It must feel weird to be described as one of the most powerful men in the world and not be able to get your viewpoint across.
I'm thinking of Pope Benedict who, if we would heed half what we have been told, is anti-woman, anti-ecumenism, anti-sex, anti-justice and anti-modern living.
The trouble with a great theologian becoming pope is that, while almost nobody knows what you've said about anything, everyone feels entitled to pontificate, even if on the basis of nothing but fourth-hand prejudice grounded in some self-serving ideological agenda.
Nevertheless, most of the negative assessment of the new Pope will petrify into conventional wisdom because the truth is complicated and, anyway, who wants to be seen defending some guy who's anti-woman, anti-ecumenism, anti-sex, anti-justice and anti-modern living?
If, for example, you read Mary Raftery's column in this slot last Thursday, you may have come away with the idea that, as Cardinal Ratzinger, the new Pope had last year written to Catholic bishops with the sole purpose of attacking feminism for making women the adversaries of men. You might also have gleaned the impression that this "attack on feminism" was symptomatic of a broader, hostile, view of women. "His profoundly pessimistic and even weird views of women are well known," wrote Raftery, "from his letter to bishops last year attacking feminism as turning women into the 'adversaries' of men, to . . ."
I would be gratified if the new Pope had indeed attacked feminism for the damage it has caused to relations between men and women. But he has yet to do so. Had he sought to attack feminists for making women the adversaries of men, the cardinal might with effectiveness have cited the feminist who alleged that all men are rapists, or the feminist who said that men are "an ontological evil in the universe".
But the letter to which Mary Raftery referred is concerned not with feminism but with "the collaboration of men and women in the church and in the world". It comprises 7,278 words: the phrase "feminist rhetoric" occurs once, the word "feminism" not at all.
There are two paragraphs that might tenuously be identified from Mary Raftery's description, the first on the opening page: "Recent years have seen new approaches to women's issues.
A first tendency is to emphasise strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism: women, in order to be themselves, must make themselves the adversaries of men. Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power.
This process leads to opposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasised to the disadvantage of the other, leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person, which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of the family."
The other reference is midway through the document: "Although a certain type of feminist rhetoric makes demands 'for ourselves', women preserve the deep intuition of the goodness in their lives of those actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other."
So, 138 out of 7,278 words might tenuously be identified from Mary Raftery's description. And, already, the alert reader will have detected in Cardinal Ratzinger's text a disapproving acknowledgment of male "abuse of power" and an exaltation of women's ability to retain integrity in a fractious world. Some "attack".
The other 7,140 words are concerned with exactly what it says on the tin. To the extent that they indicate a "weirdness" in the Ratzinger view of women, it is a beautiful weirdness. One section is headed "The Importance of Feminine Values in the Life of Society"; another, "The Importance of Feminine Values in the Life of the Church".
Cardinal Ratzinger praises women's "respect for what is concrete"; talks about the "irreplaceable role of women in all aspects of family and social life"; elaborates on John Paul II's extolling of "the genius of women"; and says that women should be "present in the world of work and in the organisation of society".
He describes how women play a role of "maximum importance" in the life of the church by recalling the dispositions of the Blessed Virgin to "listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting". It is women, he says, "who even in very desperate situations, as attested by history past and present, possess a singular capacity to persevere in adversity, to keep life going even in extreme situations, to hold tenaciously to the future, and finally to remember with tears the value of every human life".
If you doubt whether I have given a full and fair account of Cardinal Ratzinger's dissertation, then do a Google search with the words "Ratzinger", "men" and "women", and his 2004 letter to the bishops will be the first document you'll find. Reading it, I believe you will be impressed by two things: (1) the sensitivity and brilliance of the new Pope's analysis and (2) the disingenuousness of some of those who have attacked him.