The Consistory of 2001 Marks the End of the Ratzinger Era

Benedictus XVI. P.P.

Function: Pope of the Holy Roman Church

Title: Servus Servorum Dei

Birthdate: Apr 16, 1927	Country: Germany

Elevated: Jun 27, 1977	More information: www.catholic-hierarchy.org, www.ratzingerfanclub.com/, www.benedictxvi.tv

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The Consistory of 2001 Marks the End of the Ratzinger Era
Sept 15, 2004
Oddities in the appointment of new cardinals in February led many to wonder what was going on in the Vatican.

(The Tablet April 28 2001) At the heart of it, according to the diplomatic correspondent and former editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, is a crucial struggle between German cardinals over the future shape of the Church. The stakes are high.

THE recent elevation of 44 new cardinals may have seemed to show that for the Catholic Church, it was business as usual. In reality the ceremony marked a radical break.

For this first consistory of the new millennium was at the same time a farewell ceremony for a whole era – the era of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The eminent prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that capable and controversial guardian of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, had enjoyed a monopoly of spiritual power under papal primacy. Now that was challenged. The consistory was both an individual personal drama and an institutional setback to Roman centralism.

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