Madam, - I am still amazed that my own immediate response on hearing that Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected Pope was one of disappointment and a sense of opportunity missed. Here was a man that I never once laid eyes on or heard speak in public before, yet my feeling on hearing of his election was one of regret.
Why so? Because the media, and RTÉ in particular, had built up an image of this man as someone totally unfit to be elected a successor of St Peter.
The Prime Time interview with the Swiss theologian Dr Hans Küng was a case in point, for Dr Küng suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger's election could be a dangerous development for the Church.
Well, I have watched Pope Benedict on three occasions this week and listened intently to his message. I certainly do not detect a personality that fits the aforementioned description. In fact, I have been very impressed by the new Pope, who strikes me as a warm, humble and caring person and whose simple message so far has been to emphasise the power of the gospels to overcome the ills of the world today.
In his homily at his inauguration, Pope Benedict said: "My real programme of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him, so that He Himself will lead the Church at this hour of our history." No sign there of any dangerous development or of the tough doctrinal enforcer the media had suggested. - Yours, etc.,
PADRAIG O'TOOLE, Knocknacarra Road, Galway.
Madam, - Your readers may be interested to hear the view of someone who lived for one year under the same roof as Cardinal Ratzinger, concelebrated the Eucharist many days a week with him and shared food with him at table on a few occasions.
He is in fact a lovely person. I was struck by his gentle, kind and friendly manner and was never afraid of him. He never pulled rank among us; instead he acted as if we were all at the same level. I also noted him at prayer and had a sense of a man with deep devotion to the Lord.
Even back then in the early 1980s I wondered if he might become a future Pope, not just because of his theology, but even more because of the good traits in his personality. So I agree with those who say he will surprise a lot of people.
In view of the hesitancy of some about him may I suggest (following his example) that we cast our eyes to that window in heaven from which John Paul II is looking down on us and hear him reassure us once more with those words: Don's be afraid! - Yours, etc.,
Fr PAUL CHURCHILL, Gracepark Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
Madam, - Before the recent papal election I suggested that the cardinals should select either 78-year-old Cardinal Ratzinger or 60-year-old Cardinal Schoenborn - preferably the former, with the latter replacing him at the Congregation for Doctrine.
My reasoning was based on two facts. One is summed up by Archbishop Diarmaid Martin's statement: "We are not losing people to another Christian church. We are losing them to a secular understanding of life". The other is the fact that, no matter how they cloak it, the only way our clergy can compete with secularism is by way of an unequivocal presentation of our Catholic beliefs. Therefore they and we need the leadership of a pope who is thoroughly familiar with those beliefs and prepared to present them unequivocally.
We could be sure of only two cardinals in that respect. They were Ratzinger, who chaired the episcopal commission that oversaw the production of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Schoenborn who, as its chief editor, worked full-time for six years to co-ordinate the worldwide consultation that produced the 600-page, 2,865-paragraph book.
In effect, for Catholics that document replaces the Bible and the Vatican II documents as our ultimate life guide. In particular, it has let us lay members disregard our clergy when they say things that are not in accord with what is in it and, in timely fashion, sets us up to know what to believe as clergy become more and more scarce.
In their 1994 introduction to the catechism Ratzinger and Schoenborn wrote: "In the confusion generated by the vicissitudes of theological hypotheses and by their often highly questionable diffusion in the mass media, lay people want to know for themselves what the Church teaches and what she does not. It seems that the eagerness with which this book has been published is almost a plebiscite of the People of God against those interests which portray the Catechism as inimical to progress, as an authoritarian Roman disciplinary act, and so on.
"It is often the case that certain circles employ such slogans merely to defend their own monopoly on opinion-making in the Church and in the world, an arrangement that they do not wish to see upset by a qualified laity."
Just how much we need to have a book that makes us independent of our clergy and other monopolisers is illustrated by Fr Sean Fagan's letter of April 21st. He quotes theologian Ratzinger as saying that an individual must obey his or her conscience, on the grounds that an individual's "conscience confronts him/her with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church. . ." That is fine. But, as we decide what our conscience indicates, how do we allow for the thinking of the "supreme and ultimate tribunal"?
Fortunately, since many of our clergy are, like Fr Fagan, content to leave us on our own in that respect, we have the relevant information in the Ratzinger-Schoenborn Catechism. We may take it or leave it, take our chances at the tribunal, and enjoy - or maybe suffer - the consequences. - Yours, etc.,
JOE FOYLE, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.