Inside the Vatican "Man of the Year": Pope Benedict XVI

Last Year and This Year

[Inside the Vatican editorial for January 2006, by Dr. Robert Moynihan]

In this issue of Inside the Vatican, the cover photo is of our "Man of the Year," Pope Benedict XVI, walking in his white papal robes, waving. He looks very happy, joyful, serene. This is perhaps the most remarkable thing so far about his pontificate: that it has been quiet, serene, even, one might say, happy.

Who would have expected it? The "image" the world had of Joseph Ratzinger the "Grand Inquisitor," intransigent head of the former "Holy Office of the Inquisition," has been totally shattered by the reality of Benedict. And so we confront the issue of image and substance, of appearance and reality. Who was Joseph Ratzinger, really? And who is Benedict XVI? Are they the same man? Or has something changed?

One thing is clear: it is in the transition from "Jospeh Ratzinger" to "Benedict XVI" that the story of this pontificate will be written. Every Pope is two men. This is so because every Pope has two names. This Pope was Joseph Ratzinger (as previous ones were Karol Wojtyla, or Eugenio Pacelli). Now he is Benedict XVI (and Wojtyla was John Paul II, and Pacelli was Pius XII). As men, they have the name their parents gave them, the names they bore as children, their baptismal names; as successors of Peter, they have new names, the ones chosen at the moment of election to the papal throne.

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