Papa Ratzi

I'm an evangelical and I really don't know what to make of the Pope either as a man or as an institution. Were I a fundamentalist, I suppose I could regard him as a minion of Satan preaching an earthly apostasy. But I'm not a fundamentalist. I grew up with Catholics and many of them are good people. They don't see faith quite the way I see faith, but there are still a lot Christians there. In the end my soul hurts when I think of the fracture of the Church and how much those prospects pained Jesus himself.

Internet Monk has a great article about a group of Protestants meeting then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

In 1988, representatives from the French Reformed Seminary of Aix-en-Provence in southern France where I taught for 18 years were guests at the Vatican through the auspices of some very orthodox French priests who loved Christ and the Scriptures and who wanted us to visit Rome. We were shown the more protected tourist sites, such as Peter’s tomb and the pagan necropolis under St. Peter’s Cathedral. We were also received in the private quarters of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who at the time was serving his seventh year as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Who is Ratzinger? Here is my personal testimony, for what it is worth. This very powerful ecclesiastical figure, even then the No. 2 in the Vatican hierarchy, warmly received us, an unimpressive group of French orthodox Protestant/Reformed theologians, for two hours. In the first hour, in fluent French, he gave a magnificent overview of the state of theology and of the dangers of German liberal theology in particular. His critique of Bultmann was superb. We Protestants then took an hour to present the case for orthodox Protestant theology. Cardinal Ratzinger listened with rapt attention. Our time together was not a casual, nor perfunctory “audience,” but a genuine theological exchange. I was impressed by his intellect, by his linguistic ability (fluency in at least five languages), by his theological wisdom and by his openness to biblical theology. As we left, we gave him a bound copy of Calvin’s Institutes, and he graciously accepted my article on the apostle Paul as the last apostle. Clearly my article did not change his mind about the papacy, but I have it on good authority that he has been reading the copy of Calvin’s Institutes. So that was that, I thought. However, the next day while sight-seeing in Rome I happened to meet his secretary, a French priest. “How did the Cardinal enjoy our visit?” I asked. Without hesitation he replied: “The Cardinal said he wished there was a seminary like that in the Catholic Church.”

Concerns about Catholics aside, it seems as though this Pope is a good guy worthy of respect. Not exactly my kind of guy, but hey that's why I'm Baptist. I wouldn't kiss his ring, but I would be more than willing to shake his hand and call him my brother.

UPDATE: Somehow I missed putting in a link. Oops. Fixed now.