First dispatch: Richard McBrien on our new pope

This is a crowd that likes to clap. Exhorted to dance, interact or do other things speakers use to whip up their audience, they’ll do so gamely, but spontaneous applause is where they really shine—they wait expectantly for each winning line. Richard McBrien, a Notre Dame theologian with a vaudeville man’s infectious grin, realized this, and warned us he’d be stepping on his best lines to save time. But the irrepressibly loquacious Fr. McBrien had a good topic—an early look at Benedict XVI’s papacy—and so he held forth, and we clapped a lot despite our warning.

Father McBrien read us a rich variety of comments published in America, pre-emptive hopes of influential Catholics for the new Pope’s approach. He pointed out that Benedict, in meeting with Hans Kung, has already moved toward an atmosphere of collegiality that John Paul II did not foster. McBrien impugned John Paul II for permitting an atmosphere of “viciousness” between Catholics on the left and the right, saying that the new Pope should live up to his title of pontifex, bridge-builder, and encourage centrism and dialogue by meeting with representatives of both sides.

McBrien’s conclusion: “I have observed nothing troubling” in the early months of Benedict’s papacy. Negative changes, he said, such as the firing of America editor Thomas Reese, had been building before the conclave and gave the wrong early impression of Benedict’s intentions. However, in contrast to John Paul II, who refused to meet with Hans Kung for 25 years, Benedict accepted the invitation immediately, extended the interview to a substantive length and wrote a statement which he asked Kung to approve before its publication. McBrien also praised Benedict’s addition of the hour of dialogue to the Eucharistic synod, drawing a big laugh by adding, “Not that the dialogue was necessarily productive, but they have to get used to it!” I think he tempered the opinions of many of us who worry about Benedict’s past as the CDF’s Rottweiler. There are indeed hopeful visions of a future marked by collaboration and dialogue moving both up and down the church ladder of power.