My meeting with the new Pope, Benedict XVI

I have always been an admirer of Joseph Ratzinger. In the late 1980s I was introduced to his writing. He wrote simply and with immense depth. Famously, an interview with him was published in about 1987 which became known as “The Ratzinger Report”. He reassured Catholics who were feeling a bit disorientated by all the changes that had taken place since the 1960s, that the Catholic Church hadn’t “thrown the baby out with the bath water” and that the faith they believed was substantially the same as that taught by their parents and grandparents. It was just that we were trying to present it in a modern way to a world which was changing so rapidly. He wrote and spoke with wisdom, authority and immense faith.

When I was sent to Rome in 1988 to train for the priesthood I looked out for opportunities to hear Cardinal Ratzinger speak. Every week he celebrated Mass at a German church by St Peter’s but I’m afraid it was very early in the morning and I only made it there once or twice over six years. I heard him speak at a Mass to celebrate the beatification of the founder of the Catholic movement Opus Dei, that is Father Jose Maria Escriva. I recall he described him as
“one of the stars lighting up the sky of the 20^th century”.

Then in my last few weeks before returning to England for ordination as a priest, in June 1994, Cardinal Ratzinger was invited to supper at the Venerable English College where I was a student. A Catechism (that is, a compendium of Catholic teachings) for the worldwide Catholic Church had been written. Cardinal Ratzinger had chaired the commission that wrote it and he together with all the members of the commission came to the seminary for the launching of the English version of the Catechism (the official version was in Latin). When I heard he was coming I ran across Rome in the blazing sun to invest in a hardback edition of the catechism. That evening I managed to get most of the commission members to autograph my copy. A rather unusual autograph book! At supper I was sitting on a table with Cardinal Ratzinger’s private secretary. A friend introduced me to him as “a student who has read everything the Cardinal has ever written!” It wasn’t true, of course, but the secretary, Mgr Klemens, was delighted. We had a lively conversation during which I mentioned that I was about to return to England  to be ordained a priest in the little town of Whitby,
for the diocese of Middlesbrough.

The next weeks were very busy – preparing to leave Rome after six years, preparing for ordination just three days after getting back home. Then a package arrived by post:
a copy of one of Cardinal Ratzinger’s most famous books:

Introduction to Christianity.

It was not only signed by the great man, but inscribed as follows:

To Father William Massie, on the occasion of his priestly ordination:

‘Habentes ergo pontificem magnum, qui penetravit in caelis,Jesum Filium Dei, teneamus confessionem’

(which is from the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, and means: ‘Since in Jesus, the Son of God, we have a supreme high priest who has gone through to the highest heaven, we must never let go of the faith that we have professed’).

With every grace and blessing from Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
+Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Oh, how I now wish I’d remembered to write a ‘thank you’ letter!