Grech pointed out that Professor Joseph Ratzinger, as the young theologian was known then, opened his 1968 book “Introduction to Christianity” with this same story, comparing the experience of Christian believers of the day to the experience of the misunderstood clown.
“Although Ratzinger never said so explicitly, I glimpse an identification, or at least a similarity, indeed, between the story of the clown and the personal story of the Bavarian theologian pope,” the cardinal said.
Ratzinger and his family were not understood when they resisted Nazi Germany, Grech said. Nor was Ratzinger the theologian understood when, in the period after the Second Vatican Council, he questioned whether certain proposed reforms were for the good of the Church — losing friends and positions along the way.
Grech said Cardinal Ratzinger was misunderstood in Rome, too, where, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had a reputation of being rigid and inflexible.
“Ratzinger was not understood even when he resigned [as pope],” the cardinal continued. “His figure and memory are sometimes used and politicized to create an antagonism between Pope Benedict and Pope Francis.”
“These few examples clearly show how incomprehension was a constant factor in the life and mission of this man,” he said.
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