Italian current affairs programme TG2 Dossier broadcast on Saturday evening has unearthed the contents of an interview with the Cardinal of Munich just before the 1978 conclave: “It is crucial to emphasise the local importance of the papal role.”
“I would not be in favour of a non Italian Pope...”
The interview was referred to again in 1978, just before the death of Paul VI and the conclave of 26 August, in which John Paul I was to be elected Pope.
The answer came from a fifty year old German cardinal who had been at the helm of the Diocese of Munich for a year: Joseph Ratzinger.
The video was retrieved by Italian current affairs programme TG2 Dossier and was broadcast on Italian television channel Rai 2 as part of a programme dedicated to the Pope on the occasion of his 85th birthday and presented by Enzo Romeo, entitled Benedetto si racconta (Benedict tells his story).
The interviewer had asked the then cardinal Ratzinger: “Do you think you could be elected as a non Italian Pope in the future?”
Ratzinger did not exclude the possibility with the papal election result about a month away, following Pope Luciani’s mysterious death but seemed to prefer the idea of an Italian being elected to the position: “Let’s say that broadly speaking it could happen. It has happened in the past. Personally I would not really be in favour of such an election for two reasons. Firstly we must remember that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome. Not only does he have a role that is superior to others, he is also the bishop of a local church, in this case Rome. As bishop of Rome he is also responsible for the Catholic Church in the world. It is important in my opinion to stress the local importance of the papal role. That is that he is first and foremost the bishop of a city and it is crucial to emphasise this.”
According to Ratzinger, the choice made in 1978 was a consequence of the importance of this local dimension: the Pope “should come from the context in which this local Church finds itself and so should be an Italian.”
This opinion came partly as a result of Italy’s minor role on a world geopolitical scale: “I also think that now, considering the nationalist sentiment that continues to exist throughout humanity and among Christians, the most neutral thing would be to follow the tradition of past centuries and choose a Pope from this Country so that he does not adopt a political or nationalist dimension in his role, whilst maintaining traditions.”
Ratzinger made his statements on the eve of a conclave which did indeed elect an Italian as head of the Catholic Church.
But Albino Luciani died suddenly after just 33 days as Pope. In the weeks that followed, the Cardinal of Munich who had said he was in favour of the Italian candidate being elected Pope, in fact ended up voting for the first Bishop of Rome to come from a Country behind the Iron Curtain: Poland.
Indeed, John Paul II’s Polish nationality was to be crucial during his pontificate: his experience of life under the Communist regime became a key to reading the situation regarding Catholicism in other continents.
Many observers did not expect that the Bavarian cardinal, who was already getting on, would inherit the pontificate, continuing the series of non-Italian successors of St. Peter.
What value do Ratzinger’s words - rediscovered by TG2 Dossier - have today?
His thoughts on nationality are now outdated given the internationalisation of the Curia and after 34 years of service to the Catholic Church by non-Italian Popes: when Benedict XVI was elected seven years ago, no one saw the fact he was not Italian as a problem and the issue seemed to have been resolved. But the importance attributed to the local dimension of the papacy is very current: remembering the unquestionable link with the city and the Diocese of Rome and thus the fact that the Pope is Pope because he is Bishop of Rome and not vice versa, shows that the Pope cannot be likened to the president of a multinational company or to an absolute monarch who has a billion subjects.
In these “glocal” times we are living in, when globalisation and localism combine together, even a Pope from the U.S., Brazil, the Philippines or the Congo can be legitimately considered “Roman”.
Ratzinger himself, when he took charge of the papacy on 7 May 2005, said: “Dear Romans, I am now your bishop. Thank you for being so patient with me! As Catholics we are all Roman in some way or another...”