c. 2005 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ “Nomen et Omen,” the Romans of an earlier day used to say. In other words, one’s name signals one’s destiny. American Catholics who were hoping for a unifier and reformer as the next pontiff may be able to find some solace in this old Latin proverb.

By taking the name Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was consciously resurrecting the legacy of his previous namesake, Benedict XV, who ruled the church from 1914 to 1922. That earlier Benedict assumed the throne of St. Peter at a time of great turmoil, when Archduke Francis Ferdinand had just been assassinated in Sarajevo and the world was careening toward its first total war. Anguished by the prospect of the violence, Benedict exerted his spiritual forces to try to bring an end to the conflict that would reshape the Western world for the next century.

According to cardinals who emerged from the conclave, the new Pope Benedict said he also saw the Europe of today _ and by extension all of Western civilization _ poised at a critical juncture where all could be lost, only this time to the forces of secularization. While that has been the conventional wisdom thus far, there is, however, another historical analogy between the two Benedicts that both the new pope and his flock may want to heed.

The earlier Benedict tried to stop the raging internecine strife between Catholic Integralists, as conservatives were known then, and Modernists, as liberals of the day were called. A century ago, as today, the feud between these two wings of the church was fierce, with the Integralists having had the upper hand for many years under Benedict XV’s predecessor, Pope Pius X.

Throughout his papacy, Pius (1903-1914) was unrelenting in his campaign against the Modernists, forcing priests to take an oath of loyalty and branding Modernism, a kind of catch-all phrase for any sort of innovative thinking, as “the synthesis of all heresies.” He encouraged a secret society, the Sodalitium Pianum, to pass along to the Vatican the names of anyone deemed less than loyal to the pontiff’s vision. He not only excommunicated several leading thinkers but also investigated some of the church’s top cardinals.

So polarized was the church of the day that the cardinals sought to restore some balance to Catholic life by lobbying, in a hard-fought conclave, to elect Cardinal Giacomo della Chiesa as pope. Not only did della Chiesa take an irenic name in Benedict, but his first major document as pope was the encyclical Ad Beatissimi, which had as a principal aim to end the conflicts within the church.

In forceful terms, Benedict XV declared that Catholics “must devote Our earnest endeavors to appease dissension and strife, of whatever character, amongst Catholics, and to prevent new dissensions arising, so that there may be unity of ideas and of action amongst all.

“As regards matters in which without harm to faith or discipline,” he wrote, “there is room for divergent opinions, it is clearly the right of everyone to express and defend his own opinion. But in such discussions no expressions should be used which might constitute serious breaches of charity; let each one freely defend his own opinion, but let it be done with due moderation, so that no one should consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith or to discipline.”

Benedict concluded with a memorable appeal to stop labeling each other with “profane novelties of words.

“There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim `Christian is my name and Catholic my surname.”’

Unfortunately, Benedict wasn’t able to stop the Catholic infighting any more than he was able to halt World War I, and it is perhaps beyond optimism to think that Joseph Ratzinger, in his new role as the latest Pope Benedict, will reverse the Catholic polarization of today that is so reminiscent of a century ago, and too often _ say critics _ the fruit of Ratzinger’s own efforts.

As John Paul’s longtime head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith _ what used to be the church office that ran the Inquisition _ Ratzinger summarily banished theologians he suspected of dissent and was the “bad cop” to the more charismatic John Paul’s “good cop” for the past generation. Ratzinger was also clear about the need to delineate what he considered were faithful Catholics from everyone else, separating out a “saving remnant” of loyal believers that is the opposite of James Joyce’s classic “Here Comes Everybody” version of the church.

Yet as pope, Benedict XVI will have a far different job than he ever had before; he is, in a sense, a new man with a new vantage point. He indicated a more conciliatory tone after his first Mass as pontiff. The man known as “God’s Rottweiller” or the “Panzerkardinal” has a new name and he is, in a sense, the biggest blank slate in Christendom, with the authority and ability to write an entirely new chapter in church history.

“The pope is freer than you are,” John Paul II used to tell aides who felt they could not be as outspoken as they would like. When the cardinals elected him pope, Benedict XVI began enjoying that freedom. Now he has to use it.

MO/RR END RNS

(David Gibson is the author of “The Coming Catholic Church” and is writing a book on the new pope.)