Benedikt XVI søker ikke applaus, og er ikke interessert i å opphisse massen, men er likevel ekstremt populær. Og han har selv forklart hva hemmeligheten er: det er “å være lydig overfor sannheten, og ikke være slave av opinionen”.
Mange skriver for tida om pave Benedikt. Nylig er det kommet ut en ny bok på engelsk og italiensk “Benedict XVI, the Dawn of a New Papacy”. Boka utgis av White Star, et forlag knyttet til the National Geographic Society.
Det italienske tidsskriftet L’espresso skrev også en artikkel om paven 30. november i år, og sa bl.a.:
The numbers speak. Benedict XVI is the most popular pope in history, if by people one understands those whom he draws like a magnet to St. Peter’s Square each Sunday for the Angelus and each Wednesday for the general audience, from Rome and from all over the world.
Attendance is routinely more than twice that seen by his predecessor, John Paul II, who in his turn had shattered all the records. But the most amazing thing is the relationship between the demand and what is on offer. The winning product that Benedict XVI offers to the crowds is made of nothing but his plain words.
At the Angelus, two times out of three pope Joseph Ratzinger explains the Gospel of that Sunday’s Mass to an audience that includes people who don’t go to church every week – and some who don’t go at all. He explains this with simple words, but these demand and receive attention. There is an impressive silence in St. Peter’s Square when he is speaking. And at the end of the very short homily, he immediately begins the Angelus prayer, without even a momentary pause. This is his effective means of preventing an outbreak of applause. This does happen, but at the end of the entire ceremony, at the moment of the greetings in the various languages.
As pope, Benedict XVI doesn’t give an inch to the preconceptions that were formed about him as a cardinal. He doesn’t thunder condemnations, he doesn’t hurl anathemas. He reasons staunchly, but serenely. His criticisms against modernity or against the “pathologies” that he sees even within the Church are fully elaborated. That is part of the reason why he has practically silenced Catholic progressivism: not because this has turned friendly toward him, but because it is not able to reply to him with arguments of similar persuasive power.