The Real Ratizinger: Lover of Lovers

A nice, "aw, gee" story from Inside the Vatican's e-newsletter.

The Real Ratzinger: The Lover of Lovers

- by Anthony & Marta Valle

Who is the real Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI?

To the world he is many things; to us he is the priest who celebrated our wedding Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 24, 2004, a short 10 months before he became Pope Benedict XVI.

Who are we? Two ordinary students who met three years ago in Rome on the footsteps of a church after Mass.

What was our “connection” to the current successor of St. Peter? None. We simply asked and he said yes.

In February, 2004, we attend Cardinal Ratzinger’s weekly Mass, celebrated Thursday morning at 7 a.m. inside the Vatican in the church of the Campo Teutonico, but open to the public.

He has celebrated the Mass for many years for anyone who wishes to come.

After celebrating his Mass, then Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, emerged from the sacristy in a simple cassock and was greeted warmly by an excited crowd of people from all over the world, some to get the great theologian’s personal autograph, others to get a picture with the second most powerful prelate in the Church, and yet others to thank this holy German priest for his persevering and faithful service to Christ and the Church.

At first he struck us as somewhat timid.

However, as he approached the excited and sizeable crowd of people, he began to talk to and take interest in each individual person who has come to see him.

He answered questions in various languages, asked some of his own, occasionally cracked a joke or two, while always devoting his entire attention to each individual person in such a soft, pastoral way.

This much was obvious: the real Ratzinger was most at home as a man of the people, as a shepherd keeping watch over his flock.

It was our turn. We introduced ourselves to his eminence, reverenced his ring, engaged in some pleasant talk with him, and then – we popped the question: “We have a favor to ask of you, your Eminence”.

He waited patiently.

“Will you celebrate our wedding mass?”

“Well, let’s see what we can do. Why don’t you write a letter to me with some possible times and dates.”

“Well, actually your eminence, we already have one prepared.”

Within a week, Marta received an envelope from the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith. We open it, stunned: it is a yes!

Several months later and a few days before our wedding date, at the cardinal’s request, his secretary scheduled us to meet the cardinal. He wanted to get to know us a little better.

Being a responsible secretary, he emphasized over and over, “You only have 10 minutes with the cardinal – that is all. He is a very busy man and I am responsible for keeping his schedule.”

The door opened and we entered to be warmly received by the cardinal.

However, we exited his office some 30 minutes later, only at the end realizing that not we but rather he had far exceeded the set limit.

We talked about everything from our backgrounds, our families, and our studies to spirituality, sacred music, liturgy, theology, plainchant and polyphony.

Yet what struck us immediately about the cardinal during our private meeting with him and also when he celebrated Mass was not his towering intellectual genius, but his obvious simplicity, his humility, and his holiness.

Two days later was June 24, the day of our wedding.

We were brimming with joy since we would receive the sacrament of matrimony, be eternally wedded to each other in Christ, and all this in the Eternal City, in the Heart of the Church, from a man whose heart is clearly burning with a deep love for Christ.

The sermon was a profound meditation on the readings, particularly on Ephesians 5.

Here the cardinal passionately underscored the husband’s subordinate role to the wife in so far as the husband must sacrifice himself continuously for his wife out of a deep love for her, just as Christ sacrificed himself for his own spouse, the Church.

What made the highest-ranking prelate in the Catholic Church next to the Pope give his yes to an unknown couple’s request that he celebrate their wedding Mass?

At their wedding, what made him give such a nearly half-hour long sermon, which could -- or one could even argue -- should have been much shorter given the cardinal’s tremendous responsibilities?

What, on top of all this, compelled him to send us a personally inscribed, limited edition of his latest book as a wedding gift?

These are questions that we continually ask ourselves, and the only answer that gives itself back to us in the faintest of whispers is Love, better yet, a person so smitten by a deep and personal love for Christ that he himself becomes the Lover of Lovers.

And that is the real Ratzinger we came to know.