Pondering the possibilities of bridge-building after Benedict

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http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/pondering-the-possibilities-of-bridgebuilding-after-benedict-20130225-2f1uf.html

February 26, 2013
Paul Monk

What can be asked of the new Pope in the 21st century?


ALMOST all of the commentary following the announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he was retiring seems to have concentrated on relatively banal topics, such as what he will do now, who will succeed him and what prompted him to become the first Pope in 600 years to lay down his office rather than wait for death to take him.

His departure should lead us to reflect on two larger questions: the nature of the papacy itself and the role of religion in the 21st-century world.

Large numbers of people who call themselves Christians in our time are Protestants or evangelicals of various kinds. All these groups and curious congregations reject papal authority for historical reasons. They all in their different, often strangely literal, ways appeal to the Bible as authority. Large numbers of people who more or less still call themselves Catholics also, now, repudiate the Pope, because they regard his office as ''mediaeval'', out of touch with contemporary society and unacceptably authoritarian. Few such people will regret the retirement of Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger. He has long been regarded as a reactionary figure, trying to hold the Catholic Church back from heading down the liberal and even ''new-age'' direction they think it should take.

Yet the challenge facing Cardinal Ratzinger when he became Pope eight years ago was formidable. It was to hold a besieged Catholic Church together. It's worth putting aside our prejudices and judgments for a while to consider the nature and possibilities of the papacy. One way to do that is to consider that the Pope is the ''Pontifex Maximus'' and not just St Peter's heir. The title is Latin, of course, and literally means ''Greatest Bridge-Builder'' - from the words pons (bridge), facere (to make or build) and maximus (greatest). That is worth pondering, because it is a title taken over by the papacy from ancient Rome; much as the titles of Mary such as ''Star of the Sea'' were taken over from Isis and Venus. It has great potential symbolism now.



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