A pope and a trailblazer

THEY WERE two very different global figures operating in two very different worlds, but both were perfect symbols of a world in transition.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on Saturday at the age of 95, will be remembered most for being the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to resign as pontiff in 600 years.

Since his shock resignation in 2013, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had occupied an awkward netherworld in which his successor, Pope Francis, sought to take the church in another direction.

It was almost as though the notion of two living popes reflected the ambivalent place of the church in the world.

Roughly one-fifth of the world is Catholic, but fewer and fewer people have been attending Mass in Europe. At the same time, some estimates suggest there are more faithful in all other continents than ever before.

The church’s stances, meanwhile, have looked more and more out of step with each passing generation. It has struggled to account for its own historical conduct amid the colonial project of imperial forces, slavery and the Holocaust.

It has also been hard-pressed to justify its stances on basic issues like the use of contraception amid the HIV/Aids epidemic. Its handling of multiple child sex abuse scandals has seriously rocked its authority.

Benedict himself was accused of failing to act in relation to cases of sexual abuse during his tenure as archbishop in Munich and had to apologise in 2022 after a report was issued.

If in his last years he occupied something of a liminal position, it was perhaps also true that the church itself is struggling to define itself in a modern world in which it is both relevant and irrelevant.

It is arguable that Benedict – a formidable thinker who was once known as a theological “Rottweiler” – sought to steady the ship, to infuse renewed faith by sticking with unreformed dogma.

He suggested he did not wish to be pope in the first place, describing his election in the footsteps of his predecessor as a “guillotine” coming down on him.

If he was about keeping things as they had been, Barbara Walters, 93, who has also died in recent days, was about being a trailblazer.

In 1976, she became the first female anchor on an evening news programme on US television and went on to interview every US president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon.

She also interviewed world leaders like Fidel Castro and celebrities like Clint Eastwood, Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga.

In more recent years, she started The View, a daytime talk show in which a diverse panel of women discuss the latest headlines. Countless imitations have followed. She has said her legacy has been to see more women at the forefront of journalism, especially in broadcast media.

Benedict was certainly the kind of figure Ms Walters would have relished interviewing.