The Jesuit priest Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press room during the pontificate of Benedict XVI, stressed that he was «a master of the intelligence of the faith in our time» and that he governed without «theatricality or seeking to save his own image or that of the Church itself».
«He faced the scandals that broke out during his government without theatricality or seeking to save his own image or that of the Church, but guided by a desire for truth and justice,» Lombardi said in statements to the Italian daily ‘La Repubblica’.
The also president of the Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI Foundation has stressed that his resignation from the pontificate in 2013 was an «act of government» that will be «remembered in the history books.» Above all, he stressed that he was a «master of the intelligence of the faith in our time». Thus, in declarations to the Vatican media, he assured that there is no doubt that the pontificate of Benedict XVI has been characterized more «by his magisterium than by his act of government». In the same way, he underlined that he has always presented a «faith always in dialogue with reason, a reasonable faith; a reason open to faith».
«Pope Ratzinger was rightly respected by those who live attentive to the movements of thought and spirit and seek to read events in their deepest meaning and in the long term, without stopping at the surface of events and changes,» he has assured.
According to Lombardi, he was not afraid to confront different ideas and positions, he looked with loyalty and clairvoyance at the great questions, the obscuring of the presence of God on the horizon of contemporary humanity, the questions about the future of the Church, particularly in his country and in Europe. «And he sought to face the problems with loyalty, without shying away from them, even if they were dramatic; but faith and the intelligence of faith always allowed him to find a perspective of hope,» he stressed.
Thus, he also highlighted the «intellectual and cultural value» of the man who was for 24 of the 26 years of the pontificate of his predecessor, John Paul II, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. «He was a service to the unity of the Church’s faith in the decades following the Second Vatican Council, facing tensions and challenges of the times in dialogue with Judaism, ecumenism, dialogue with other religions, confrontation with Marxism, in the context of secularization and the transformation of the vision of man and sexuality,» Lombardi pointed out.
On the other hand, he also stressed that he managed to propose a «doctrinal synthesis as broad and harmonious as that of the Catechism of the Catholic Church», welcomed by the vast majority of the ecclesial community with an «unexpected consensus, to lead this community to cross the threshold of the third millennium feeling itself to be the bearer of a message of salvation for humanity».
Lombardi also spoke of the handling of sexual abuse during the pontificate of Benedict XVI and recalled that it was the cause of «criticism and personal attacks against him until his last years, and therefore also of deep suffering.»
I am firmly convinced that he saw with ever greater clarity the seriousness of the problems and had great merit in addressing them with breadth and depth of vision in their various dimensions: listening to the victims, rigor in the search for justice in the face of the crimes, healing the wounds, establishing adequate norms and procedures, formation and prevention of evil,» Lombardi said.
He also confirmed that he always acted on the basis of truth: «Benedict XVI never worried about an image» of himself or of the Church that did not correspond to the truth.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
