I’d like to provide a brief history lesson on the “smaller, purer Church” predicted by Pope Benedict XVI and also reaffirmed by Pope Francis on multiple occasions.

Background

Catholics in the West have witnessed what seems to be an unstoppable freefall in membership in the Church throughout our lifetimes. Much of this is the result of corruption and scandal, as well as a clerical abuse crisis that has all but destroyed whatever public credibility the Church has left. Neither Vatican II in the 1960s, nor John Paul II’s New Evangelization has made a dent in this downturn. Certainly, there are pockets in Africa and Asia where the population of the Church is growing, but this is not the case in North America, Europe, Australia, and much of Latin America. Frequent reports of church closings and dioceses declaring bankruptcy demonstrate that not only is the Church’s membership declining, but it’s also going broke.

Most Catholics who are familiar with the writing and teachings of Pope Benedict XVI have heard reference to the Church of the future being “smaller and purer.” Although this does not seem to be an exact quote from Benedict, he did make an equivalent statement in 1969 during a radio broadcast. He delivered his address when he was still Father Ratzinger, just a few years after the closing of the Second Vatican Council, but a year after his tumultuous 1968 when he was on the faculty at the University of Tübingen. He described these events as “a very violent explosion of Marxist theology,” leading him to depart for the University of Regensburg.

Many commentators have speculated that the events at Tübingen marked a turning point in Benedict’s outlook — he went from being seen as a theological liberal to a conservative. It is claimed that this shift was very dramatic — recalling that the conservative opponents of his appointment at Tübingen reportedly complained, “One Küng is enough for us” — a reference to progressive theologian Hans Küng, who was already on the faculty. This is in stark contrast to the reputation he would later have as “God’s Rottweiler” in the 1980s and 1990s. But years later the future Pope Benedict himself asserted to Vittorio Messori in The Ratzinger Report, “It is not I who have changed, but others” (p. 18).

Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say Benedict remained both a Man of the Council and a revolutionary theologian in many respects. I still maintain that his 1972 proposal for reintegrating divorced and remarried Catholics into the Church was much more radical than anything Cardinal Walter Kasper (let alone Pope Francis) ever suggested. Many critics of Pope Francis are quick to point out that Benedict rewrote part of that essay in a 2014 edition of his collected works, but this overlooks a crucial fact. If there was a turning point in Ratzinger’s theological career, it was in 1981, when Pope John Paul II named him Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. His primary responsibility was no longer to engage in theological speculation, but to assist the pope in his doctrinal teaching. And he set his personal opinion aside in deference to the teaching of John Paul, who very much disagreed with Ratzinger’s earlier position.

I think it is important to understand when in his biography Benedict made his prediction about the future of the Church, so we can better understand its context. Ratzinger was a bold young theologian from the council, seen by many as a progressive, but he was a year removed from what he described as the “traumatic memory” of his experience at Tübingen. This was also the year following the promulgation of Humanae Vitae, which led to more upheaval in the Church. It should also be noted that Pope Francis was ordained to the priesthood that same year.

The Church will “start afresh”

In the broadcast, then-Fr. Ratzinger sought to answer the question, “What will become of the Church in the future?” Here is an excerpt from his response:

From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

(A 2016 article from the Aletheia website provides this passage in fuller context) 

Nearly three decades later, in his book-length interview Salt of the Earth, written by journalist Peter Seewald, then-Cardinal Ratzinger once again took up the topic of a small Church of the future, suggesting that Catholic cultures were disappearing and that the Church may be forced to begin again:

Perhaps the time has come to say farewell to the idea of traditionally Catholic cultures. Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the Church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intensive struggle against evil and bring the good into the world — that let God in. I see that there is once more a great deal of activity of this kind. I don’t want to cite any individual examples here. There are certainly no mass conversions to Christianity, no reversal of the historical paradigm, no about-face. But there are powerful ways in which faith is present, inspiring people again and giving them dynamism and joy. In other words, there is a presence of faith that means something for the world. (p. 16)

Later in the same book, he speaks about the “upheaval” that would have to take place in the future:

The Church, too, as we have already said, will assume different forms. She will be less identified with the great societies, more a minority Church; she will live in small, vital circles of really convinced believers who live their faith. But precisely in this way she will, biblically speaking, become the salt of the earth again. In this upheaval, constancy — keeping what is essential to man from being destroyed — is once again more important, and the powers of preservation that can sustain him in his humanity are even more necessary. (p. 222)

Then, towards the conclusion of the book, he is asked about his address from 1969  — which was published in 1970 in a volume titled Faith and the Future — specifically about his suggestion that the Church would someday ordain viri probati — ordinary, working men of proven virtue — to the priesthood. He responded:

I had foreseen then, if one may put it that way, that the Church would become small, that one day she would become a Church comprising a minority of society and that she could then no longer continue with the large institutions and organizations that she has but would have to organize herself on a more modest scale. In that connection I had thought that when that happened, then, next to those priests who are ordained as young men, proven men from the professions could also advance, that, in any case, diverse forms of office would take shape. I think that this was correct insofar as the Church has to adjust herself gradually to a minority position, to another position in society. Also correct was the prediction that in particular unsalaried ministries will probably be on the rise. To what extent, then, there will be viri probati (“proven men” who come from another profession) is another question. I mean, the whole ancient Church lived on the vir probatus. Since there were not yet seminaries, she generally called men to the priesthood who had had another profession. However, from about the second or third century on they subsequently renounced marriage. Let’s leave open what forms will develop in this area. But the irreplaceability of the priesthood and of the deep inner connection between celibacy and priesthood are constants.

Here’s one final example from Benedict. In 2006, just over a year into Benedict’s papacy, he was asked a question about the decline of the Church in Europe. He responded:

There is a great danger that these places where Christianity had its origins will be left without Christians. I think we need to help them a lot so that they can stay. But getting back to your question: Europe definitely became the centre of Christianity and its missionary movement. Today, other continents and other cultures play with equal importance in the concert of world history. In this way the number of voices in the Church grows, and this is a good thing. It is good that different temperaments can express themselves, the special gifts of Africa, Asia and America, Latin America in particular. Of course, they are all touched not only by the word of Christianity, but by the secular message of this world that carries to other continents the disruptive forces we have already experienced. All the Bishops from different parts of the world say: we still need Europe, even if Europe is only a part of a greater whole. We still carry the responsibility that comes from our experience, from the science and technology that was developed here, from our liturgical experience to our traditions, the ecumenical experiences we have accumulated: all this is very important for the other continents too. So it is important that today we do not give up, feeling sorry for ourselves and saying: “Look at us, we are just a minority, let us at least try and preserve our small number!”. We have to keep our dynamism alive, open relationships of exchange, so that new strength for us comes from there. Today, there are Indian and African priests in Europe, even in Canada, where many African priests work; it is interesting. There is this reciprocal give and take. But if in the future we receive more, we also need to continue giving with courage and with growing dynamism.

“Pope Benedict was a prophet”

Leaping forward to recent times, Pope Francis referred to this statement in his 2022 dialogue with Maltese Jesuits, as recorded by Fr. Antonio Spadaro in La Civilta Cattolica. He referred to Pope Benedict as a prophet:

Holy Father, the reality of the Church today is changing. It is becoming smaller and smaller in a secular, materialist Europe. At the same time, the Church is developing in Asia and Africa. What will the Church of the future be like? Will it be smaller, but more humble and authentic? What about the Church’s synodal journey? Where is it going?

Pope Benedict was a prophet of this Church of the future, a Church that will become smaller, lose many privileges, be more humble and authentic and find energy for what is essential. It will be a Church that is more spiritual, poorer and less political: a Church of the little ones. As a bishop, Benedict had said: let us prepare ourselves to be a smaller Church. This is one of his greatest insights.

Today there is the problem of vocations, yes. It is also true that in Europe there are fewer young people. Before, there were three or four children per family. Now often only one. Marriages are decreasing, while people focus on their profession. I would tell the mothers of those thirty-five year olds who still live with their parents to stop ironing their shirts!

In this situation there is also the risk of wanting to seek vocations without adequate discernment. I remember that in 1994 a synod on consecrated life was held. I attended as a delegate from Argentina. At the time, the scandal of the novices in the Philippines had broken out: the religious congregations went there in search of vocations to “import” into Europe. This is terrible. Europe has aged. We have to get used to this, but we have to do it creatively, so as to assume for vocations the qualities that you mentioned in general for the Church in your question: humility, service, authenticity.

Then you also mentioned the synodal path. And this is a further step. We are learning to speak and write “in Synod.” It was Paul VI who resumed the synodal discourse, which had been lost. Since then we have moved forward in understanding, in understanding what the synod is. I remember that I was a relator for the synod of bishops in 2001. Actually, the relator was Cardinal Egan, but because of 9/11 and the Twin Towers, he had to go back to New York, his diocese. I was the substitute. The opinions of everyone, even of individual groups, were collected and sent to the general secretariat. I would gather the material and arrange it. The secretary of the synod would examine it and say to remove this or that thing, which had been approved by a vote of the various groups. There were things he did not consider appropriate. There was, in short, a pre-selection of materials. Clearly there was a failure to understand what a synod is. Today we have moved forward and there is no going back. At the end of the last synod, in the survey of topics to be addressed in the next one, the first two were priesthood and synodality. It seemed clear to me that there is a desire to reflect on the theology of synodality in order to take a decisive step toward a synodal Church.

Finally, I want to say that we must not forget that jewel which is Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi. What is the vocation of the Church? It is not numbers. It is to evangelize. The joy of the Church is to evangelize. The real problem is not whether we are few, in short, but whether the Church evangelizes. In the meetings before the conclave, we talked about what figure the new pope should represent. It was precisely there, in the general congregations, that the image of the Church going forth was used. In Revelation it says: “I stand at the door and knock.” But today the Lord is knocking from within to be let out. This is the need of today, the vocation of the Church today.

This response by Pope Francis embraces Pope Benedict’s prophecy but also proposes a concrete path forward: a synodal Church that goes forth and evangelizes. It is not enough to resign ourselves to declining numbers, we have an opportunity to encounter the world and share the Gospel anew. And the synodal path is meant to open lines of communion and communication as we answer that call.

Finally, Pope Francis most recently referred to Benedict’s prediction in his recent memoir, Life, in which he brings us to today, with his vision for a compassionate Church that reaches out to the marginalized and suffering:

When I think about the Church to come, I am reminded of Joseph Ratzinger’s theory. He spoke of a Church that will move forward but in a different way: it will be a smaller, more distinctive institution. It was 1969, and the Bavarian theologian traced his own vision of the future in a cycle of radio lessons, saying that what awaited us was a Church that would start afresh from a position of minority status, with few adherents, placing faith at the center of all experience; a more spiritual, poorer Church that would become a home for the indigent, for those who have not lost sight of God.

During the years of theological debate after the closing message of the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger was talking about a crucial time for human beings, an historical moment that made the period between medieval and modern times seem insignificant. At the time, there were hints of an attempt to turn priests into something like functionaries, social workers, relevant politically but not spiritually. For this reason, too, we must fight the scourge of clericalism: it is a perversion that may destroy the Church, because instead of promoting laypeople, it kills them by exercising power over them.

It is no coincidence that Don Primo Mazzolari, in his writings, gave a warning about priests who, rather than offering sustenance and warmth to the hearts of their brothers and sisters, suffocate all signs of life in them. But the virus of clericalism can also infect the laity. This is terrible, because these are people who ask to be clericalized but stay on the margins of decision-making so as not to take responsibility. It is the opposite of synodality, where the people of God converge on and actively participate in the path of the Church.

In this context I imagine a mother Church, who embraces and welcomes everyone, even those who feel they are in the wrong and have been judged by us in the past. I think, for example, of homosexuals and transsexuals who seek the Lord but are rejected or persecuted. Many have spoken of Fiducia supplicans, the statement from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on the blessing of couples in irregular situations. I just want to say that God loves everyone, especially sinners. (pp 216-218)

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Image: Vatican media