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As such, Ratzinger says that even if he did disagree with church teachings, he couldn't change them as pope. "The pope is thus not the chief ruler … but he ought, this is the way I usually put it, to be the guarantor of obedience, so that the church cannot simply do as she likes," he wrote in God and the World. "The pope is thus not the instrument through which one could, so to speak, call a new church into existence, but is a protective barrier against arbitrary action."

Ratzinger believes that it's the office, not the person, that makes the papacy so marvelous. "Many [earlier popes] have done everything possible to run the thing into the ground." This echoes a "confession of sins committed in the service of truth" Ratzinger offered at a major ceremony in 2000. With Pope John Paul II offering a more expansive confession of the sins of the members of the church, it fell to the defender of doctrine to confess "that even men of the church, in the name of faith and morals, have sometimes used methods not in keeping with the gospel in the solemn duty of defending the truth."

But it's not just human effort that powers the papacy, Ratzinger said in God and the World. "There is another kind of power at work behind this. In fact, exactly the kind of power that was promised to Peter."

Ratzinger agreed with journalist Peter Seewald that the papacy is an "impossible job." It's "almost unlivable," he said. "On the other hand, it is also one that has to be done—and which can, then, with the help of the Lord, nonetheless be lived after all."

That's not to say that Ratzinger might not reform aspects of the papacy. "The question remains whether it is not all far too much" he wrote. "The sheer quantity of personal contacts imposed on him by his relationship with the universal Church; the decisions that have to be made; and the necessity, amidst all this, of not losing his own contemplative footing, being rooted in prayer—all this poses an enormous dilemma. We are indeed thinking about the extent to which further relief might be found through decentralization."

But don't expect Ratzinger to convert to Protestantism. "It is becoming ever more clear today, even on the basis of rational and practical considerations, that a point of reference for unity, as offered by the pope, is truly necessary," he wrote. "Meanwhile even Protestants have said they agree there needs to be that kind of spokesman for Christianity, just such a symbol of unity."

In point of fact, Neuhaus quotes Ratzinger as saying in Salt of the Earth, the papacy will change dramatically. But only "when hitherto separated communities [e.g. Protestants] enter into unity with the pope."

That noise you hear is Al Mohler and other Protestants practicing the language of Ratzinger—and an earlier German: "Hier stehe ich! Ich kann nicht anders!" It will indeed be an interesting papacy.

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Our collection of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II articles includes more reflections on the relationship between Catholics and evangelicals.

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April (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49