VATICAN CITY — It’s been a cold, rainy, windswept December in Rome — so wet, in fact, that the Tiber has swollen to its highest level for years. Yet until Christmas, Pope Benedict XVI was still braving the elements, holding his weekly general audiences in St. Peter’s Square to accommodate the large crowds that flock to hear him speak each week.

Indeed, on average, the Holy Father has been attracting larger audiences than did Pope John Paul II.

What the crowds show is that Benedict, in many respects, is exceeding expectations. According to papal biographer George Weigel, the Pope has successfully allayed doubts that he might not rise to the challenge of succeeding John Paul.

“Even among supporters of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s candidacy this past April, there was some concern about how he would fare publicly in the wake of the electric public personality of John Paul II and the public’s new expectations of an evangelical papacy,” said Weigel, author of the recently published Pope Benedict XVI, The Man and the Mission. “Well, the answer is now in: Pope Benedict does very well indeed.”

From winning over hearts and minds at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, to holding a private audience with dissident theologian Father Hans Küng, Benedict has surprised those who perceived him as a closed, cold and doctrinaire prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That’s partly because that perception was always inaccurate, Vatican watchers say, and partly because Joseph Ratzinger is no longer solely the Church’s defender but is also now its primary evangelizer.

In this role, the Pope is able to focus on mission and reach out to dialogue with other religions, denominations and non-believers. It is a role, according to those who know him, that is truer to his character and one that plays to his talents.

“His combination of crystal-clear teaching and self-evident decency is proving an attractive combination,” commented Weigel. “I only wish the world press would pay a little more attention — and that Catholics would, too.”

Tackling Secularism

 His new pastoral role has not prevented the Holy Father from speaking out forcefully in defense of the faith in the public square. In particular, Benedict has vigorously challenged what he has dubbed the “dictatorship of relativism” and the rampant secularism that is prevalent in Europe.

“What strikes me is the clear openness he has over and against the secular society,” said Gösta Hallonsten, a systematic theologian and former adviser of theology to the Vatican. “Time and again,” Hallonsten noted, Benedict has appealed to secular opinion and underlined that the Christian faith and the Church are “not a threat to the independence of society.”

But whereas John Paul II’s character leaned more towards optimism, his successor is considered less hopeful about some of the problems afflicting contemporary society.

“People say he’s a pessimist but he’s right to be a pessimist because things need sorting out,” said Father Ian Ker, professor of theology at St. Benet’s Hall, Oxford. “He knows how serious the problems are in the West — I don’t know how far John Paul II understood that, but Benedict knows the situation perfectly well, as he knows the situation in Germany.”

The Holy Father is committed to tackling secularism by reasserting Catholic identity and reconsidering how the Church is seen in the world. In his earlier writings, Benedict has indicated that he envisions a more dynamic Church, one focused on the quality of the faith of its members more than the quantity of their numbers.

To achieve this, the Pope is highlighting the role of the new movements and has invited their members to meet in Rome at Pentecost in June 2006. Father Ker regards the Pentecost meeting as the most positive decision Benedict has taken so far and predicts that the Holy Father’s support for the movements “will be even greater than that of John Paul II.”

Vatican II

Another key theme of the new papacy is Benedict’s firm belief the Church must interpret the Second Vatican Council correctly, as part of the development of existing Church doctrine rather than as an event that constituted a historic rupture with Catholic tradition.  According to Hallonsten, the Pope sees Vatican II as a work of “renewal, going back to the sources, pulling down the bastions and going back to the Church Fathers.”

Ensuring that this interpretation of the council is properly conveyed will require taking measures in the face of strong opposition, as demonstrated by the fierce resistance in some Church circles to last month’s instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education on the unsuitability of men with permanent homosexual tendencies in seminaries.

Even greater controversy may ensue if Benedict takes firm measures to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution for Catholic universities. Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, signaled that such a move could be in the offing in an Oct. 31 speech at the University of Notre Dame.

Archbishop Miller noted that Cardinal Ratzinger had suggested on several occasions that the Church might be wiser to abandon efforts to preserve nominal authority over institutions that had ceased to be authentically Catholic.

“For Benedict, I would venture, the measure of an institution’s Catholic identity can be judged by the integrity of its Gospel witness to the Church and the world,” Archbishop Miller told his Notre Dame audience. “If this is so, then it could mean that where secularization in a university proves to be irrevocably entrenched it might be a matter of truthfulness and justice for such an institution to no longer be considered officially Catholic.”

Curial Reform

On Church governance, it was widely anticipated that the Pope would by now have made sweeping reforms of the Roman Curia. He has yet to do so, but he has made a small number of appointments that reflect his desire to slim down ecclesiastical bureaucracy and revive a more traditional liturgy.

Particularly significant was the December appointment of Sri Lankan Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don as secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. Archbishop Ranjith was involved in the investigation that resulted in the 1997 excommunication of Father Tissa Balasuriya, a Sri Lankan priest who promoted liberation theology. He replaces Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino, who was regarded as a promoter of liturgical innovation, as the second-ranking official in the Congregation for Divine Worship.

In terms of managerial style, the Holy Father is quieter and holds fewer meetings than his predecessor. But he is more attentive to the workings of the Curia than John Paul, and there is also a more careful guarding of confidences. However, it is widely known that his first encyclical “God Is Love” is complete and will be published in January.

Looking ahead, some major tests for the Pope will be in “reforming the criteria and process by which bishops are chosen,” according to George Weigel, who added that another will be his “success in fostering a deep reform of consecrated life.”

For now, though, Pope Benedict looks set to soldier into Rome’s blustery winter weather, taking careful and purposeful steps toward fulfilling what many anticipate as a great teaching pontificate.

Edward Pentin

writes from Rome.