Pope Benedict XVI recalled as leading Catholic theologian

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was remembered Monday by Greensburg Bishop Larry Kulick as a man who in many ways helped to shape the Roman Catholic Church as it is known today.

As a preeminent theologian in the Catholic Church, Benedict was a significant voice behind St. John Paul II, Kulick said during a Mass for the former pope at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg. Benedict died at 95 on New Year’s Eve in the Vatican Monastery in Rome. He had served as pope after the death of St. John Paul II in 2005 until he resigned for health reasons in April 2013. His funeral is scheduled for Jan. 5 in St. Peter’s Square, with his successor, Pope Francis, as celebrant.

“The eyes of the world saw his tremendous strength in some of the most difficult times and challenging times in the modern church,” Kulick told more than 75 people at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg, where a photograph of Benedict was draped in black.

Kulick characterized Benedict as “truly a man who who dedicated his entire life to God” in his six decades of serving as a parish priest and as bishop of Cologne, Germany. In his role serving with John Paul II, he was leader of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Benedict made a lasting impression on the Rev. Dan Ulishney, priest at St. John Baptist de La Salle parish in Delmont, when he was a seminarian for three years at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. Ulishney said he would see the pope on almost a weekly basis.

“He thought himself as a humble servant of God in the vineyard of the Lord. His love of Jesus comes across so clearly,” Ulishney said after the Mass.

Raymond DeFazio of Greensburg said he attended the Mass because he loved Benedict for “his simplicity. His gentleness. His great intellect. His beautiful encyclicals (papal letters sent to bishops) and his love for Christ.”

To Mary Ann Newhouse of Greensburg, Benedict “will continue to have an impact on the church” through his writings.

Before he took the name of Benedict, the German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was described by Kulick as a shy man who did not aspire to public requirements of being a pope. He would have been content to be nothing more than a parish priest or, when he was a cardinal, to be custodian of the Vatican’s library and artifacts and remain in the stacks, Kulick said. But, John Paul saw greater roles for Ratzinger, that he “must be part of the living church.”

Benedict was also known to wear red shoes. Kulick, who wore red vestments along with his co-celebrants during the Mass, said Benedict’s shoes were not a fashion statement, but that every day, he was “walking in the footsteps of the martyrs and willing to shed blood.”