitors, spiritual terrorism, mobbing, dossiers on dissidents, including one on you. For the record (and for historians) it also has a code number: “399/57i”.
This is true, but I have also had many friends in Rome and it was in Rome that I was able to experience extraordinary events at close hand, I followed the Papacy of Pius XII, I assisted and celebrated rites in Saint Peter’s Basilica. I am an insider in the Church’s events and have no anti-Roman feelings. It is also true that my Roman experiences have made me critical regards to a concept of the Papacy that is a 21st century product. I have been a loyal member of the Church, loyal but critical.
Your memoirs speak of your disappointments, also concerning the “Germans’ Pope”, Pius XII.
In the beginning of course we at the Germanic College were enthusiastic. It was as if he were one of us, he was cultured, he was attentive to German culture, he seemed to be more open; then he became increasingly rigid and condemnation began, with the Humani Generis by theologians such as Teilhard de Chardin and Yves Congar, warnings, purges affecting worker-priests, choices that left me with serious doubts that they were made with a Christian spirit.
And you were disappointment also with Ratzinger. There was a time when you had thought of forming, together with him and Karl Rahner, an “avant-garde club” in theological reform, in the ecumenical sense, open to the idea of redemption also for those of other faiths. Ratzinger instead is the author of the Dominus Jesus, the epistle dated 2000, closing any possible opening: nulla salus extra ecclesiam [there is no redemption outside the church].
I have had an Ecumenical viewpoint ever since my degree thesis on the great Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth and ever since my early years in Rome. But we should not forget that the Second Vatican Council confirmed the ecumenical vision; it paved the path to reconciliation with the Jews, it enhanced the Bible in the liturgy, introduced the use of national languages, acknowledged the importance of the lay status, and reformed traditional devotion. All these were positive aspects, but that was only half the story, unfortunately there was also the other half.
The “Black Week” during the Council’s third session with Paul VI, after the death of John XXIII, deleted a great deal of the good work started during the first two sessions.”
It was not only a “Black Week”. There had been opposition to the Council from the Roman Curia’s hard core throughout the entire Council, before it, during it and after it. They battled against the decree on religious freedom, the Jews, the renewal of the liturgy and they prevented the completion of the reforms leaving unsolved issues of immense importance, such as rejecting birth control entrusted to personal responsibility, the unsolved problem of mixed marriages, the issue of celibacy in the priesthood, the absence of reform of the Roman Curia, the ‘no’ to involving the clergy in appointing bishops and bishops in electing the Pope. The Dominus Jesus is only one of the documents, published during Pope Wojtyla’s papacy, marking a stage in the restoration of the status quo ante Concilium. It is a great tragedy for today’s Church that it is incapable of moving along the path indicated by the Second Vatican Council and that in Rome they continue to do everything possible to block renewal, to stop the process of ecumenical unity with the Protestants and with the Orthodox Church. Only a few words and a gesture, but not one effective deed.
More disappointments.
But my life is not just a collection of disappointments. I have written, and my work has been read and followed. I have made progress with my scientific work, with ecumenical research, and addressed the problem of Christian unity and that of peace among religions, as well as the subject of world ethics, now at the centre of my work. It is not the same as for disappointed politicians, there is a path to be followed and one I am persuaded will be useful.”
At times in your book you address “great opportunities” in your life. Could the outcome have been different?
I mentioned “great opportunities” when discussing my encounter with Pope Montini. At the end of the Second Vatican Council he invited me to enter the service of the Church. I answered: Holiness, I am already serving the Church. He had the Curia in mind, hierarchy. I did not wish to become a part of this system. It was not on principle however, it would have been different if he had really reformed the Curia. Becoming part of the current system would not have made sense for me, so I tried to make myself useful in other ways, continuing my studies, using constructive critical theology.
Can certain reforms really be encouraged from the outside? Could more not be done from within?
No, not when there is not even a hint of democracy, not when there is a regime similar to that of Louis XVI. I had no intention of becoming the court theologian. This was not a role that suited me. My destiny would have been identical to that of Ratzinger or others. I continued on my own path, just like Bing Crosby in the film ‘Going my way’.
The leading character’s story is a wonderful one, about a chaplain who refuses to obey the orders of a conservative parish priest. In all honesty, do you believe the history of this papacy is a closed chapter in the sense of its conservatism?
This Pope had made some serious mistakes; but he has also proved he is capable of self-correction. I must be grateful to him, because his predecessor never answered any of my letters and he instead immediately received me in 2005. He invited me to dinner and we spent a number of hours in intense discussion. This was a really brave thing to do. So, in spite of the many backwards steps taken, I have not lost hope that he will be capable of other brave deeds.
Translation by Francesca Simmons