Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI

MOST people of good sense mourn the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Of course, there are the usual whiners: women who want to be ordained to the priesthood, people obsessed with the scandals of misbehaving clerics who reduce an entire papacy to the criminal abuse of some erring clergy, and of course, those who pose as avant garde and considered him God's rottweiler — the vanguard of conservatism. But Joseph Ratzinger — Benedict XVI was greater than all this. He had a style different from Francis — but that is almost a truism because it merely says that persons differ in character, style and in thought.

I never met Benedict XVI in person. The closest I could get to him was when Pedro Calungsod was canonized, and the choir I direct sang at two of the Triduum Masses preceding the day of canonization that saw us all at St. Peter's Square, witnesses to the solemn proceedings of canonization. But I have read some of his works and they have left a deep impression on me. Without him ever knowing me, he has left me an intellectual and a spiritual legacy — and I believe that he has done so for the entire world.