1962 Vatican II. Dressed in a secular suit and tie instead of a Priests Clerical clothing Fr. Joseph Ratzinger receives orientation from his mentor,
progressivist theologian Karl Rahner SJ.
Wikipedia Entry Pope Benedict Academic Career
Ratzinger became a professor at the University of Bonn in 1959; his inaugural lecture was on "The God of Faith and the God of Philosophy." In 1963, he moved to the University of Münster, where his inaugural lecture was given in a packed lecture hall, as he was already well known as a theologian[citation needed].
During this period, Ratzinger participated in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Ratzinger served as a peritus (theological consultant) to Josef Cardinal Frings of Cologne. He was viewed during the time of the Council as a reformer, cooperating with radical Modernist theologians like Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx. Ratzinger became an admirer of Karl Rahner, a well-known academic theologian of the Nouvelle Théologie and a proponent of church reform.
In 1966, Joseph Ratzinger was appointed to a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he was a colleague of Hans Küng. In his 1968 book Introduction to Christianity, he wrote that the pope has a duty to hear differing voices within the Church before making a decision, and he downplayed the centrality of the papacy. He also wrote that the Church of the time was too centralized, rule-bound and overly controlled from Rome[citation needed]. During this time, he distanced himself from the atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s that quickly radicalized, in the years 1967 and 1968, culminating in a series of disturbances and riots in April and May 1968. Ratzinger came increasingly to see these and associated developments (such as decreasing respect for authority among his students) as connected to a departure from traditional Catholic teachings.[10] Despite his reformist bent, his views increasingly came to contrast with the liberal ideas gaining currency in theological circles.[11]
Some voices, among them Hans Küng, deem this a turn towards Conservatism, while Ratzinger himself said in a 1993 interview, "I see no break in my views as a theologian [over the years]".[12] Ratzinger has continued to defend the Council against criticism, including Nostra Aetate, the document on respect of other religions, ecumenism and the declaration of the right to freedom of religion. (Later, as the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger most clearly spelled out the Catholic Church's position on other religions in the 2000 document Dominus Iesus which also talks about the Roman Catholic way to engage in ecumenical dialogue.)
During his years at Tübingen University, Ratzinger publicized articles in the reformist theological journal Concilium, though he increasingly chose less reformist themes than other contributors to the magazine such as Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx.
Wikipedia Entry Pope Benedict Atire
One item that Benedict has not worn to date is the papal tiara. Like his two immediate predecessors, Benedict chose not to be crowned with the tiara during his Inauguration Mass, nor has he worn it since that time. Unlike them, however, he has emphasized this decision by breaking with prior tradition in using a mitre instead of the tiara in his coat of arms. Other traditional pontifical vestments remain unused as well, including the fanon, the pontifical gloves, and the papal slippers.
-EWTN Benedict XVI's Coat of Arms
The coat of arms of Pope Benedict XVI incorporates both papal elements, as well as the elements of the coat of arms he bore as Archbishop of München (Munich) and Freising, and as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Miter. The miter replaces the "beehive" tiara familiar from former papal coats of arms. Pope Paul VI dropped the ceremonial use of the tiara, although he, and his immediate successors John Paul I and John Paul II, retained it in their coats of arms. Benedict XVI has replaced it with the miter, on which is emblazoned three gold bands representing "order, jurisdiction and magisterium."
These are the symbolic equivalents of the three layers of the tiara. They are connected into a unity by the vertical gold strip, representing the unity of these three kinds of authority in the person of the Supreme Pontiff.
Pallium. The use of the white pallium with red crosses draped below the shield is a new addition to papal coats of arms. It represents episcopal authority, the special kind of jurisdiction that is reserved to metropolitan archbishops in their province and to the pope universally in the Church, what is called the plenitudo pontificalis officii (i.e. the plenitude of pontifical office). The style of pallium shown on the coat of arms, with either red or black crosses on a narrow band of wool, is what is commonly known from the second millennium. At his inaugural Mass, Pope Benedict wore an older style of pallium, broad with red crosses, and hanging down from the left shoulder rather than in the middle. This style is more typical of the first millennium, and similar to the omophorion representing episcopal authority in the Eastern Church.
Crossed Keys. The two crossed keys symbolize the powers Christ gave to the Apostle Peter and to his successors.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:19)
The gold key represents the power to bind in heaven and the silver key spiritual authority on earth. The two keys are united by the cord, again indicating their essential unity in Peter and his successors.
Caput Aethiopum. According to the website of his former Archdiocese:
"The shield, which is divided into three sections, displays the “Moor of Freising." The Moor’s head, facing left and typically crowned, appeared on the coat of arms of the old principality of Freising as early as 1316, during the reign of the Bishop of Freising, Prince Konrad III, and it remained almost unchanged until the “secularization” of the Church’s estates in that region in 1802-1803. Ever since that time the archbishops of Munich and Freising have included the Caput Aethiopum, the head of an Ethiopian, in their episcopal coat of arms."
Bear of Corbinian. Also present on the coat of arms is a bear with a pack-saddle, the so-called “Bear of Corbinian." The saintly Bishop Corbinian preached the Christian faith in the Duchy of Bavaria in the 8th century and is considered the spiritual father and patron of the archdiocese. A legend states that he traveled to Rome with a bear as his pack-animal, after having commanded it to do so. Once he arrived, he released the bear from his service, and it returned to Bavaria. The implication is that "Christianity tamed and domesticated the ferocity of paganism and thus laid the foundations for a great civilization in the Duchy of Bavaria." At the same time, Corbinian’s Bear, as God’s beast of burden, symbolizes the burden of office.
Scallop Shell. The symbolism of the shell is multiple. St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (354-430 AD), was once walking along the seashore, meditating on the unfathomable mystery of the Holy Trinity. A boy was using a shell to pour seawater into a little hole. When Augustine asked him what he was doing, he replied, “I am emptying the sea into this hole.” Thus did Augustine understand that man would never penetrate to the depths of the mystery of God. Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, in 1953, wrote his doctoral dissertation on “The People of God and the House of God in Augustine’s Teaching about the Church," and therefore has a personal connection with the thought of this great Doctor of the Church.
The shell also stands for pilgrimage, for “Jacob’s staff,” a pilgrim’s staff topped with a scallop shell. In Church art it is a symbol of the apostle James the Great, and his sanctuary at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, perhaps the principal place of pilgrimage during the middle ages. This symbol alludes, as well, to “the pilgrim people of God,” a title for the Church which Joseph Ratzinger championed at the Second Vatican Council as peritus (theological adviser) to Cardinals Frings of Köln (Cologne). When he became Archbishop he took the shell in his coat of arms. It is also found in the insignia of the Schottenkloster in Regensburg, where the major seminary of that diocese is located, a place where Benedict XVI taught as a professor of theology.
We do not yet know what the motto of Pope Benedict XVI will be. However, his episcopal motto was "cooperators veritatis" (collaborators of the truth).
Hans Kueng: Giving the Devil his due
1962 Vatican II. Dressed in a secular suit and tie instead of a Priests Clerical clothing Fr. Joseph Ratzinger receives orientation from his mentor,
progressivist theologian Karl Rahner SJ.
