Scarlet and Purple

The inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI is another incredible historical calculation that will have reprecussions we cannot phathom but certainly will influence history not seen since the 11th Century. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a Bavarian, was elected to the Papacy on April 19th, 2005 and took the name of Benedict the founder of Western Monastism in the 5th Century and who himself was made the Patron Saint of Europe in 1964. Coincidentally, April 19th is the Feast of St. Leo IX, a German Pope and Saint who was famous for fighting the Normans (colonial Vikings) in Southern Italy over 1000 years ago.

The 11th Century was the last period of European history in which the papacy was largely influenced and controlled by Germans. In fact, most people don't realize that Roman Europe gave way to German Europe when germanic tribes migrated into and at times invaded the Western Half of the Roman Empire. When finally Rome fell to German tribes in 476 AD, this marked the beginning of a German modus vivendi that is extant today. Though the German tribes were "barbaric" by Roman civilized standards, they themselves would come to embrace the old Roman ways and thus perpetuate the Roman ideal of law, government, and culture.

As the German tribes consolidated their hold in Western Europe, several nations arose that would come to dominate the center of Europe and thus influence the Papacy as well as history of the world. A political entity arose that later would be called the Holy Roman Empire that consisted of present day Germany, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, parts of Poland, Austria, Hungary and Northern Italy. The leader of this political/religious/cultural entity was known as the Emporer of the Holy Roman Empire and himself in alignment with the Catholic Church held both political and religious sway over much of Europe. All was not harmonious however, for just as the German tribes brought down the Roman Empire in the West in the 5th Century, German attempts to retain political and religious unity would break apart Christendom as well as the Holy Roman Empire beginning in the 11th Century.

Christianity as a whole stretched from the British Isles to Asia Minor and by the time of the early 1000's certain fissures erupted to fracture expontentially the unity of the Christian Church throughout the classical world. The first "Great Schism" would occur between two branches of Christianity that were different in culture and language as well as in doctrine and faith. As the Papacy consolidated their gains in German dominated Western Europe by the beginning of the 11th Century, the Eastern Church as centered in Constantnople was waning under the pressures of their own political disunity as well as the constant assault of Islam against their Asian strongholds in present day Turkey. The Eastern Orthodox Faith considered themselves to be the center of Christianity while the Catholic Church in Rome themselves were considered the center. The Pope, esconced in Rome, demanded subserviance from the Orthodox Christians in Byzantium and when they refused to accept the Pope as their Christian Lord and Shepherd, they sundered complete fellowship with their German cousins in Rome that ultimately would prove disastrous for Constantnople. Just when unity was required to fight against her enemies, the house of Byzantium was divided and ultimately would collapse under the full weight of history, never to recover its formal glory. In spite of the apparent alliance between Rome and Constantnople to rid Asia Minor of Islamic potentates, the Crusades, initiated by the Roman Pontiffs with the implicit blessings of the Byzantine Emporer actually aggravated and added to the animosities between the Roman and Greek Church. The old unified spiritual order was pierced in 1054 and the Eastern Orthodox would eventually take up residence in Moscow some 400 years later and declare it the Third Rome.

The second great fracture coincidentally occured at exactly the same time as the Roman and Greek Churches themselves broke away from each other in the mid-11th Century and that was the power of the German Emporer to elect Bishops to important ecclesiastical positions within the empire as well as ultimately choosing who was to be Pope of the Catholic Church. The power of the secular ruler in the person of the Holy Roman Emporer to choose who was to be bishop and who was to be Pope was the greatest power weilded by a single person in the Western World at that time. The Catholic Church under certain reformers wanted to de-secularize the Papal succession as well as choose the Bishops themselves and thus created the "College of Cardinals" to elect both bishops and Popes as the princes and rulers of the Church. Of course, the Emporer would not accept this inferior position and demanded the current Pope, Gregory VII under whose direction this course of affairs had arisen, to be impeached and removed from his office. Naturally, the Pope himself excomunicated the Emporer from the Catholic Church thus the Emporer had to give up his kingdom as well. This led to war. The German Nobles also were paying attention and supported the Pope as they were for weakening the Emporer's position and advancing their own claims to the Kings domains. The Bishops naturally supported the Emporer from whence they attained their office. The secular power of the state under the tutelage of the Emporer weilded its long arm and defeated the nobles in a glorious battle. Fresh from victory against the barons, the Emporer marched on Rome herself and by military force deposed Gregory VII from his Papal Throne. The year was 1081. Though victorious on both fronts, the Emporer would ultimately lose the war. The power of the German King to determine who would be bishop and more importantly who would be Pope would be broken within 50 years. Though this marked the first time that secular power raised its hand against the Papacy, it would not be the last. Historically, this would be the last time that Germania herself excercised any authority in the Chuch, until the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI almost 1000 years later.

German influence upon the Papacy in the 16th century continued the fracturing of the Catholic Chuch in the West. In this case, Martin Luther, a german theologian and Augustinian Monk, attacked the Catholic Church for its corruption and doctrinal errors and gave birth to the Protestant Reformation. As Luther translated the Bible from Latin to plain German, the citizens of Western Europe awoke to the realization that the Catholic Chuch no longer had a monopoly on spiritual and even secular matters. Northern Europe threw off the fetters of the Catholic Church and now a North/South divide arose pitting Protestants against Southern European Catholics. Nearly 100 years later, the Thirty Years War would break out between these two antagonists that would come to devastate Germany nearly killing a third of its population between 1618 and 1648.

So, what does all this mean? A German Pontiff brings with it a certain opportunity that may usher in a period of unification. The fact that he chose Saint Benedict as the Patron Saint of Europe for his Papal name speaks volumes as to his agenda. Granted, many before him have paved the road to Ecclesiastical Unification between the three great Churchs: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant. However, he may provide the motivation and expertise needed as no other European could to demand and implement consolidation last seen in the 11th Century. It would appear all things come full circle. With each church headquartered in Europe, Russia and America respectively, his ability to pull off the impossible would unite Christendom totalling nearly 2.2 billion believers. Additionally, would that in turn bring about political unification between the European peoples that only now creeps ever closer to reality under the aegis of an economic order? Only time will tell but I suspect something momentus is occuring before our eyes and many things will astound us before all is said and done.