A Pope-Mortem

The story on everyone’s lips, and twitter feeds, is the stunning revelation that Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has called an end to an almost eight year reign at the helm of the Catholic Church, citing the fact that his health does not match the requirements of the job as his reasons.

At 85 years old he has become the first person in 600 years to resign from the papacy, and not die in the role. The world has changed in a number of ways since he took over from his predecessor Pope John Paul II. Namely, we saw Barack Obama elected as the first black president of the United States, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden both toppled, the Arab Spring, the explosion of Facebook, the inception of micro-blogging site Twitter and the loss of pop legend Michael Jackson.

So perhaps the most pertinent question is how did Pope Benedict XVI change the face of Catholicism in his time in charge, and has it kept up with global changes outside the church?

Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales)/Flickr

Gay Rights

In the political sphere homosexuals were granted the rights to a same sex union under the heading of a civil partnership in 2004, shortly before Pope Benedict began his papacy. Despite this change in policy activists have continued to push for gay marriage to become legal. The ground made by these protests and petitions is evidenced in the fact that earlier this month a vote in the House of Commons saw an overwhelming majority vote in favour of legalising same sex marriage. Nevertheless, returning to The Vatican it seems that no such steps have been made. In his annual Christmas message Pope Benedict denouced such protests, stating that homosexual activity was a “manipulation of nature.”

Condoms

Since the 19th Century condoms have been used as a contraceptive, and to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. However it has been well publicised since they became a sexual staple that the church condemns their use.  In 2010, following the revelation of more details of how AIDS is ravaging Africa Pope Benedict XVI announced that if used to reduce the spread of disease the church would deem their use as permissible.

Child Sex Abuse

During his time at the head of the church Pope Benedict had varying experiences on the topic of sex abuse. He was accused on a number of occasions of standing in the way of investigations into the abuse of some children at the hands of the Catholic church, as well as some revelations that he ignored letters about supposed sex abuse before starting his papacy. Furthermore some victims even called for him to be investigated at the international criminal court for crimes against humanity. Conversely he did also make some steps in the right direction, in terms of halting the abuse, and aiding the investigation into accusations of abuse.  He even managed to change church law to incorporate internet offences and to fast-track dismissal of offenders.

Consumerism And Global Economy

The world fell into financial crisis and recession during the Pope’s reign, and Ratzinger took it upon himself to produce a document advising world-wide redistribution of wealth. This piece, named Charity in Truth, formed the backbone for the G8 summit in July 2009.  He also stated he was strongly against consumerism discussing that adults were condemning the worlds children by exposing them to consumerist ideals. Of course the flip side to this argument is that the church makes an extortionate amount of money as an institution, with an income of over £400 billion per annum in 2000, this raises questions over how this money is re-distributed, and where it is being used to help the global financial crisis.

To conclude, whilst there have no doubt been some areas in which Pope Benedict XVI has not moved the church forward, he has aligned the church with modern society in some respects. The movement on the issue of using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV illustrates this well. Despite the critique there is no doubting the difficult task that the Pope faces when marrying up modern society and the historical texts that form the bedrock of Catholicism. Whatever your stance, there’s no denying that Pope Benedict XVI has most definitely left his mark with this shock resignation.

This article was written by Callum Henderson and originally appeared on the Urban Times.