The Trial of Benedict XVI

摘要

How do you atone for something terrible, like the inquisition?rnJoseph Ratzinger attempted to do just that for the Roman Catholic Church during a grandiose display of Vatican penance-the Day of Pardon on March 12,2000, a ritual presided over by Pope John Paul II and meant to purify two millenniums of church history. In the presence of a wooden crucifix that had survived every siege of Rome since the 15th century, high-ranking Cardinals and bishops stood up to confess to sins against indigenous peoples, women, Jews, cultural minorities and other Christians and religions. Ratzinger was the appropriate choice to represent the fearsome Holy Office of the Inquisition: the German Cardinal was, at the time, head of its historical successor, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.