December 31, 2025, marked the third anniversary of the death of Pope Benedict XVI. Perhaps, therefore, now is as good a time as any to look back and reflect on his legacy.
But why yet another retrospective of Pope Benedict? I think it is because his legacy is more important now than ever—especially in one important area, which I will explore here.
The famous debate
The legacy of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI includes his undeniable importance as an influential theological peritus at Vatican II. He was one of the most important periti at the Council. There is also the brilliance of all of his theological writings, texts which have enriched the Church beyond measure. As a young seminarian, I was deeply influenced by his groundbreaking book Introduction to Christianity. And I am not alone in my lofty assessment of that text.
His legacy as the Supreme Pontiff included three encyclicals, numerous speeches, and other writings. He issued the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum and established the Anglican Ordinariate, both of which created enormous ripple effects in the Church. He is also now famous for being the first pope in centuries to resign the papacy.
Nevertheless, and perhaps strangely, it seems to me that as consequential as his papacy was, it can be argued that the most important event of his post-conciliar career took place when he was still a cardinal and the head of the CDF under Pope John Paul II. This event may not have seemed quite as important in its original setting, but the passage of ecclesial time and further events have sharpened its significance.
I am speaking of the famous theological debate he had with Cardinal Walter Kasper in 2001 in the pages of America magazine concerning the proper relationship between the local and the universal Church.
The details of this debate are deftly recounted by James T. Keane in an article posted a few days after the death of Benedict, and it also contains links to the original articles of Cardinal Kasper and the subsequent response of Cardinal Ratzinger.
The essence of the disagreement
In a nutshell, Cardinal Kasper expressed a desire for the local bishop to have more authority within his diocese and more freedom from interference from Rome when it came to the proper pastoral application in concrete cases of the universal moral doctrines of the Church, as well as sacramental discipline and ecumenical outreach.
Kasper says all the right things about not changing any immutable doctrines and insists that a greater emphasis on local autonomy from Rome did not imply the opening of a Pandora’s box of pastoral mayhem, as some of his critics claimed would happen. And one of the issues he had in mind, already in 2001, was the pastoral question of communion for the divorced and civilly remarried who have not procured an annulment.
Kasper takes the unusual approach of breaking with the standard ecclesial decorum amongst cardinals and calls out the theology of Cardinal Ratzinger by name. In so doing, he was in effect giving voice to many academics in the theological guild who believed that the pontificate of John Paul II was overly oppressive toward theological disagreements with his papacy and that the CDF under Ratzinger had become little more than the theological policing arm of the regime. And this accusation later gave rise to the now-famous pejorative description of Ratzinger as the “Panzer Cardinal”. Therefore, in his response to Kasper’s article, Ratzinger pointedly describes it as an “attack” on him.
Before readers rush in to see in Kasper’s proposal nothing more than liberal modernism, three things must be kept in mind.
First, Cardinal Kasper is a brilliant theologian in his own right and can hardly be described as a straight-up “progressive” theologian, even if he has some leanings in a more liberal direction. In other words, his “attack” on Ratzinger was taken seriously by Ratzinger precisely because of the theological stature of Cardinal Kasper. One could expect such an attack from Hans Küng. But et tu, Kasper?
Second, Kasper’s complaint that there is too much centralization of power in Rome and that there is a greater need for a more diffuse model of episcopal authority vis-à-vis the Vatican is hardly a wild-eyed or revolutionary claim. Even Ratzinger, in his response, acknowledges that the priority of the universal church over the local church does not necessarily imply a highly centralized apparatus. And how many traditionalists today, after what they view as the disastrous pontificate of the “liberal” Pope Francis, now speak of the horrors of what they call “hyperpapalism”?
Third, in many ways, Kasper’s call for a more merciful pastoral application of universal moral norms, especially when it comes to divorced and remarried Catholics, can be viewed uncharitably, if one so chooses, as a nod in the direction of the mores of modern liberal secularity. But it can just as easily be interpreted more charitably as a Latin Church version of the Eastern Orthodox practice of oikonomia in moral matters, especially regarding failed marriages.
Furthermore, it is an approach that seems to have gained much favor under Pope Francis and which undergirds chapter 8 in particular of Amoris Laetitia, with its now well-known call for greater pastoral “discernment” and “accompaniment” for sinners, and for the divorced and civilly remarried in particular.
I have endeavored to “steel man” the argument of Cardinal Kasper for two reasons. First, to underscore the fact that it is a theological argument of some depth and is no superficial exercise in theological cotton candy spun out of sugar into gossamer-thin liberal wispiness.
Second, to highlight the fact that the issues he raised, and to which Ratzinger responded, are still with us today and remain a bone of contention. Indeed, one could argue that it remains, next to liturgical debates, the single biggest ongoing argument within the Church.
Bishops and bishop conferences
For what was—and still is–all of this chatter about synodality if not a version of this battle of the proper relation between the local and universal Church? Furthermore, the question of the ecclesial authority to be granted to episcopal conferences is still being debated. In his many writings at the CDF (and implied in his response to Kasper) was Ratzinger’s claim that only bishops as individuals have authority, and only collectively when speaking with one voice in union with the pope through ecclesial venues such as ecumenical councils, and therefore that the ersatz invented creature of “episcopal conferences” have no authority other than consultative authority.
No less a light than the synodal Pope himself, Pope Francis, seems to have agreed with Ratzinger’s assessment that collegiality is primarily a function of the relationship of the local bishop with the Pope, and not of the relationship between the Pope and national episcopal conferences. This is important because it removes any hint of a Gallican national autonomy from the universal Church when it comes to allegedly “purely pastoral” matters.
Furthermore, it undermines the baneful tendency of national episcopal conferences to overshadow and even ride roughshod over the authority of the local bishop. Finally, it also correctly identifies the rise of national episcopal conferences as a typically modern bureaucratization of the Church with newly added “layers upon layers” of committees, subcommittees, “study groups”, and “study groups to analyze the dynamics of study groups.” In an article in the National Catholic Register covering an interview with Francis in America magazine, this point is driven home by Pope Francis:
The question is good because it speaks about the bishops. But I think it is misleading to speak of the relationship between Catholics and the bishops’ conference. The bishops’ conference is not the pastor; the pastor is the bishop. So one runs the risk of diminishing the authority of the bishop when you look only to the bishops’ conference.
“Jesus did not create bishops’ conferences,” he added. “Jesus created bishops, and each bishop is pastor of his people.”
Therefore, if Pope Leo is going to continue down the path of establishing a more “synodal Church”, it behooves us to revisit Ratzinger’s answer to Kasper.
And right out of the chute in his response, we see a vintage Ratzingerian emphasis upon the Christological foundations for our understanding of episcopal authority. And by extension, the Christological foundations for Petrine authority as the guarantor of ecclesial unity.
The theological genius of Ratzinger comes to the fore quickly as he points out (as he always pointed out) the essentially sociological and bureaucratic/political reductionism inherent in so many of the calls for structural ecclesial reform. Ratzinger had no issue with the notion of collegiality or of the need for a less centralized form of ecclesial governance. But any such reform must be grounded in the Christological truths of Revelation and not in some putatively more “democratic Church”.
A Christological foundation moves us in the direction of emphasizing the unity of the Church as the one expression of the one body of Christ, all gathered around the one Eucharistic table with a shared baptism. In other words, the universal Church, for strong Christological reasons, has theological and ontological priority over the local church. James Keane quotes Ratzinger in this regard:
The basic idea of sacred history is that of gathering together, of uniting human beings in the one body of Christ, the union of human beings and through human beings of all creation with God. There is only one bride, only one body of Christ, not many brides, not many bodies. The bride is, of course, as the fathers of the church said, drawing on Psalm 44, dressed in many-colored robes; the body has many organs. But the superordinate principle is ultimately unity. That is the point here. Variety becomes richness only through the process of unification.
Ratzinger saw the dangers of a “synodalism” that was not grounded in this Christological reality and which, in very subtle and seductive ways, substituted largely secular understandings of authority as a kind of functionalist, horizontalist proceduralism of merely human creation, for a properly theological understanding of authority in the Church as something coming “from above”.
Why it still matters today
What is at stake is the very constitution of the Church as a divinely instituted reality—a truly “theological thing” and not a purely “mundane thing”—and that the Church is not just the construct of the mythopoetic projections of some of the early followers of Jesus. What is at stake is whether there can be such a thing as a truly theandric reality grounded in a robust affirmation of the Incarnation as a divine initiative and as the dense theological event upon which all of creation turns.
The very fulcrum that balances all of human history in its wake. The Church is also human and is riddled with sins. Therefore, she is always in need of reform. But all genuine reform must be Christological and pneumatic in the sense of it constantly refocusing the Church on the paschal mystery as her deepest foundation and missional vocation. Reform cannot be based upon a purely worldly calculus of “shared power”, which is really what the Kasper proposal was ultimately all about.
And what of the hidden ends of such proposals for shared power?
What was merely latent or only vaguely hinted at during the early days of Kasper’s proposal is now openly embraced and explicitly promoted in the German synodal way. The claim is now made, in the name of “local autonomy and subsidiarity and synodality”, that the Church in Germany can now renegotiate the binding force of moral commandments in the name of “changing times”. What was once merely whispered and hinted at is now the stated goal of the German episcopal conference.
Cardinal Kasper noted in 2001 that he was at least partially motivated by his perception of a growing “gap” between the teachings of the universal Church, especially in moral matters, and the viewpoints and lifestyles of modern Germans. And therefore, he wanted the local Church to have more authority to apply those teachings with greater flexibility and mercy. In other words, to treat the universal norms of the moral law as “ideals” that nobody ever reaches perfectly and therefore should be applied in different ways to different people in different “difficult circumstances”.
What is at stake in this debate is the normative nature of moral commandments. And, as John Paul would also emphasize later in Veritatis Splendor, the moral commandments are of divine origin, grounded in divine revelation. They are not ideals to be striven for asymptotically, but binding addresses from God, calling out to human moral agency to fulfill itself in a higher theological register. Holiness is not an option for the few, but something mandated for all. And while it is true that the Church is in the business of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, she must not be the faux mercy of a secular avuncular kindness, but the mercy that provokes us and beckons us to “come up higher”.
With this debate in mind, the legacy of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict gifts us with a much-needed illumination as we debate what a “synodal Church of accompaniment” should look like. There are hopeful signs that our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, understands well what is at stake. I pray that those signs portend a robust reform of the Church in a synodal direction, but where the Church as universal is given priority, and that all bishops are “sub Petro et cum Petro” when it comes to central doctrines of faith and morals.
Along these lines, I can think of no better summation of what is at stake in the old Ratzinger/Kasper debate than a recent statement from Bishop Robert Barron on the social platform X concerning synodality:
I understand that one of the topics under consideration at the consistory of Cardinals is synodality. I’m speaking as a bishop who was an elected delegate to both rounds of the Synod on Synodality in Rome and who has just presided over a local synod in my own diocese. Synods are good and useful tools for the determination of practical pastoral strategies, but they oughtn’t to be forums for debate regarding doctrine. When settled teaching becomes a subject for synodal determination, the Church devolves into relativism and self-doubt – as is clearly evident in the misconceived “Synodal Way” in Germany. … The great Communio theologians said that councils are indeed sometimes necessary in the life of the Church but that one sighs with relief at the end of a council, for the Church can then return to its essential work. As long as it sits in council, the Church is in suspense, usure of itself, wringing its hands. It was precisely the perpetuation of the spirit of Vatican II that led to so much vacillation and drift in the years when I was coming of age.
If we must continue with synodality, let it be dedicated to the consideration of practical means by which the Church can more effectively do its work of worshipping God, evangelizing, and serving the poor. And let it not be a defining and permanent feature of the Church’s life, lest we lose our verve and focus.
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The author writes: “…in many ways, Kasper’s call for a more merciful pastoral application of universal moral norms, especially when it comes to divorced and remarried Catholics, can be viewed uncharitably, if one so chooses, as a nod in the direction of the mores of modern liberal secularity.”
The problem that I find so often with analyses of theological debates within the Church has to do with the fact that they are done in a vacuum and with no attention paid to the context of the thinking of the persons involved in the theological debate.
What I am referring to is that theological thinking arise from inside the person – an “inside” that includes their life of virtue or not and the human integrity of that person. This is especially true when the theological pertains to matters of moral teaching. This is not so much a matter of progressive vs traditional but of thinking that arises from either vice or virtue. One’s thinking can never be evaluated apart from the personal integrity and moral rectitude of the person doing the thinking. This is the issue faced by those who must consume the various “theologies” that float around the Church.
Now there are many Catholics who would emphatically state that the moral life and personal integrity of theologians is none or our business. That only God is to weigh in on a person’s moral life. That’s true when it the Final Judgment that’s at hand. But for those theologians who propose to influence the thinking on moral matters, it’s not irrelevant to ask some basic questuons such as “What do we know about the personal and lived moral life of the one doing the writing or purporting to teach others on matters of morality.”
When it comes to moral teaching and pronouncements, context does matter. It’s not only a matter of *what* a person teaches but what do we know about the *moral character* of the person doing the teaching.
Kasper was born March 5, 1933. The historically informed know what else happened that day. There must have been some contagious evil in the air that day. Of course, the zeitgeist of the times might have explained Kasper’s dismissal of the African Bishops.
TPR: That is a startling piece of history!
As an codicil to what I have written above, I would conclude with Dr. Chapp’s own words as stated in this piece:
“And, as John Paul would also emphasize later in Veritatis Splendor, the moral commandments are of divine origin, grounded in divine revelation. They are not ideals to be striven for asymptotically, but binding addresses from God, calling out to human moral agency to fulfill itself in a higher theological register.”
I responded below to your excellent post Deacon, but neglected to tap the reply button to place it below yours.
Perhaps the ruse of mongrel and layered synodality Is to be replaced, now and annually) by consultative and collegial consistories of cardinals. Not a new round of diocesan, regional, and contnental synods, all rolled up in Grech’s earlier propose “ecclesial assembly” in Rome in 2028)?
And, yet, Ratzinger did write about the need for greater communio which he even called an ecclesial assembly, while at the same time retaining the clear personal and institutional (!) responsibility of each bishop as a successor of the apostles (in his Apostolica Suo, 1998 or 2000). He also surely had a hand in crafting what is now the explicit magisterial teaching of Natural Law and moral absolutes in St. John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor (1993).
Rather than a party in debate, Kasper should be called out today as obsolete and a commonplace revisionist historian. Likewise, the synodal “process” is neither the message nor the messenger.
“If we must continue with synodality, let it be dedicated to the consideration of practical means by which the Church can more effectively do its work of worshipping God, evangelizing, and serving the poor. And let it not be a defining and permanent feature of the Church’s life, lest we lose our verve and focus.”
With all due respect, one can know through both our Catholic Faith and reason, that continuing with a synodality that serves to challenge Sacred Tradition , Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching Of The Magisterium, grounded in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture , The Deposit Of Faith, Christ Has Entrusted To His One, Holy, Catholic,And Apostolic Church, For The Salvation Of Souls, may seem to be a form of “liberation” to certain Baptized Catholics, including a form of “liberalism “, from our Baptismal promises, but in reality, “Who do you say that I Am”, is the question that must be answered correctly, if in dying, we are restored in Jesus The Christ, The Word Of Perfect Divine Eternal Infinite Love, God Incarnate. In order to worship God, you must desire to Know, Love, And Serve God, and thus desire be and remain converted, so clearly for any Baptized Catholic, continuing with a synod in order to challenge The Deposit Of Faith , is not, in essence, liberalism , but protestantism. In Love, and in Truth, First Principles matter.
Truth In Love;Love In Truth, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Amen.
Only a True Pope and those Bishops in communion with him, can do The Consecration of Russia to Our Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart exactly as Our Blessed Mother requested, visibly separating the counterfeit magisterium from The True Magisterium Of Christ.
What is needed is a Miracle, and every Miracle requires an Act of Faith.
I am not at all in disagreement with Dr. Chapp in his choice of Ratzinger v Kasper, but I would also like to single out another debate (in 2002 IIRC) in the pages of The Tablet (UK) between Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Rembert Weakland over the Ad Orientam posture of the celebrant at the Novus Ordo Roman Rite Mass, which Ratzinger advocated and Weakland disparaged.
Weakland was living proof of the adage “heresy always begins below the belt”.
Alienating $450,000 of the offerings of widows to silence his “lover” and reassigning abusive priests because he didn’t understand molestation was a crime puts him the hall of shame.
He should have convicted of crime of defalcation.
Kasper’s antithetical Ratzinger moral posture is well assessed by Larry Chapp. The Kasperian argument for reasonable space between the law and its practice. Relative to this approach are Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ former Francis confidant, Cdl Kasper, Cdl Roche, Cdl Grech, Cdl Hollerich et Al might say the Church was reconstituted by former Pope Francis. Their argument is the necessary paradigmatic change in cohesion with revelation that addresses the human condition.
It comes down to Chapp’s premise “that the moral commandments are of divine origin, grounded in divine revelation. They are not ideals to be striven for asymptotically, but binding”.
Kasper and his camp particularly Cdl Victor Fernandez prefect DDF will contend the revealed laws are ideals that can be reached though not be all because of circumstances beyond their competence to control. But the bête noire in this is that the Church recognizes mitigation as a valid culpability exculpatory dynamic. John Paul II says in Veritatis Splendor counters that we cannot apply mitigation as a form of category that extinguishes responsibility for sin.
Ultimately, it comes down to, that we know it when we see it. That Man, as argued by Aquinas throughout his opere [his ethical doctrine is not contained in a single volume. see my treatise Assent to Truth]. Man has the inborn capacity to distinguish evil from good, a natural competency realized in the act of knowing.
Should read: ideals that can be reached though not [by] all. I can add from my long experience as a priest his role in the confessional that as we are commanded to hear confessions and either absolve, or refrain for valid reasons – that we do not read minds, we are not psychiatrists. We are moral judges that make decisions based on what is evident, that is, manifest in what a person does, not necessarily on what he may think [if the penitent’s thinking is wrong we correct it]. The latter, insofar as judgment of the soul is left to God. Although it must be kept in mind that the power to bind and to loosen does not, cannot forgive an unrepentant penitent in what is manifestly serious sin.
That natural capacity to discern good from evil Fr Peter enables Catholics to recognise the protestantisation of the Mass and the Church for what it is…
Apparently your correct since it is a form evil, a diminishment.
To modify my comment MisterCN, I don’t rule out the potential of the Novus Ordo with continued improvement with the TLM as a model, as Benedict XVI envisioned as a perfectly revised form. We can take into account the conversions in Africa and Asia, Oceana as indication.
It is of highest importance to understand that the difference between Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper is that Joseph Ratzinger professed that Jesus rose from the dead, and Walter Kasper publicly denied that Jesus rose from the dead.
These are 2 men representing 2 different creeds:
1. Ratzinger believes in the Apostles Creed / Nicean Creed, that Jesus “was crucified, died and was buried. …He rose again on the 3rd day in accordance with the scriptures….”
2. Kasper outright denies the resurrection, and rejects the resurrection accounts in the Gospels, as he does all miracle accounts in the Gospels, calling them “mythology” that “we probably don’t need to believe in.” His creed, using his very own words (shown here in CAPs), is this: Jesus was ‘crucified, died and was buried…and on the 3rd day “HE OBTRUDED IN THE SPIRIT” to the apostles….’ (words in CAPs directly from his text book, Jesus the Christ, 1974, re-issued 2011).
This is sn argument between a Christian believer, Joseph Ratzinger, and an apostate from Christianity, Kasper, who is ‘Catholic-in-Costume-Only.’
Kasper is not a Christian…period. So his opinions are about his own religion, which is what Fr. Robert Imbelli alludes to as ‘The De-Capitated Body of Christ.’
How many more synods do we need?
Perhaps we could divide the current problems in the church into two categories- moral and organizational. The moral problems can be reduced to the nature of morality -static or evolutionary. Since the tradition of the Church has always been that morality is static ( fixed and unchanging) those who are challenging this position think that morality is evolving ( ie subject to change over time and space) . The Church cannot operate as a body unless it has a unified moral teaching. You can’t play a game using two sets of rules.
The second big problem of the church is Organizational- basically the chain of command. Much like the business world we need to make clear who is in charge of whom and what authority a Responsibility each office has. We have adapted conferences of Bishops and synods without defining their powers or limits and how they relate to the traditional existing structure of the Church. This has caused overlap and conflict.
Both of these major issues are serious enough that they need clarification and it seems that another Church Council is in order. Perhaps both of these problems are the result of a poor understanding and implementation of the Vatican II documents. Vatican III could start with clarifying these documents first before moving on to the other two basic problems.
In substituting “ideals” for moral absolutes, Kasper et al can’t tell Kant from Christ, or from the inborn natural law.
We are reaping the unchecked rebelliousness of post Vatican II. Only another General Council can right the ship, Bishop’s Councils and Synods lack authority and Papal pronouncements are ignored.
Brilliant comments Deacon. What I’ve always thought but never got around to creating a miniessay to coherently express it myself. The only thing we know about a theologian’s theology with absolute certainty is that it is the work of a sinner and all sinners are prone to self-serving thought, especially when their sins are pride. Fortunately, with God’s grace, any weak man with noble aspirations can put aside his lesser being long enough to give effective witness to the truth. I’ve read a lot of Ratzinger with admiration and tried to do fair justice to Kasper but haven’t been impressed, especially after his infamous forays into the process theology that effectively demotes God and validates relativism no matter how vigorously this “process” is denied.
Edward Baker: I appreciated reading your reflection. I purposely refrained from mentioning names. I would only add that one munera of bishops is that of teaching. Teaching can’t easily be separated in the case of bishops from the character of the man. We need to know something about the personal life of the man who purports to teach – especially on the topic of morals. Of course I realize that all of us sin – with no exceptions. However the man who teaches must first recognize his sin and avail himself of the Sacrament. If I were Pope (which I do not pretend to be) I would ask two essential questions to any candidate for the episcopacy. First, do you have a Spiritual Director with whom you meet regularly? Second, do you have a Confessor with whom you meet regularly?
In an interview with journalist Vittorio Messori 1984*, Ratzinger stated “the problem of the 1960s was to acquire, and therefore assimilate, to accept the best values expressed by two centuries of liberal culture.”
All previous popes warned that this was not to be done: an assimilation by the Church of the spirit of the modern world.
This Kasper-Ratzinger debate on the assimilation of liberal democracy within the divinely founded institution is symptomtic of the perversity of what Ratzinger admitted happened to Rome in the 1960s.
“Jesus” November 1984. Cited in “Tradition after Traditionis Custodes”, Angelus Press: 2024.
Kasper was part of the San Gallen Mafia who were meeting during the pontificate of JPII to prevent an election of Ratzinger by electing Bergoglio. Benedict quit in 2013 and then came the election of Bergoglio and then the divorced and remarried receiving communion proposal in the controversy of Amoris Laetitia.
Cardinal Walter Kasper envisioned a changeable, compassionate God not restricted to the law, as was congruent with the school of Jesuit theologians who lectured at the Gregoriana.
Jesuit Josef Fuchs encapsulated their thought in his text Natural Law in which he articulated a creator Word and the natural law succeeded by the Word made flesh and Christ the redeemer whose love is soteriological, with emphasis on faith and grace rather than strict adherence to the law.
Kasper was bound to clash with a once, during the Council considered somewhat liberal Ratzinger. Now strongly influenced by John Paul II and his own traditional development. Amoris Laetitia was an effort to establish Kasper’s and Fuchs’ approach among others of the Jesuit school of thought. The issue of course is the retention of the indissolubility of marriage in the face of total breakdown driven by conflated mitigation theory.
At the outset, we might question why JPII and Benedict XVI even tolerated debates like this. In both Church and state, in the past half century we ought to have learned that once you start debating what were once seen as settled truths, the progressive side has already won. We may also question why men like Kasper were even allowed into such high offices from which they could advocate for these things. I know Chapp is attempting to “steelman” the argument here, but Kasper’s tactics were already well known by this point, they were not novel nor especially brilliant. Prior to the Council you can find in books like Fr. Roussel’s Liberalism and Catholicism published in the 1920s, an overview of this modernist tactic of positing an “ideal” teaching vs. the actual lived reality as a way to undermine settled doctrine. JPII’s personnel policy seemed to include deliberating drawing from both “conservative” and “progressive” elements in appointments in the name of unity. How has this worked out practice? Its also noteworthy on that these debates, that the same courtesy is almost never accorded to the traditionalist side. Cardinal Kasper would have never had his microphone cutoff the way Cardinal Ottaviani was!