Chapter Three

THE INTERREGNUM

Though some may wish to dispute the point, it seems abundantly clear that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, having turned seventy-eight just two days before the conclave began, did not run for the job of pope. Just before his election, he told staff members at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that he hoped the new pope would allow him a few more months on the job, and then he would step down, as he had long dreamt of doing. Three times over the course of the last fifteen years—in 1991, 1996, and 2001—Ratzinger had asked Pope John Paul II for permission to retire so that he could return to Germany, to Regensburg in his native Bavaria, to live with his brother Georg and resume writing full-time on theology, liturgy, spirituality, and ecclesiology. Each time, the Pope refused, and Ratzinger accepted his wishes, but his eagerness to set aside the burdens of office was clear to those who knew him.

Moreover, the new pope confirmed his lack of hunger for the job on Monday, April 25, just after his election, in an audience with German pilgrims.

“As slowly the balloting showed me that, so to speak, the guillotine would fall on me, I got quite dizzy,” he said. “I had thought I had done my life’s work and could now hope for a peaceful end of my days. . . . So with deep conviction, I told the Lord: ‘Don’t do this to me! You have younger and better men who can do this work with different verve and strength.’ ”

Among other things, this was undoubtedly the first time in church history that a new pope has compared his election to a death sentence.

Then, Benedict XVI conceded that his prayer had been in vain: “This time, He didn’t listen to me.”

Cynics might see this as the normal pro forma show of humility from a victor, but there’s every reason to believe that Ratzinger was deadly serious. The truth is that most cardinals do not want to be pope. On a spiritual level, cardinals take seriously the Catholic belief that the pope is Christ’s vicar on earth, and knowing themselves as they do, fully cognizant of their frailties and weaknesses, most have a hard time taking themselves seriously as a candidate for that role. On a human level, the papacy is a burden one carries from the moment of election to the moment of death. There is no six-year term to serve, followed by writing one’s memoirs and then afternoons on the golf course. It is a bone-crushing job that one is never allowed to set down, and for a man who had envisioned spending his golden years in his study, reading and writing, playing the piano, and taking quiet strolls on Bavarian afternoons, it must weigh especially heavily. For all those reasons, we are obligated to take Benedict XVI at his word: He did not want to be pope.

Yet if Joseph Ratzinger had been running for pope, it would be difficult to imagine a more skillful campaign than his performance as dean of the College of Cardinals in the period from the death of John Paul II on April 2 through the opening of the conclave on Monday, April 18. Though it is too much to say that those two weeks got him the job, without them, it’s much more difficult to imagine that Joseph Ratzinger would be sitting on the Throne of Peter today.

Ratzinger was elected dean of the College of Cardinals in December 2001, after Cardinal Bernard Gantin of Benin, having reached the age of eighty, asked to be relieved of the post. (Although cardinals lose their voting privileges at the age of eighty, it is not automatic that the dean renounces his position. In 1978, the year of two conclaves, the dean who presided over both interregnums was eighty-five-year-old Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri of Italy.) The election to replace Gantin was carried out by the ten cardinals who then constituted the order of cardinal-bishops within the College of Cardinals and was confirmed by Pope John Paul II.

Though the transition was little-noted at the time, it was perhaps the single most decisive moment in the chain of events that resulted in the election of Pope Benedict XVI. One could argue that the eighty-three-year-old Gantin, without even being present in the conclave, was among its most influential players. In a certain sense, he was the inadvertent architect of Ratzinger’s election. By making way for Ratzinger to become the dean of the College, he allowed Ratzinger to tower over the interregnum, and the momentum Ratzinger built over those two weeks proved to be unstoppable.

As the cardinals assembled in Rome, however, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Joseph Ratzinger would emerge as the next pope. Most cardinals later said that they arrived in Rome with several names running through their heads; one American cardinal told me that he entered the interregnum period with a personal list of twenty candidates he regarded as serious contenders. In that environment, cardinals had to form impressions of the various candidates quickly, and no one had a better opportunity than Ratzinger to present himself. As dean, he presided at the funeral Mass for John Paul II on April 8 and at the Mass pro eligendo papa, “for electing the pope,” which took place on April 18, the morning of the conclave. More important, he presided at the daily meetings of the General Congregation, the assembly of cardinals that proved critically influential in shaping the preconclave discussions. Because of these roles, he was also the most sought-after figure in informal conversation, giving him an unrivaled opportunity to speak with his brother cardinals one-on-one or in small groups, making him the central point of reference during the entire process. These forums gave him the chance to leave a personal impression that no other cardinal could match.

Had Joseph Ratzinger not already been an impressive candidate, his leadership during that period would likely have meant very little. (Had Gantin still been dean, for example, it’s unlikely that the exposure of those two weeks would have transformed him into a serious contender to be pope.) Yet for those cardinals who entered the deliberations with reservations about Ratzinger, and there were many, the interregnum offered an opportunity to test those reservations against the reality of the man they saw before them. The outcome suggests that Ratzinger passed the test with flying colors.

THE PRESS BLACKOUT

As noted earlier, Ratzinger was not responsible for the gag order on the College of Cardinals, preventing them from speaking to the press. In fact, the way he was blamed for the restriction in the press actually seemed to help him among some cardinals, who saw it as another instance of Ratzinger unfairly shouldering the blame for policy decisions that were not his own.

That aside, however, Ratzinger was inarguably the candidate who benefited most from the effect of the blackout, since he became by default virtually the only cardinal whose voice appeared in print or on television during the ten days between the funeral and the conclave, at least in any form other than prepackaged interviews from long ago. Not only did Ratzinger dominate the internal discussions among the cardinals, he also dominated the media discussion, mostly because there was little else to digest by way of public comment. Thus his homily at the funeral became the most-discussed bit of oratory in the preconclave period, contributing to the sense of “Big Mo,” or momentum, around his name heading into the balloting.

Why did the cardinals decide to go silent?

First, the cardinals and their press advisers understood that once the papal funeral was over, the press would shift from asking “life and legacy of John Paul II” questions to more aggressive questions about the state of the Catholic Church, and about the next pope. In general, cardinals found the second sort of question far more awkward and difficult to answer, especially given the way it invited speculation.

Second, the cardinals were concerned about protecting the liberty of the conclave. This is the reason they are cut off from the outside world once the conclave begins, so that foreign governments, activist groups, and other interested parties cannot exert influence over their deliberations. It’s the same concept as the secret ballot in democratic societies—cardinals must be free to vote for the person who, in their consciences, they feel would be the best man for the job. The concern was that in the preconclave period, the media rather than the cardinals might end up setting the agenda for their discussions.

Third, the cardinals were also concerned about honoring the vow of confidentiality they made about the daily meetings of the General Congregation, as well as the conclave itself. With the best of intentions, sometimes in conversations with journalists things slip out, and can end up having unforeseeable negative consequences. Simply saying “no” in theory insulated them from this possibility. (In reality, however, at least this motive for the policy was honored more in the breach than the observance. Each day the Italian papers were full of detailed, and remarkably accurate, reports of what had been said by various cardinals the day before.)

Fourth, there was the simple logistical fact that if cardinals were constantly shuttling from one TV location to another, they would have proportionately less time to accomplish what was the primary purpose of that week—reflecting privately with one another on the issues facing the Church, the profile of a leader needed to face those challenges, and ultimately who that leader ought to be. If they didn’t have the time to talk with one another, some argued, the quality of their deliberations might be impaired.

Fifth, some cardinals, especially those from Europe and North America, were more accustomed to dealing with a massive, at-times hostile press corps than cardinals from other places. The advantage of a blanket policy of caution was that those cardinals uncomfortable with media relations would have an automatic reason to say “no.”

Sixth and finally, this was supposed to be a period not just of political caucusing, but also of prayer. The cardinals felt they shouldn’t be so pressed that they couldn’t find the time for spiritual reading, prayer, and reflection.

These were the reasons most commonly given for the pull-back from engagement with the press. Whether they are ultimately convincing is a matter of perspective, but in any event it adds up to something more than the simple desire to pull a curtain down on the preconclave activity. More to the point, the policy, as well as the public reaction to it, gave another unforeseeable boost to the candidacy of Joseph Ratzinger.

COMPLEXITY THAT PRODUCED SIMPLICITY

Heading into the conclave of 2005, many observers regarded it as one of the most difficult conclaves to handicap in recent memory. This judgment was based on three factors:

Following the election of Karol Wojtyla in 1978, the Italian monopoly on the papacy had been shattered forever. While the next pope could be an Italian, and indeed there seemed to be some strong Italian candidates, he did not have to be Italian. The field was wide open, so that in a sense all 115 cardinals, and not just the 21 Italians, had to be regarded as potential popes. Moreover, this was the first conclave in which the Italians were not clearly “in charge,” meaning that the real candidates were not identified ahead of time by an inner group of Italian kingmakers. This time, it was the entire college that tried to grope its way toward identifying candidates, which made the preconclave dynamics much trickier.

Many of the cardinals did not know one another well. An inner core of the 115 electors, those who worked in Rome or who traveled to the Vatican regularly on business, had a good sense of one another, but other cardinals, who lived in far-flung dioceses and who did not come out of the Vatican diplomatic corps or other standard ecclesiastical career paths, knew only what they read in the newspapers or saw on television. They came into the preconclave period without a strong personal awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of the various candidates. Moreover, because of their lack of connections in Rome, it was not immediately clear to them how to plug into the informal, subterranean conversations they knew were happening. While an inner circle of cardinals began meeting almost immediately to talk things over, this other group, represented especially by residential cardinals from the global south, was much more disengaged. The unpredictability of how they might react represented a potential “wild card” heading into the deliberations. Moreover, given that most cardinals did not begin openly discussing the succession until after the funeral of John Paul II, this meant they only had ten days to come to a decision.

There was no one dominant issue looming over the conclave of 2005, as had sometimes been the case in the past. In 1878, for example, the burning issue was the so-called Roman question, of whether the papacy could resign itself to the loss of temporal power and the reality of the new Italian republic. The election of Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci of Perugia (Pope Leo XIII), in this context, was a vote for a more conciliatory approach than that of his immediate predecessor, Pius IX. In 1963, the towering issue was the fate of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), and the election of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini as Pope Paul VI was a clear signal that the cardinals wanted the council to continue. This time around, however, the cardinals listed a slew of issues that were on their minds: secularism in Western Europe, the rise of global Islam, the growing gap between rich and poor in the north and the south, and the proper balance in church governance between the center and the periphery. Before the fact, it was unclear what kind of candidate these reflections would produce.

Given the complexity the above factors suggest, many observers were expecting a protracted conclave with a surprise result. In the event, however, things shook out in exactly the opposite fashion. Rather than complicating the election of the next pope, the obvious complexity of the preconclave dynamics produced a desire for simplicity. Given the pressures of time and unfamiliarity, many cardinals concluded that rather than risking the unknown, it made more sense to opt for a “safe” choice—that is, a man whose qualities, experience, and aptitudes were known to all. (By “safe,” one should not understand an interim, caretaker figure. The point is rather that in an environment in which there was pressure to settle quickly on a candidate among a large set of unknowns, many cardinals felt the most prudent course was to opt for someone whose worldview and personal approach were well-established.) One cardinal said before the fact, “This is a choice we dare not get wrong,” and in the end it seems that most agreed this was not the time for a roll of the dice. The option they chose to cut through the complexity was a known quantity, even if it meant electing someone whose age, nationality, and controversial track record was perhaps not what some of them went into the conclave seeking.

ISSUES

Before the press blackout descended on April 8, many cardinals had given extensive interviews to the press, and a consensus view of the issues they believed would face the next pope began to emerge from these conversations. It’s worth taking a moment to examine what the cardinals saw as the agenda of the next pontificate as they entered the conclave.

Secularity

Given that the majority of cardinal electors were European (fifty-eight Europeans, as opposed to fifty-seven from everywhere else), and given that even the non-Europeans generally have spent long stretches of time in European cities, especially Rome, European realities tend to loom large in the collective imagination of the College of Cardinals. These days in Europe, those realities are often problematic for the Catholic Church.

It’s not just that the Vatican recently lost a bitter fight to have the preamble of the new European constitution make a reference to God, or that Italian politician Rocco Buttiglione was blackballed as the European commissioner of justice because of his traditional Catholic views on abortion and homosexuality, or even that the new Spanish government has waged what is tantamount to a cultural crusade against Roman Catholicism on issues such as homosexual marriage. Deeper than these specific battles, several trends converged to suggest to many observers a kind of “ecclesiastical winter” in today’s Europe:

A residual anticlericalism in many quarters that still sees the Church as an enemy of cultural progress, and that regards the Church’s primary interest as the defense of its own power and privilege;

Declining vocations to the priesthood and religious life, with some religious orders literally dying out;

Low Mass attendance rates, in some cases in the single digits in northern European countries;

Declining fertility rates, with the lowest recorded in traditional Catholic strongholds, such as Spain and Italy;

Declining cultural influence, with, for example, twelve nations that have regularized same-sex unions, and three that have granted full marriage rights to same-sex couples.

There is little question that these are tough times for institutional Christianity in Europe, so much so that some cardinals wondered if European candidates ought to be excluded from consideration as the next pope by the mere fact of being European.

“If we elect a pope from Honduras or Nigeria, there would be a very dynamic and excited local church behind him, as there was with John Paul II and Poland,” one cardinal from the developing world said April 10. “If we elect someone from Belgium or Holland, can you imagine the Belgians or the Dutch getting excited? He simply wouldn’t have the same base of support, the same energy behind him.”

It’s easy enough to identify secularity as a challenge. The hard part is knowing what to do about it, and here ideas among the cardinals tended to cluster into three main options.

First was the reform option. This current holds that in order for the Church to be a credible dialogue partner for contemporary Europe, it must better reflect the values that animate European culture— transparency, democracy, human rights. A less authoritarian church, one that is more open and accountable, will stand a better chance of finding a hearing in contemporary European conversation. “Europe” here functions as a metaphor for secularized Western culture, which is increasingly becoming the culture of the world. Danneels of Belgium is one prominent exponent of this position. He has repeatedly argued that the contemporary Western mind is allergic to arguments from authority, so that the Church needs to learn instead to speak in the language of beauty.

Another option was “aggressive engagement.” This view held that the crisis in European Catholicism is not one of structures but of nerve. The Church’s problem is that it has become too timid, too cowed by the challenges of secularism, and the danger is being assimilated to the dominant ethos of relativism and immanentism. Instead, this view held, the Church should proclaim its traditional truths loudly and boldly, with no compromise and no apology. In the end, this view held, a robustly evangelical approach will win over Europe, because it expresses the truth about the meaning and purpose of human existence. Cardinals Camillo Ruini and Angelo Scola of Italy represented this view.

Finally, a third camp believed that in the present moment, Europe (at least the post-Christian, postreligious culture of western Europe) is to some extent beyond the reach of evangelization. It’s pointless to hope that Christianity will be a mass presence in this historical period. Instead, as Ratzinger himself has said many times, the aim ought to be to make Christianity “a creative minority.” The goal should be to defend Christian identity rather than to make it acceptable to a culture hostile on principle to what it stands for, concentrating on forming a new generation excited about the faith, however small in number they may be, who can emerge at a future point when the false promises of hedonism and secularism have run their course.

These options were more like ideal types than real groupings, and most cardinals found themselves to some extent in all three, or in none, depending upon the precise question under examination. Nevertheless, the groups illustrate the complexity of the choices that faced the conclave on this question.

Governance

As already mentioned, there had been grumbling for some time among some cardinals, as well as within the Vatican, that John Paul II’s style was so directed to the outside world—through his travels, his documents, and his ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. For Americans, perhaps the most obvious manifestation of this inattention to internal business would be the sexual abuse crisis. Many American Catholics wanted John Paul II to intervene earlier and more aggressively to insist that bishops be held accountable if they failed to adequately supervise their priests, thereby placing children at risk of abuse. Instead, the Pope treated the crisis as largely a matter for the local church to resolve, restricting himself to general statements of repugnance at sexual abuse and confidence in the American bishops.

Others were frustrated with the extent to which the Roman Curia has appropriated to itself powers that previously had been reserved to local churches. Nowhere has this tendency been clearer than in the liturgy, where control of the process of liturgical translation has been recentralized in Rome. Some complained that even minor decisions are being made by Roman officials that should be left to the judgment of local authorities.

When some cardinals talked about the need for a pope more concerned with governance, they meant someone who will supervise bishops more closely, take greater personal responsibility for the appointment of bishops, and insist on a more coordinated common line in the Vatican. Others meant a pope who will “tame” the Roman Curia, insisting on a program of decentralization, known in Catholic parlance as “collegiality.” This tends to be a special concern both of progressives in the developed world, who tend to resent Roman rigidity, as well as bishops in the developing world who may be conservative on matters of doctrine but want to see some room for greater “inculturation” of that doctrine, meaning allowing it to be expressed in ways appropriate to the local culture.

The commonality among these various ways of expressing the governance issue was a widely held sense among the cardinals that the internal administration of the Church had been neglected for too long, and that the next pope needed to be a man with a proven aptitude for administration.

Islam

In the post-9/11 world, there’s a kind of general recognition that the relationship between the Islamic world and the West, and thus between Christianity and Islam, will be among the most decisive factors shaping world events. For better or worse, the Islamic world perceives the pope as the most important leader in the Christian world, and for that reason the policy of the next pope vis-à-vis Islam will be a critically important force in shaping this relationship.

Moreover, there’s a growing concern among some Christian observers that Christian energies may be flagging, especially in Europe, just as Islam is gathering momentum. Already there are more practicing Muslims who go to mosque on Fridays in the United Kingdom than Anglicans who attend services on Sunday, and estimates are that Muslims could make up one-quarter of the French population, the “eldest daughter of the Church,” within a generation. The fear in some quarters is that Europe, which has traditionally been the cradle of Christian civilization, could end up as little more than an outpost of the Islamic world.

Once again, it’s easier to name the concern than to forge policy in response to it. One group of cardinals, who could be labeled “doves” on the question of Islam, emphasized the need for ever greater levels of dialogue with different Islamic movements and institutions. They argued that because the Christian West is richer and more powerful on the global stage, it’s incumbent upon Christians to take the first step, to avoid saying or doing anything inflammatory, and to accept what at times may seem a certain irrationality and suspiciousness as part of the historical “baggage” of this relationship. It’s also important, this camp believed, to reach out to moderate centers of Islamic opinion, and to work to resolve the social justice issues that are sometimes at the root of terrorism that appeals to Islamic principles.

This view, for example, was expressed in a session with the press by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster, England.

“I would hope that the way of dialogue would increase,” Murphy-O’Connor said, “and make inroads among the other parts of Islam. This needs to be done with urgency for the sake of peace in our world.” Murphy-O’Connor argued that Islamic immigrants in Europe, including those in the United Kingdom, could become a “bridge” between the West and Muslim populations in the Arab world.

Other cardinals, however, believed that while there are plenty of moderate Muslims, “moderate Islam” is a bit of myth, at least in the sense of an organized and politically meaningful movement. The short-term future, they believed, is more likely to be characterized by conflict rather than by dialogue, especially in those zones of the world where Christians and Muslims rub shoulders: sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Catholicism should be prepared for this conflict, they suggested, through a policy more akin to “tough love.” One focus for this attitude is the issue of “reciprocity.” If Muslim immigrants to the West insist upon religious freedom and the protection of law, they argue, the same treatment should be extended to Christians in the Islamic world. If the Saudi Arabian government can spend $65 million to finance the construction of a sprawling mosque in Rome, for example, then perhaps Christians ought to be able to legally build churches in Saudi Arabia, something that is presently barred by law. Similarly, this camp was strongly convinced of the need to revitalize the Christian roots of Europe, that Europe is in a sense too important to fail. Accelerating Islamic immigration into Europe, while not a threat in itself, they suggested, nevertheless puts additional pressure on the Church to remind Europeans of their historical and cultural identity. One cardinal associated with this view is the emeritus bishop of Bologna, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi.

Rich and Poor

During the General Congregation meetings, in the latter stages when each cardinal was able to speak about the situation facing his local church, many of the cardinals from the south spoke in emotional terms about poverty, chronic underdevelopment, corruption, war, and disease. They urged their brother cardinals to engage the Church in a struggle for a more just world order, one that would reflect Christian convictions about the dignity of all persons and the universal destination of the goods of the earth. This plea was not so much a proposal for new theological reflection, since the tradition of Catholic social teaching since the late nineteenth century had already put the Church squarely on the side of the poor, but a cry from the heart for a new level of engagement and passion from the Church on the subject.

The next pope, according to these cardinals, should bring the same passion to bridging the north/south divide that John Paul II did to the rupture between East and West. Like John Paul, the pope had to be a voice of conscience for the marginalized and forgotten peoples of the world, they urged. This demand did not break down along liberal/conservative lines, as even cardinals from the south who would conventionally be seen as quite conservative doctrinally echoed the point. Whatever else the next pope does, these men seemed to be saying, he would have to confront the social reality of structural sin with energy and imagination.

THE RATZINGER SOLUTION

How did this set of issues result in the election of Joseph Ratzinger?

Unlike a secular political election, one cannot always connect the dots in clear fashion between the issues the cardinals discuss and the man they elect. First of all, they were looking for the best man, not necessarily the best platform. Cardinals often do not “vote issues” in the way journalists are accustomed to tracking them. Second, many cardinals were genuinely convinced that they had set the agenda for the next pope collectively through the General Congregation meetings, so that to some extent, in terms of these issues, it almost didn’t matter whom they elected. Having listened to the discussion, they felt, the pope would feel bound to act on it.

Yet Ratzinger’s background and set of strengths did, nevertheless, correspond well in the mind of many electors with the issues they had identified. Given his consummate mastery of the Western intellectual and cultural tradition, he seemed to many exactly the right man to engineer a response to secularism. As a proven Vatican administrator, yet a man free of the normal ties of loyalty in the Roman Curia, he could get a handle on church governance. On Islam, he was known to respect the strong doctrinal traditions of Islam and for positive dealings with Islamic leaders one-on-one, but he was also someone who would not be afraid to be tough when the situation called for it. His comments last year about Turkey’s admission to the European Union, for example, struck some external observers as provocative, but to many in the College of Cardinals, they were evidence of a man not afraid to buck a “politically correct” environment when issues of Christian identity beckon. On the north/south question, Ratzinger had shown surprising sensitivity during the General Congregation meetings, at one point insisting that the European and American cardinals limit their remarks so that cardinals from Africa and Asia could be heard.

The more the cardinals thought about what the next papacy would be like, in other words, the more they could see Joseph Ratzinger, despite his age and his reputation, doing the job.

PUBLIC PERFORMANCES

Well before John Paul II died, Joseph Ratzinger had the determined support of a number of cardinals as his successor. In the last five years, I have interviewed roughly 65 of the 115 cardinals who elected Pope Benedict XVI. Most did not discuss the names of potential candidates, preferring to talk about the issues facing the Church and the profile of the kind of man who would be necessary to face those challenges. Four cardinals, however, told me point-blank that they intended to vote for Ratzinger at least on the first ballot of the conclave, to see where his candidacy might go. They included cardinals from Latin America, the Pacific Rim, and Europe, so I knew that Ratzinger had a formidable basis of support.

At the same time, however, one North American cardinal said something I suspect was also in the backs of the minds of some electors: “Ratzinger may be the best man for the job,” he said, roughly a year ago. “But my concern is how I would sell this back home.”

During the interregnum, Ratzinger went a long way to addressing precisely those reservations, showing a more conciliatory, open, listening side of himself; proving to have surprising resources as a man on the public stage.

He exhibited these qualities first of all during the two capstone public appearances of this period, the funeral Mass and the Mass for the election of the pope that opened the conclave. We have already noted how the well-crafted homily Ratzinger delivered at the funeral Mass, combined with his surprising rapport with the crowd, suggested to some cardinals that he might have unanticipated reserves of strength as a public figure.

Having established his capacity to project a kinder, gentler image on the public stage, Ratzinger then turned in another kind of performance during the Mass pro eligendo papa on April 18, the opening day of the conclave. Delivering a powerful critique of trends in contemporary Western culture, he reminded the cardinals of why he was considered a front-runner in the first place—because, whatever one makes of the content of his positions, he possesses a powerful intellect and the courage of his convictions. This is not a man afraid to speak what he sees as the truth, however inconvenient or jarring that truth may seem.

It’s worth quoting the heart of that homily at length:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in these recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many modes of thought. . . . The small ship of thought of many Christians has often been agitated by these waves—tossed from one extreme to the other; from Marxism to liberalism, from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so on. Every day new sects are born, and what St. Paul said about the deception of humanity is demonstrated, about the craftiness that tends to lead to error. To have a clear faith, according to the Creed of the Church, is often styled as fundamentalism. Meanwhile relativism, meaning allowing oneself to be carried away “here and there by any wind of doctrine,” appears as the only attitude suited to modern times. What’s being constructed is a dictatorship of relativism, which recognizes nothing as definitive, and that regards one’s self and one’s own desires as the final measure.

We, however, have another measure: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. A faith is not “adult” that follows the waves of fashion and the latest novelty; an adult and mature faith is profoundly rooted in friendship with Christ. It’s this friendship that opens us to everything that is good, and that gives us the criterion for discerning between the true and the false, between deception and truth. We must mature in this adult faith, and it’s toward this adult faith that we must lead the flock of Christ. It’s this faith—only this faith—that creates unity and realizes itself in charity. St. Paul o fers us in this regard, in contrast with the constant vicissitudes of those who, like children, are tossed about by the waves, a beautiful word: to live the truth in charity, as a fundamental formula of Christian existence. In Christ, truth and charity coincide. To the extent that we come closer to Christ, also in our own lives, truth and charity will find a solid base. Charity without truth would be blind; the truth without charity would be like “a clashing cymbal.”

This was strong medicine, and in the immediate aftermath of the homily, some (myself included) suggested that it might actually work against Ratzinger’s candidacy. By so openly striking a negative, critical note about the surrounding culture, some felt, Ratzinger had sent exactly the wrong signal to the cardinal-electors, reminding them of the dour “enforcer” image that he had carried for the previous twenty-four years. While few cardinals would disagree with the content of what Ratzinger had said, some observers felt that cardinals might be troubled by its tone, since so many had said that above all they were seeking a pope who could offer hope to the world. Such a dark view of contemporary culture, at least in the developed West, did not seem especially optimistic, and optimism is usually the fuel of electoral politics. A few (again myself included) even greeted the homily as proof positive that Ratzinger was not running for office, in that it was the opposite of conventional political oratory.

To some extent, however, this was a case of selective attention on the part of the press and other observers. We accented the toughest parts of the homily, without paying adequate attention to the rest of the text. Here’s how Ratzinger ended his reflections:

Everyone wants to leave something that lasts. But what lasts? Not money. Buildings don’t last; neither do books. After a certain period of time, more or less lengthy, all these things disappear. The only thing that lasts into eternity is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity. The fruit that lasts is therefore what we have planted in peoples’ souls—love, understanding; the gesture capable of touching hearts; the word that opens the soul to the joy of the Lord. Therefore, let’s pray to the Lord so that he helps us to bear fruit, a fruit that lasts. Only this way can the earth be transformed from a valley of tears into the garden of God.

These were decidedly un-Ratzingerian notes, at least measured against his public image. Here was one of the principle theologians of the Catholic Church acknowledging that his own intellectual legacy, the books he produced over a lifetime, ultimately count for nothing if they don’t lead people to an experience of God’s love. Here was Ratzinger the dry academic undergoing a metamorphosis into Ratzinger the poet, talking about a “valley of tears” and “the garden of God,” about gestures capable of stirring hearts. What many cardinals took away from this homily, they said later, was a sense of admiration for a man who could both lucidly present a set of challenges, and yet not end up sounding pessimistic or defeatist.

The homily was not a campaign speech, with no soundbites, no catchphrases, no “shining city on a hill”–style rhetoric. Yet if the cardinals were looking for someone who seemed to have a read on the challenge of secularism in the West, who was not blind to its perils but seemed to have a viable Christian alternative to propose, who was a realist about what could be accomplished but not someone prepared to concede defeat, Ratzinger clearly began to loom as the obvious choice.

PRIVATE PERFORMANCES

If his public performances were important, by a universal consensus among the cardinals who lived these two weeks from the inside, it was his conduct behind closed doors that truly made the difference. Again, it’s not that his leadership in the General Congregation meetings or in informal talks with other cardinals won him the election, but rather that they were instrumental in lowering the anxieties of cardinal-electors who approached his candidacy with reservations. Reducing those anxieties was, therefore, the critical factor in transforming Ratzinger from a strong candidate but one whose capacity to reach 77 votes out of 115 remained in doubt, to something approaching a consensus choice.

What were some of those reservations?

That as a top official of the Roman Curia for twenty-four years, someone who had only a brief (two and half years) and mixed record as a diocesan bishop, Ratzinger might be insensitive to pastoral realities;

In a similar vein, that Ratzinger’s background in the Curia might leave him ill-equipped to practice collegiality—that is, collaborative governance with other cardinals and bishops, for which many bishops have long clamored;

That Ratzinger’s age and health might render him too delicate to shoulder the crushing responsibilities of the papacy, a special consideration in light of the long and very public decline during John Paul II’s final years;

That a northern European intellectual might not bring the special sensitivity to social justice issues about which many cardinals from the global south felt passionately;

That Ratzinger’s ambivalent public image might hamstring his pontificate from the beginning, deepening the polarization in a church already badly fractured in some parts of the world;

That Ratzinger’s professorial disposition, more at home in a study than on stage, might leave him incapable of transmitting the energy and dynamism that the Church needs, especially if it is to find new life in Europe.

In the period between the death of John Paul II on April 2 and the opening of the conclave on April 18, the General Congregation, the daily assembly of cardinals that met in the new synod hall inside the Vatican grounds, met thirteen times. Ratzinger presided over each session, and in the end his leadership left a deep impression, though it took a while for this impact to sink in. During the early sessions, the cardinals were constrained to go line by line through the text of Universi Dominici Gregis, John Paul’s fourteen-thousand-word document issued in February 1996 setting out the rules, in minute detail, for the election of his successor. Several cardinals privately questioned why the whole body had to study the text in such detail; since they’d all known since 1996 it would come to this one day, they asked, wouldn’t it be more productive to presume they had all read it and simply ask if there were any questions? Yet Ratzinger was doggedly determined to make sure that everyone was clear about how things would work, and perhaps just as important, to make sure that everyone had a chance to voice questions or concerns, even on relatively minor issues such as the date of the funeral and the date of the opening of the conclave. In other words, he seemed to want these to be genuinely collegial decisions, an important signal of things to come.

The atmosphere changed after the funeral, when the cardinals shifted from an examination of the rules of procedure to a much more wide-open discussion of the issues facing the Church, which gave all of them a chance to air the situation as it looked from their own local perspective. Some cardinals came out of these meetings grumbling that the atmosphere was too much like a Synod of Bishops, with long-winded speeches and little opportunity for real interaction. Several mentioned that it was especially difficult to keep the over-eighty cardinals, of whom there were between fifty and sixty in the room, to stick to the seven-minute time limit. Everyone, however, seemed impressed with the way Ratzinger guided the discussions.

First of all, whenever a cardinal raised his hand to speak, Ratzinger immediately called upon him by name. In a College of Cardinals in which some people felt they didn’t know one another especially well, here was at least one man who knew everyone. That reaction was the fruit of more than twenty-four years of meeting with cardinals during their ad limina visits to Rome, hearing their concerns when they came to the Vatican on other bits of business, taking part in the plenary assemblies of other offices of the Roman Curia alongside them, and rubbing shoulders with them at various congresses, symposia, and other ecclesiastical events. In Ratzinger, in other words, the cardinals saw someone who really knew the members of the college, not as abstractions but as individual persons.

Moreover, Ratzinger seemed to be making a genuine effort to listen, and to ensure that everyone’s voice was heard. At more than one stage in the proceedings, cardinals said, he intervened to ask those who had not yet spoken to do so. When he had to summarize a discussion, he always seemed fair to the various points of view that had been expressed. Speaking on deepest background, two cardinals said they felt Ratzinger heard them in a way that John Paul II did not always manage; one, for example, said that while John Paul II always recognized him, he sometimes had to be prompted to recall his name, something that never happened with Ratzinger. Perhaps as pope, some of them found themselves ruminating, Ratzinger would be less tempted to personalize his reign, less given to imposing his own devotional, liturgical, and stylistic tastes, and more willing to surround himself with strong collaborators who would be able to provide him with a stronger, albeit informal, system of “checks and balances.”

One cardinal said his own decision to support Ratzinger’s candidacy came during these General Congregation discussions, at a point when two cardinals with backgrounds in canon law found themselves arguing over the legal dimension of a particular problem that had arisen. Ratzinger intervened, as this cardinal remembered it, saying: “That may be what the law says, but what should our pastoral response be?” The comment, the cardinal said, convinced him that Ratzinger was not necessarily the authoritarian curial figure his public image sometimes suggested.

Critical, too, was the picture of Ratzinger’s place in the Roman Curia that emerged from these conversations. As one cardinal expressed the point, “Ratzinger is in the Curia but not of the Curia. He came in as a cardinal, and doesn’t have the same sense of loyalties and careerist logic that some others do.” In other words, cardinals who did not already know Ratzinger well, developed the sense that he would approach problems objectively, on the basis of genuine conversation with the principals, and not primarily through the prism of curial politics or bureaucratic logic.

“I really think he’ll listen to us,” one European cardinal said after the election was over. “Based on what I saw in this period, I think he will be a surprisingly collegial pope.”

Impressive, too, during this period was Ratzinger’s stamina and energy. As dean, it fell to him to guide all the meetings of the cardinals and oversee much routine administration, yet he also found time to craft powerful homilies and prepare himself for the ceremonial duties associated with the position. His keen attention during the meetings, and his capacity to follow lengthy discussions with what seemed complete comprehension, convinced a few cardinals who had doubts about his physical capacity to do the job.

Finally, Ratzinger’s linguistic skills proved an enormous electoral asset. Cardinals, like second-tier executives in any hierarchy, are concerned among other things about their access to the boss. In an international organization, language plays a key role; if the boss can’t understand you and you can’t understand him, or if at best you can only manage broken conversations that fail to convey nuance and subtext, it creates obvious communications barriers and therefore concern about whether the person in charge can truly grasp your concerns. During the informal discussions leading up to the conclave, Ratzinger always addressed cardinals in their own language (unless it happened to be a non-European language, in which case he used the major European language most familiar to that cardinal). Generally, he did so flawlessly, without any of the gaps in comprehension that often accompany someone speaking in a third or fourth language. Thus the cardinals who interacted with Ratzinger came away with a sense that this is a man with whom they could speak and be understood, without mediation or translation.

NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

Despite the gentlemanly tone of discussions among the cardinals, and their genuine desire to regard the election of the pope as a process of discernment rather than a bare-knuckled political exercise, sometimes even papal politics turn nasty. Such was the case again in 2005, as various attempts to sabotage candidates wafted through the Roman air during the interregnum.

Examples include:

Italian media reported rumors that Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice had been treated for depression, suggesting a sort of psychological instability that might disqualify him for the Church’s highest office;

Other reports pointed out that Cardinal Ivan Dias of Mumbai has diabetes, a telltale sign of ill health that might undercut what had been a growing swell of positive talk about him, at least in the local press; in addition, an e-mail campaign allegedly initiated by members of his own flock in India made the rounds, including complaints of an “unapproachable, stubborn and arrogant style.”

A book in Argentina, given wide attention in the Spanish-language media, alleged that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had been unacceptably close to the military junta that dominated that country in the 1970s, even that he was complicit in the persecution of two liberal Argentinian Jesuits, something his defenders stoutly denied; another e-mail campaign, this one claiming to originate with fellow Jesuits who knew Bergoglio back when he was the provincial of the order in Argentina, claimed that “he never smiled.”

Reports surfaced alleging that both Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, considered by some to be leading candidates, were in poor health, raising questions about their physical capacity to be pope.

No one really had the time to trace down all these rumors, and in a sense that was the point. The hope was that the mere fact that negative things were being said, whether or not they turn out to be true, would be enough to derail a particular candidacy. (In Ratzinger’s case, at least, it didn’t work, largely because the cardinals had two weeks in which to form their own assessments about his physical capacities.)

A safe rule of thumb about such reports is to assume they’re false until proof to the contrary emerges. The point is reminiscent of John Paul II’s standard line when reporters would ask about his health. “I don’t know,” he would quip. “I haven’t read the newspapers yet.” Moreover, sometimes these attempts at sabotage aren’t even especially imaginative. A friend in the Vatican diplomatic service, for example, called me during the interregnum period to ask why no one seemed to be talking about Sodano’s well-documented role in efforts to free former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet when he was detained in Great Britain in 1999, facing potential extradition to Spain. Though there are a variety of ways to interpret Sodano’s interventions, not all of them unflattering, at least a critique along these lines would have had the virtue of being rooted in reality. (In the end the point turned out to be moot, since no one took Sodano seriously as a candidate.)

This sort of murmuring is part of the inevitable backdrop to a papal campaign season, one that’s more analogous to British rather than American politics—the race lasts only a couple of weeks, instead of almost three years. In the American cycle, there’s usually time to sort out whether alleged documents about George Bush’s National Guard service, for example, are authentic or not; in the frenzy of an abbreviated papal campaign, however, there’s just no time to do that kind of leg-work.

Cardinals insisted that they were not influenced by any of this, and to some extent that’s no doubt true; many of them knew one another, and are able to form personal judgments on the matters in question. On the other hand, given the quick judgments they have to make, sometimes just the hint of skeletons in the closet can be enough to cause them to think twice. Indeed, people launch these rumors for the same reason that political advisers in the United States craft attack ads—because, like it or not, sometimes negative campaigning works. It should be emphasized that these smear campaigns originate outside the College of Cardinals, not inside, and that there is generally a very genteel, respectful tone to the discussions among the cardinals themselves. At the same time, they still had to face tough choices about what issues matter for the future of the Church, and which man is best suited to meet those challenges. Whether they liked it or not, that involves them in building coalitions and advancing candidates—in other words, in politics.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Cardinals were not relying exclusively on impressions formed during the General Congregation meetings, or in the press, to shape their attitudes toward the election. As is always the case leading up to a conclave, informal meetings were taking place around the edges, among cardinals who had been friends over long stretches of time, among cardinals who shared a similar sense of where the Church ought to go, and especially among cardinals who spoke the same language.

Unlike previous conclaves, these sessions took place almost entirely in discreet Roman locations, in the private apartments of curial members, in the national colleges where many cardinals were staying prior to their sequestration in the Casa Santa Marta, and in various ecclesiastical facilities around town. In part because of the press blackout and the consequent desire to shun publicity, cardinals for the most part stayed away from their favorite Roman trattorias during these two weeks—for some of them, this was perhaps the biggest sacrifice of the interregnum. (Not everyone followed suit, however. On the day after John Paul’s funeral, I bumped into Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, Ratzinger’s former secretary at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at Armando’s, my favorite Roman eatery just off the Borgo Pio. When I asked Bertone what he made of his former boss’s chances, he beamed.)

In the initial stages, the most important gatherings tended to take place by language group. One such get-together, for example, took place at the end of the first week at the Venerable English College on Via Monserrato, just off the Piazza Farnese, home to seminarians from Great Britain who are studying in Rome, as well as a handful of other clergy connected in one way or another to the United Kingdom. This particular get-together was hosted by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster, who emerged as a point of reference for the English-speaking cardinals in the run-up to the conclave. In such sessions, away from prying eyes and ears, cardinals were able to chat freely about various candidates, and to get a sense of what other cardinals were thinking. The English-speaking group emerged as a surprisingly important factor in the conclave, given that English is the first or second language of roughly twenty-five cardinals—four more than the entire Italian block, for example, of twenty-one.

As one cardinal put it, “Some were rather uncomfortable with the free-flowing nature of these conversations, but that’s what you have to do if you’re going to get anywhere.”

Based on after-the-fact recollections from cardinals about these informal meetings, some cardinals proved more indefatigable campaigners than others. By all accounts, one of the most articulate and forceful organizers of the pro-Ratzinger campaign was Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, perhaps the closest thing to a kingmaker in the conclave of 2005.

“When you talked to other cardinals about Ratzinger, most of them would say, yes, he’s a good candidate, but there’s also this man or that man,” one cardinal recalled after the conclave had ended. “Not Schönborn. For him, it was God’s will that Ratzinger be pope, and that was it.”

Such passion is hardly surprising, given the close ties between Schönborn and Ratzinger, which some have said is almost like a father/son dynamic. As a young Dominican theologian, Schönborn joined one of Ratzinger’s seminars while completing postdoctoral work at Regensburg, and later became a regular at annual gatherings of Ratzinger’s students. More than fifteen years ago, under Ratzinger’s patronage, Schönborn and two other priests started a residence in Rome for young men discerning a vocation to the priesthood. The name is the Casa Balthasar. The young men there are steeped in the theological works of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and Adrienne von Speyr, a visionary and lifelong collaborator with Balthasar. Over the years Ratzinger sometimes spent an evening there, and was in the habit of attending a board meeting in February. In 1987, Ratzinger named Schönborn the general editor of the new universal Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Yet no one suggests that Schönborn played the role in 2005 that his predecessor as the cardinal of Vienna, Franz König, played in 1978, thrusting a relatively unknown cardinal of Krakow into the limelight as a papal contender. Joseph Ratzinger was anything but unknown, especially within this electoral college, and he entered with a determined base of support that did not need Schönborn’s encouragement. What Schönborn was able to provide was a passionate testimony about Ratzinger’s character and heart that apparently had impact among a few fence-sitting electors.

In the week prior to the conclave, most cardinals said, the election of Joseph Ratzinger did not yet appear to them a shoo-in. Several cardinals in these informal talks expressed serious reservations, chief among them the “baggage” Ratzinger carried from his years at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. By general consensus, these concerns came especially from some of the American and German cardinals, where Ratzinger is an especially polarizing figure. This reality was the origin of a story in the Italian papers about an American/German “block” determined to veto Ratzinger’s candidacy. The reality was much more diffuse and disorganized than the story made it seem, but the hesitation among some cardinals from those two countries was real.

It’s not difficult, for example, to identify Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, as one cardinal who seemed to be striking notes that did not add up to a vote for his fellow German, Ratzinger. In a candid sermon before hundreds at Santa Maria in Trastevere on April 17, Kasper aimed to debunk perceptions that John Paul’s legacy should be seen as a litmus test for future popes.

“Just as it is forbidden to clone others, it is not possible to clone Pope John Paul II,” Kasper said. “Every pope ministers in his own way, according to the demands of his era. No one was ever simply a copy of his predecessor.”

As the head of the Vatican’s ecumenical affairs office, Kasper has openly sparred with Ratzinger over the years. He was a vocal critic of Ratzinger’s Dominus Iesus, a 2000 document that reasserted the superiority of Catholicism over other faiths and Christian denominations. He has also called for curial reform and decentralization of Vatican power, positions that contrast sharply with Ratzinger’s emphasis on the priority of the universal church. Rivalry between the two men can be traced back to their native country when Kasper, as a bishop in Rottenburg-Stuttgart, backed a pastoral letter encouraging divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to take sacraments. Ratzinger, already John Paul’s theological watchdog, rejected the letter.

Kasper opened his April 17 sermon with candid comments about what was on his mind.

“It’s easy to guess what I’m thinking about. We are about to elect a new pope in next week’s conclave,” he said. While Kasper was cautious to avoid going into a description on the next pope, he concentrated a large portion of his homily on the importance of finding a candidate with strong pastoral skills—a quality some say Ratzinger lacks.

“Like the Gospel says, the pastor needs familiarity, mutual caring, and reciprocal trust between him and his flock,” Kasper said. “Let’s not search for someone who is too scared of doubt and secularity in the modern world.”

As already noted, Ratzinger’s performance during the interregnum went a long way toward assuaging such reservations. Yet his candidacy also needed the help of a few other kingmakers, senior cardinals in the various language groups and geographical blocks who were able to address some of the concerns voiced by their brother cardinals. I interviewed one such kingmaker after the fact, asking him how he responded when concerns about Ratzinger’s “baggage” arose in these informal talks.

“I reminded them that we all know what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is about,” he said. “The top man there is somebody whose job it is to look after the faith. It’s hard to come out of that gleaming white as a kind of liberal.”

Precisely that reputation, however, this cardinal argued, might prove to be an asset.

“It’s a bit like the way de Gaulle was the only man who could have solved the problem in Algeria, because no one could question his credentials as a French nationalist,” he recalled saying to his brother cardinals. “Ratzinger may be able to do some surprising things on ecumenism, with other religions, and on collegiality, because certainly nobody will be able to accuse him of heresy.”

Further, this cardinal said, in the last analysis, he staked his argument on “the quality of the man.”

“In electing him, I felt he would be fair in listening to the real concerns of people, including the bishops,” he said. “This is the man who appeared to us over these ten days, and I think that simply overrode the other considerations.”

THE OPPOSITION

None of that should suggest, however, that the election of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI was an entirely placid affair. In fact, there was a strong current of opposition to his candidacy within the College of Cardinals, but it ultimately proved too disorganized and ineffective to halt his momentum.

One rumor that made the rounds in the preconclave period is that the extensive discussion of Ratzinger in the Italian papers was a deliberate invention of Italian cardinals, intended to cause a panicked stampede to any available alternative. According to this theory, the most plausible such alternative would be Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan. This typically Italian conspiracy theory saw the Ratzinger boomlet as a deliberate concoction intended to provide a boost to the man many saw as the leading Italian candidate. As we will see in the next chapter, if this was indeed the intent, it failed rather spectacularly, since Tettamanzi’s candidacy never caught fire. Instead, it seems the stories were based on solid reporting, meaning that Ratzinger did indeed have strong support.

One other Italian candidate who seemed slightly more plausible to some cardinals was Tettamanzi’s predecessor in Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, long considered the leading liberal candidate to be pope. Like Ratzinger, Martini is a man of unquestioned intellectual stature and cultural refinement, a talented linguist, and a proven pastoral leader. Some of the more reform-minded cardinals in the college hatched plans to make a push for Martini on the grounds that they had to fight fire with fire—if the “funeral effect” meant that a gray, transitional figure was now out of the question, that the next pope had to be a man of substance capable of winning the respect and attention of the world, Martini fit the bill.

The fatal flaw in this strategy, however, was that Martini has a form of Parkinson’s disease, and the prospect of another pope ready to begin the long, slow decline characteristic of John Paul’s final years was simply too much for many cardinals to accept. Many cardinals agreed after the fact that had it not been for this factor, Martini might well have been a serious challenger to Ratzinger, despite his age, his resignation from active duty, and his obvious disinterest in the job. The failure of the reform-minded forces to settle on an alternative candidate testifies both to their disarray, and, to some extent, to their lack of imagination.

Finally, some Latin American cardinals went into the conclave interested in the idea of electing a pope from Latin America, home to almost half of the Catholics on the planet. Many had a sense that it would be deeply meaningful for Latin American Catholicism to produce a pope, not to mention a real shot in the arm with respect to the “sects,” aggressively missionary neo-Protestant evangelical and Pentecostal movements that have been eating into traditional Catholic strongholds up and down Latin America. These cardinals by and large had settled on Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as their candidate. A Jesuit, Bergoglio has a reputation as a man of great humility, deep spirituality, and unwavering commitment to rather traditional doctrinal views. In that sense, some of the Latin Americans felt, he could attract some of the Ratzinger votes but at the same time appeal to moderates attracted to the very idea of a non-European pope.

Such was the state of things as the curtain opened on the conclave on the afternoon of Monday, April 18.