With the death of Joseph Ratzinger, former Pope Benedict XVI, just before the dawn of the new year, more than a billion Catholics lost a powerful spiritual guide. Whilst Benedict XVI lacked the charisma of those who preceded and succeeded him, respectively Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Francis, he was a towering theological and intellectual figure. And, perhaps most importantly, a profoundly misunderstood one.
Pope Benedict XVI was a controversial figure, both in life and death. Dubbed ‘God’s Rottweiler’ he was seen as a strong enforcer of church doctrine, maintaining confrontational and deeply conservative stances, particularly regarding issues such as LGBT+ rights, the sacramental definition of marriage, abortion and other issues surrounding female reproductive rights. From 1981 to 2005, he led the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith – once known as the Roman Inquisition. There, the then German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, sneeringly referred to as the ‘Panzer Kardinal’, became John Paul II’s right hand man in all theological matters. Indeed, Cardinal Ratzinger’s views differed little to his predecessors, and, arguably, even with his successor when it came to the important issues of the day. Benedict XVI was an intellectual and an academic prior to being a pastoral guide: perhaps, this was his biggest shortcoming. Yet, many have argued that the three popes of the twenty-first century must be seen in a framework of continuity. Perhaps, as Ratzinger’s own secretary affirmed, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis encapsulated the three different theological virtues asked of a spiritual leader: hope, faith, and charity. It is this strong continuity which I believe ought to be stressed, particularly against those conservative fringes within the Catholic Church who have recently hijacked the legacy of Benedict XVI and used it in opposition to Pope Francis. The legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, nevertheless, speaks for himself, and sheds light particularly upon the importance of dialogue with young people and across faiths.
While seen as a conservative, ‘God’s Rottweiler’ belonged to a reformist faction of the church for most of his life. In the 1960s, he befriended Hans Küng, a liberal theologian who questioned the Vatican’s control over individual priests, and Ratzinger was one of 1,360 prominent and radical theologians who, in 1968, signed a statement asserting their freedom in exploring their faith. The tumult of 1968 certainly shifted his approach, yet he never abandoned a reformist agenda. Indeed, the chaos of the 60s merely signified a transition towards a more controlled theological reformist project. In the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), Benedict XVI found ideological soulmates. Interestingly, even regarding the scandals which would eventually cause havoc during his pontificate, Ratzinger always took an uncompromisingly reformist line. It was he who asked John Paul II to take the powers to try cases of sexual abuse amongst the clergy away from the individual diocese and centralise them in the hands of the Vatican. In doing so, it became harder for individual bishops to cover up the scandals – something he must have encountered during his brief term as Archbishop of Munich and Freising in the late 1970s. The then Cardinal Ratzinger also argued that there should be no statute of limitations for cases of sexual abuse and paedophilia and pushed for a fast-track of clerical tribunals and dismissals. Crucially, Benedict XVI’s pontificate saw the largest number of priests and bishops be tried and lose their clerical status, hence being removed from the church.
Benedict XVI, certainly, did not possess the charisma or the pastoral attention of his successor, yet he laid the strong foundations for Francis’ pontificate. He continued the path set by John Paul II in placing young people as the central focus for the future of the church, and thus he continued to champion and be patron of the various world youth days and connected celebrations. Further, he was a strong promoter of interfaith dialogue. His visit to England in 2010 was a historic moment, the first visit made by a Pope to England since Henry VIII’s break with Rome. And while his 2006 speech in Regensburg was criticised as taking an aggressive stance towards Islam, he never ceased to dialogue with the various representatives of the Islamic faith. Indeed, he was a strong advocate for a recognition of Palestine and had a close relationship with Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority. The problems which afflicted Benedict XVI’s pontificate were many, and perhaps his promotion of liturgical traditions, dogma and aesthetics aided in causing a rift between conservatives and reformists – a rift he desperately sought to avoid. Yet seeing Benedict XVI as belonging to one faction in opposition to that of his successor is a temptation which must be resisted. Controlled reform was what Benedict sought to secure, and all his reforms to the papal curia were confirmed by Francis. Benedict, as an academic rather than a prelate with much pastoral experience, was perhaps too weak to impose them on a divided church. This need not signify he condoned the extremes and excesses by some Catholic fringes. Indeed, his historic resignation must be seen as a partial admission of failure against those very fringes which now attempt to reclaim his legacy as their own. While Francis’ success in attracting young people belonging to different communities, as well as furthering reform in liturgy and theology, Benedict XVI’s pontificate must not be seen as the antithesis of Francis’. Rather, it should be deemed a humble, prudent, at times faltering, but steadfast antecedent to Francis’ laudable reformist policies. Benedict XVI may have become a rallying icon for catholic conservatives – chiefly represented by Cardinals Raymond Leo Burke and Robert Sarah – to be consequently deployed against the reformist Francis, but we must let Ratzinger’s own words speak for himself. In a speech given in 2016, the former pope gave a sermon on gratitude where he argued that ‘[the word] Eucharistomen points us to the reality of thanksgiving’, prior to arguing that ‘the Pope is one’. Ratzinger’s thanksgiving was towards the fact that Francis, who was present at the event, had been so generous and kind to him after his renunciation and de facto resignation. In practice, it was gratitude for the fact Francis had been chosen as his successor. Indeed, with this intricate Ratzingerian code and entanglement of words, befitting of a complex academic mind, Benedict XVI had signalled both his approval for Francis, and the strong reformist continuity between himself and his successor.
Ayaat Yassin-Kassab discusses how we might come closer to a ‘reformed hook-up culture’ whereby we safeguard our feelings alongside embracing new experiences…
The hook-up scene is exciting. There’s the perpetual possibility of meeting someone new, whether you’re at a club or a pub. There’s sex with freedom from commitment. There’s the checking for texts, the late-night booty calls, the sad post-orgasm feelings. Do you get them a birthday present? Do you tell them you love them, just without strings attached…? The reality is hook-up culture is in a dismal place. Something that should be useful, formative, and fun now implies the inability to develop meaningful connections. But can sexual relationships be nurtured in the same way as emotional ones, and is there potential for an evolved hook-up culture; a reformed approach to casual yet meaningful dating?
Whether it’s a one-time thing or a friends-with-benefits scenario, a lot of the downside comes from the apparent inability to express feelings. Being physically vulnerable without being allowed to feel emotionally vulnerable is confusing. Feeling attached but unworthy of the other person’s affection, feeling jealous, feeling used, and then not communicating any of it because you’re not ‘close like that’, is inevitably restrictive. Equally, if you yourself aren’t that emotionally invested, then there is pressure to maintain decency: texting them enough, asking them about their day when you’re really more preoccupied with your own. In a hook-up scenario, you’re either too devoted or not devoted enough.
There is a gender disparity, too. Hook-up culture does not benefit women in the same way that it does men. On a physical level, women typically find it harder to orgasm, so if hooking-up is all about sex, they glean less pleasure. On a societal level, there is an emphasis on female virginity and ‘purity’ that makes the social stakes a lot higher. While men can boast a high body count, women are seldom allowed that same luxury. There emerges a vicious cycle whereby, however subconsciously, women who are attracted to men are aware of the fact that they are given value according to their level of attractiveness, and work to meet these standards. It makes sense – we all want to be attractive to the people we are attracted to – but in a world that oversexualises women while simultaneously subjecting them to sexual stigma, they have to be cautious. Many women then feel like they must either settle for hook-up culture in order to enjoy sex, or be in a committed and exclusive relationship. Now, that’s a big jump.
That’s not to say that men always enjoy and always benefit from casual sex : they don’t. They too are victims of mistreatment, oversexualisation, and feelings of emptiness or unfulfillment. It’s a sex culture that degrades and dismays, and it needs to change for the benefit of all those that participate in it.
However, it’s not too late. We speak about hook-ups as though they’re discardable by definition, we are wary of ‘catching feelings’ or being ‘in too deep’, but it seems we need to embrace our passion in order to revive the art of having casual sex. The potential for complex emotions should encourage us to explore them, not stray from them. This raises the question: can we nurture sexual relationships while still maintaining a sense of freedom?
For starters, we need to take casualness down from the pedestal. You don’t have to be in an officially binding relationship in order to search for meaning in sex. To fully participate in a purposeful reimagining of hook-up culture, you need to be aware of your boundaries, willing to meet people you may not necessarily like, and able to healthily end things. Not being in a relationship doesn’t excuse being an indecent person.
In the case that attachments form, we need to be more mindful that such an attachment has the potential to improve the sexual relationship, and not be so quick to either end it out of fear, or get to work wife-ing them up. Confidence and security are necessities. You cannot rely on your hook-up for validation and also maintain a sense of stability as the terms of your relationship fluctuate and adapt. In order for hook-up culture to become meaningful and interesting, it must become messier. As the potential for worthwhile connections increases, so does the potential for hurt and rejection. And of course heartbreak is a natural part of life, but you shouldn’t invite it into your life unless you know it will not knock your sense of self-esteem.
So, this reformed hook-up culture relies on maturity, willingness to explore different types of relationships, and ability to shape romantic connections that don’t necessarily conform to a convention. Openness to multiple connections at one time is also very welcomed. The emotional intellect to speak about and experience a range of emotions will change everything. But a crucial component of this new age of sex is a sexual partner that’s equally as mature as you. You cannot do all of the work and will have to find someone who is like minded and who understands your intentions.
Whether it’s the before or the after, hook-up culture is not for everyone, and doing it well is difficult to achieve, but it’s certainly possible. The empty cycle of one-night-stand to one-night-stand is not fulfilling; it leads to bad feeling and bad sex. So, why continue? It’s time to raise our standards and maintain them.
Red flags are warning signs. They indicate that a relationship is doomed to end in tears, or that it may never even begin. Online dating epitomises the modern tendency to write people off quickly by dismissing their negative traits as ‘red flags’.. This arguably creates a culture that is overly judgemental, and treats people as disposable. We become cattle at an auction rather than complex individuals.
In an increasingly online dating world, it is easy to dismiss people on apps like Tinder as ‘walking red flags’ before even walking a foot near them. Swiping right is a split-second decision, often based shallowly on looks. Yet the ‘about me’ section can harbour some warning signs. A message along the lines of: ‘‘what are you looking for then?’’ is code for ‘‘I just want a meaningless hook-up’’. There are some troubling accounts of men boasting “I’m only on here until my girlfriend finds out”. And a picture can tell a thousand words. Photos that look suspiciously like wedding day snaps should be considered crimson.
Dating within the dreaming spires proposes a whole host of distinct difficulties. It can be hard to tell if someone is genuinely too busy to meet up, buried in their books, opting for the library over the pub, or if they just aren’t that interested and you’re soon to be ghosted. Certain degrees are also labelled ‘red flags’. PPE-ists are branded ‘overbearing’ while physics students are emotionally unavailable. One should of course be wary of such generalisations, though universal red flags remain…
Another Oxford-esque red flag is boys who are only interested in love after dark, ideally after a night out when they’re looking for a quick ego boost. These boys would never ask you to a coffee, or introduce you to their friends, but you’re the first thing on their mind at 3am on a Friday. In fact, friends’ opinions can speak volumes. If your closest circle not only dislikes but despises the person you’ve started seeing, it might be worth asking yourself why that is, although it’s a tough pill to swallow.
Over the years, I’ve realised that mixed signals are not in fact mixed but very straightforward. If someone is remotely interested in you romantically (although especially in Oxford), they won’t always be available, but they will make a point of meeting up or at least staying in touch. It takes 30 seconds to send a message – nobody is too busy for that.
Labelling people as ‘red flags’ can sometimes be an attempt at protecting yourself from heartbreak. However, the heart wants what the heart wants. Even if people think you’re a strange match, it might feel like lighting one when you’re together. Everyone in Oxford will be looking for something different as far as a romantic connection is concerned, whether that’s friends with benefits or an exclusive partner. Perhaps we all have our own unique red flags that we don’t like to admit to, but one thing is for certain: we’re a lot more complex than red and green.
This week Ciaron Tobin runs us through the ins and out of JCR president life…
The President
I wave goodbye to my aunt before walking into the cloisters and up a steep set of stairs to a door titled ‘JCR President.’ My new home for a year is right opposite my Head Tutor and above the College ‘Dean of Divinity’. What could go wrong? The room is massive, complete with an en-suite bathroom, a living room, a double bed, and countless old pictures of JCR Presidents from the 1950s. Yet, signs of modernity are present. The smoke-scarred window from a predecessor, letters from 2018 in the drawers, and a cabaret of untouched glassware in storage.
The room, in keeping with other Oxford traditions, is extravagant. One might ask: ‘with views of the deer park and Magdalen Tower, is the JCR President really a student politician, or are they the ones that receive the benefits?.
JCR Presidents have great influence. From holding accountable College authorities, to a successful Rent Strike by a young Ed Miliband and, what we all want, cheap pints that show the President can change college life for the better
The aim of this column is transparency and accessibility as I occupy this role. I will write about every aspect of JCR life, including the moments when things go wrong.
A JCR President is essentially an SU President in miniature, with more impact over a student’s daily life. They control a budget of over £60,000 and can oversee pivotal moments in the undergraduate experience such as Halfway Hall or Sports Day. They are the hidden gem of Oxford Presidencies and ensure that a college student-body sees direct student-led action
The Family
From the beginning of Freshers’ Week, we are encouraged to think of the JCR as a family.Venturing to another college’s ‘Bop’, karaoke night, or formal would be a total betrayal of Godfather-esque proportions. As college sports teach us, our college comes before all and a JCR committee is the embodiment of this spirit in the highest hosanna. The fact that even last year’s impeachment scandal at Magdalen College is now a cherished memory in our JCR is testament to this. A play may even be made out of the story, if any theatre kids want to hop on the job…
Although a sound JCR experience for all would be ideal, it may not be realistic. College life can be alienating for some, particularly at smaller colleges where there is less opportunity to avoid a dreaded tute-partner, or a noisy neighbour. In these cases, JCR life can divide students into those heavily involved in uni-wide commitments, and those who don’t feel comfortable even leaving their college. To craft a JCR that works to combat cliquiness and division is an ideal. It may not be perfect, but hopefully it will come to resemble a family-oriented, fun, and safe place for all college members.
The Future
So, why should you get involved in your JCR? From the lads that want to organise a BOP, the rent strike goers, and even just those that simply want to eat lettuce at general meetings (Oscar D’Tortoise), all ideas and preferences are welcomed and collaboration between all students is encouraged. When we look back at our Oxford experience, we want trinkets, we want memories, we want to remember the fun times had. It feels good to make events that people enjoy. Whether that is a boozy punt race, a bar quiz, or a social. Making the college experience even just the slightest bit more fun makes the JCR presidency worth it. I know that being a JCR President means there will be stress at times, and certainly time away from my badly-loved History degree, but I truly believe it is a body worth fighting for in all forms. As a JCR member, you learn and fight for what you believe is good. So, you may think your JCR is miniscule but there are no limits to the ways in which your college can be reshaped and improved. I hope you follow this column as I go in-depth with JCR life and presidency, and that it encourages you to connect more with your own JCR!
Being a student comes with two main time constraints: studying and having a life. Neither one will slow down while you take care of the other. So, what can a Brookes student do when they need help or advice? .
The importance of support programs at our universities goes without saying. Living away from home means that emotional support from our families is not as readily available as we might like it to be. Not to mention international students whose families are a long flight away. In such an environment, resources for mental health need to be made not only accessible but available.
All of us will want to make the most out of our time as students. We strive to create fun memories with our new friends in an unparallelled working and living environment, and we do this all on our own. While most of the time things may be on the up and up, what can a Brookes student do to get help or advice in situations when they’re down?
The first point of contact are our dedicated student support coordinators. These are trained professionals based within each subject area. They are there to provide advice and guidance on personal issues as well as academic ones. This can include anything from GP registration and dentist help, to special and financial aid. At Brookes, this is a good place to start looking for help.
If this service is unavailable or does not meet your needs, Oxford Brookes also offers Inclusive Support Services. These may include specialist help with assistive technology, or issues with Disabled Student Allowance, as well as mentoring and study skills support. Brookes also provides help for liaising with academic staff about any special or reasonable adjustments. Finding the right person to ask can be quite challenging at times, especially when you don’t know where to look. In times like these, the support available is incredibly useful.
If a student contends with a more complex mental health issue and requires long term care or immediate intervention, a range of student counselling services are available. These offer a wide range of support for emotional wellbeing. This can come in the form of one to one sessions, or group discussions and workshops on a range of problems. Brookes ensures that these services are always available free of charge, and promises confidential interactions. The sessions are available both online and in person and are incredibly easy to access. For a self referral, a student is required to submit a form online via the portal, and the team typically replies within 48 hours. The counselling service quickly initiates communications to ensure the student is safe and to better understand the problems. After an initial assessment an intervention plan can be offered which then the student can accept. The professional staff who are part of the counselling team are fully licensed and governed by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Oxford Brookes University is huge on inclusivity. They understand that while students may be experiencing similar problems, the solutions to these problems won’t always be the same. This is why Brookes offers a Multifaith Chaplaincy. This is made up of Chaplains and faith advisers from all different beliefs and faiths. These are available to everyone for free as a form of additional support. The team here can provide pastoral care for believers and atheists. There are sites around campus dedicated uniquely to prayer, contemplation and quiet time. Along with this, there are regular events students can attend. This is an opportunity to meet other students in similar situations and engage in group discussion. This is also an opportunity to learn new things, and new ways of dealing with problems. Relaxation and meditation classes and workshops are available as part of the student support services.
While studying it is therefore important to know that such services exist and are always available. As students there are many things that can cause anxiety or stress. These often include relationships or money. Fortunately, as a Brookes student, there is plenty of help available ranging from counselling to special bursaries offered for all kinds of situations.
It is vital to recognise when to ask for help, and to know where to ask for it. Sharing a problem can often lighten the load of the problem. That’s part of the learning experience.
It’s January again. Just like every other year. We are once again pummelled by the pressure to reinvent ourselves. New year, new you!Be different! Be exciting! Start fresh! All the trends in January, whether that’s Veganuary or Dry January, say the same thing: maybe this year you can be perfect. Maybe this year, the unrealistic expectations you have set yourself every single January will actually work out. You’re growing, you’re improving. Don’t eat chocolate, delete Tiktok, save money, wake up at 5am every day and meditate.
Honestly, it’s really not for me.
I have always struggled to stop myself from making the most ridiculous new year’s resolutions. As someone who always lived a life dictated by impulse decisions, I jumped at every chance to clear out the old and welcome in the new, the shiny, the interesting. I was so eager to discard the mess that the previous year had been. This led to the unrealistic expectation that I would be the “perfect” version of myself in this ‘new year new me’ fantasy. By February I would be left deflated and disappointed, laughing sadly at my naivety. In 2016, for example, I swore I would master the art of parkour. And I tackled this challenge probably in the opposite way to an actual athlete: I did loads and loads of research without actually doing anything. I wrote down a meticulous list, a step-by-step guide to teach me how to learn parkour, and I wrote pages and pages about my plan in a journal. I really thought it would work. But step one always left me blank, staring at the page: ‘get really fit’. I did not like this step. I never did it. My dream crumbled.
I don’t really know why, at 13 years old, I thought parkour would be a great addition to my life. But what I do know is that I felt that pressure to reinvent myself, to be better just because a new year had arrived. The years that followed came with more unrealistic resolutions, and it was only very recently that I turned around, had a look at myself, and thought, this is sort of stupid. Why aim for perfection? Isn’t it better to mobilise the lessons and memories of the previous year? To live life as one continuous journey? I am grateful for all I learned in 2022. Why should I have to start fresh when I’ve just about worked things out?
In 2022, I held onto what helped me grow, the things that steadied me in times of stress, even when they may have seemed mundane and boring. Sunday breakfasts huddled in the tiny kitchen, 6 o’clock dinners where we complain about our tutes, trips to the Waterstones cafe. I enjoy seeing the stamps on my loyalty card add up as I buy yet another massive hot chocolate. I enjoy feeling like I’ve committed to something, like my life is progressing, and I can see that in the crumpled little stamp card in my hands. One fun fact about me is I have a really long Duolingo streak, 1186 days and counting! Although that could present me as slightly tragic, I want to emphasise the point that sometimes holding on to things that really nourish you is better than scrapping everything in favour of a ‘new you.’ I think there is so much peace to be found in small, familiar routines that ground us.
I have begun to find comfort in familiar songs, as if they were old, soft, worn clothes. I smile each time I wear them and remember all that I associate with them. Memories latch onto them and deepen each track with a new colour as I live through something new. There is beauty in new things. There is beauty in witnessing your own growth. But growth doesn’t always come with big sudden changes and bold sweeping claims about how we will change ourselves. Sometimes, growth is just about putting on your favourite song and admiring how different you are to when you first heard it. Sometimes it’s about wearing a new jumper with the same old necklace you always wear, and enjoying this charming matrimony of novel and familiar. Sometimes it’s about meeting an old friend in a new coffee shop. For me, keeping the same precious little routines helps me face all the new and terrifying things that inevitably come with the passing of time. I don’t need to reinvent myself to face these things. New year, same old me. And that’s enough.
Food security has long been one of the most pertinent issues arising from the climate crisis. With the global environment changing immensely and countries facing ever more extreme weather conditions, the situation continues to worsen and individuals are feeling the impact more pertinently day to day. The impact has not been even across the world, however, and the realities of the climate crisis and food insecurity are felt most direly in the developing world.
I sat down with Raj Patel, climate change and food security activist and co-director of a recent film, The Ants & The Grasshopper. Currently a Research Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, he attended Oxford in the early 2000s and has gone on to dedicate his academic career and activism to issues surrounding food systems and the climate crisis. The Ants & The Grasshopper looks at the work of Malawian climate change activist, Anita Chitaya, as she seeks to incite change both in the farms of her home in Malawi, and all the way in California and DC. The fruit of Generation Foods, a decade-long food security and justice project, the film sees Anita meet despairing farmers, climate change skeptics, and individuals from across America’s racial, class and gender divides in an attempt, as the film’s tagline suggests, to change their minds about ‘the most important thing in the world.’
We first discuss how Raj first became interested in the issue of food security. Aged five, he travelled to India with his parents for the first time, members of the Indian diaspora in the UK. On a stop they made whilst travelling around Bombay, he recalls seeing a young girl around his age begging at a traffic light. He couldn’t understand why she was outside, hungry, and his family were able to simply drive away. Upon returning to London, he began to fundraise, lending out toys at his kindergarten, and earned a Blue Peter badge for his work. At a young age, he was confronted directly with the inequalities integral to food insecurity.
After this, Raj spent a long time wondering what reasons there were for hunger. “The conclusion I’ve reached”, he says, “is that there aren’t any good reasons for why there’s hunger, it’s always a political choice…governments are enabling and cementing the power of large export agricultural operations and an unsustainable farming system.” Such a system, he says, leads to individuals such as Marcus Rashford, responsible for the government’s U-turn on providing free school meals, having to intervene. Likewise, he says, it leads to an acceptance in countries like the United Kingdom of the existence of food banks, where once it was a ‘mark of national shame’ that they had to exist.
At the university where Raj teaches, one in three students is food insecure. Normalised as a part of the ‘student grind’, skipping meals or not having the money for food is regularly brushed over. The situation is not overly different in Oxford; Hertford JCR, among other colleges, opened its own food bank in October 2022 because of the strain of the cost of living crisis on students. It is clear that, particularly in student culture, food insecurity is directly felt. Across the global west as a whole, the circumstances are becoming ever more precarious. Whilst we continue to ignore the role of ‘middle class overconsumption’, the cost of living crisis deepens and individuals fall further into food insecurity.
And yet, he also notes that slashing the aid budget represents a refusal to recognise the UK’s own role in causing food insecurity. “We’ve got Americans and Brits who are consuming disproportionately, the consequences of whose actions are being wrought, not necessarily at home, but certainly abroad”, he tells me. In tackling the intersections of colonialism, racism, patriarchy and food insecurity in The Ants and The Grasshopper, Raj and Anita demonstrate that a refusal to accept this role in the developed world has direct global consequences especially on countries like Malawi, where Anita lives. The existing environmental movement, he argues, has failed to rid itself of patriarchy and white supremacy, which leads to white saviourism in the climate change movement and, Raj argues, harmful stereotypes about Africa being perpetuated by groups such as Band Aid. In focusing on and allowing Anita to tell her own story, therefore, the film seeks to give power back to the individuals experiencing firsthand the most severe implications of food insecurity and the inaction of western governments. Turning the mirror on America and the rest of the global west, it provides a raw perspective on what society is doing wrong on climate change.
Raj remains critical of the American and British governments in their approaches to climate change, as well as their capitulation to corporate cabals and the so-called ‘free market’. “I certainly think that there’s been a long period in which the government has known about climate change and refused to do much about it”, he tells me. The root of this, he argues, links to Naomi Klein’s analysis of climate change. “If you really took climate change seriously,” he tells me, “you would understand that what it is an indictment of, what requires massive transformation is capitalism itself. And none of the elites here are particularly thrilled about that idea…I think capitalism doesn’t have within it, the the instruments to be able to sufficiently care and repair for the planet.” To tackle climate change adequately, therefore, he argues capitalism must be fundamentally reconsidered.
I ask Raj, in looking at the material impact of colonialism in causing food insecurity whether he sees a role in this for reparations to be paid. “I think there’s a necessity for reparations” he affirms. Rather than paying the high sums that have been suggested, though, he argues that ”what needs to happen is for Britain to acknowledge that, in fact, there is a bill to be paid”, that Britain can only gain humility and begin to rewrite its history once it recognises the role it has played, historically, in food insecurity and climate change.
The Ants and The Grasshopper sought to show the real, material impact of colonialism, patriarchy and more on climate change and on food insecurity. Yet, Raj shows in his work that there is a proactive approach that the West can begin to take. To begin to fight climate change, we need to fundamentally reconsider capitalism, and acknowledge the bill we must pay to save our planet and end hunger.
Although you may not know John’s name, you’ll certainly know his work. Having written the screenplays for Trainspotting, The Beach, A Life Less Ordinary, and T2 Trainspotting, as well as the script for Olivier-award-winning play Collaborators, he is the creative genius behind some seminal British entertainment. Far from a jaded Hollywood veteran, John is a man who speaks with admirable modesty, and whose tangents are peppered with pearls of wisdom. His success, he tells me, is the product of luck and perseverance: “You write things and get lucky, but luck is kind of difficult to come by.”
John’s interest in writing began while he was at school. He wrote his first sketches while in 6th form. However, after choosing to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, John’s move into the creative industry was a leap of faith, requiring him to choose a pursuit of passion over a stable career. He tells me that what drew him to study medicine was the duration of the course, since “the more time at university, the better”, and whilst he “didn’t really enjoy the course much”, he wrote for Edinburgh’s student paper and performed sketches at his Medics’ Ball.
He says, “I went through my degree and started working as a doctor and put all that [creative interest] behind me. I got through some postgraduate exams, but then in my mid 20s I thought to myself, ‘I enjoyed scriptwriting in high school, so I’ll have a go at this. And if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.’ But I knew I would really like to write a film script. And that was the extent of my ambition. I didn’t know what this film script I was going to write was going to be about, or anything like that.”
John drew his inspiration from films like the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple and Steven Soderbergh’s breakthrough film, Sex, Lies, and Videotape. He tells me, “I was really impressed by the way that both those filmmakers created intelligent commercial films, [especially] their use of tension, threat, and ultimately violence in small amounts.”
Exploring “that Sex, Lies, and Videotape route [and] moving pieces around to create tension” is what led John to produce his first script, Shallow Grave. This black comedy crime film, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, and Kerry Fox, was not only a commercial success, but it gave John a springboard from which to launch his career. Subsequently, John set about adapting the script for a film that would become a cultural phenomenon: Trainspotting. This script originated with the magazine shorts and books produced by Irvine Welsh. The novel Trainspotting was first published in 1993, and told the harrowing tale of a group of friends whose lives were wracked by addiction and self-destructive habits. Having lived in Edinburgh and worked as a medic, thus seeing first-hand the devastating effects of heroin addiction and the AIDs epidemic, John was inspired by the content of Welsh’s writing. He tells me, “Edinburgh in the mid-80s was a minor epicentre for the HIV epidemic… the drug taking community all sort of knew each other, so needle sharing, in ignorance, managed to infect a disproportionately large number of people compared to some other cities, so that sort of world was familiar to me. Reading [Irvine’s] book, I was electrified by the characters.”
In creating any script, screenwriters have to immerse themselves fully in their research and become a part of the world that they are writing into existence. When writing a script that deals with painful and traumatic topics, this has the potential to weigh heavily on a writer’s mental state. Trainspotting, which deals with themes ranging from internalised homophobia to infant mortality, is an extreme example of such a script. John tells me that he did indeed find his psyche to be affected by the powerful and gruesome themes he was writing about, so much so that when more producers reached out to ask if he would help with adaptations of similar stories about drug addiction and death, he knew that “there’s no way I wanted to do that”.
However, he concedes that writing Trainspotting was made easier since he was adapting not just a book about hardship and heroin addiction, but “a book about people in all their glory, in all their wits and humour… I’d much rather do things that have a certain degree of escapism, amusement, stuff like that, because that’s sort of what I like to see. I think there’s a place for a wide spectrum of emotional journeys. And we each have to be responsible for our own.”
Having worked in an industry known for being cutthroat, brutal, and heartless, John’s journey has come with its shares of lows. “I was fired from James Bond. I was working with Danny Boyle on it, and we were dumped, but I don’t feel bad about that. You know, I was well paid for the work I did.”
Ultimately, the decision was pinned on ‘creative differences’, which saw both John and Danny Boyle removed from the film.“The way it happened was very Hollywood… I think something happened to do with the script and the rewrite, which was delivered and didn’t satisfy [the producers’] demands. Danny was very supportive. We were going to go meet them, the producers and people from the studio, in New York, to sort of thrash it all out. And I had this feeling that it might not end harmoniously. But I thought, you know what, I was gonna go to New York for a few days at someone else’s expense. So that’s good. The hotel was booked, and I was going to raid the minibar, because again, I thought I might never be coming back. [I was in] the car on my way to Heathrow and the phone rang. It was Danny saying, ‘Now we’re off. That’s it.’ The car turned around. I never got as far as the minibar.
“It was very disappointing, and you felt hurt at the time, but it’s really not bad. My overall experience [in the industry] has been great. When I started out [in medicine], a doctor said to me, ‘What you really want, John, is a job where you don’t need to go to work each day’. That’s what I’ve had for nearly 30 years now.”
John admits that for young people starting off in a creative career, these setbacks might be too much to take. His only advice is perseverance, and the magic ingredient – luck. “I feel like there should be some secret that everyone who’s in the business knows. There isn’t really. It’s just tough. And it can be very depressing. Be prepared to be depressed. To feel sort of lost. And like you’ve made a big mistake.”
Finding another aspiring creative at a similar stage in their career can be a liferaft, according to John. “Meet someone who you trust and who you like, and who has similar ambitions and complementary views, so you get to go through this journey together, because there’s a lot of knockbacks.”
Having made it over the many barriers to success and achieved many incredible accolades, John maintains that he has managed to evade the scrutiny that has arisen in the age of social media. He says of the height of his fame: “it was fine. It never caused any problems for me. I was never recognised in the street or anything like that. And it was an age before social media, so these were more innocent times. But once I went to the Musee d’Orsay – No one knows the name of the scriptwriters here in Britain, but you go to France and it’s different – I went to the Musee d’Orsay, handed over my bank card as deposit for the audio guide, and [the receptionist] looked at it and said, “Oh, you wrote Le Tombeau de la Terreur, which was the French title of Shallow Grave. So that was nice. I think I still paid for the audio guide, though.
“But I worked on The Beach [with] Leonardo DiCaprio in the immediate post-Titanic fervour that surrounded the guy. And he dealt [with the attention] very well, but by keeping a distance. I think that’s what they have to do: they have to put up barriers between themselves and the outer world, which is a shame. And of course, putting up barriers for a long time can do things to someone.”
The celebrity culture that John has avoided is playing a bigger role than ever in the new Age of Netflix. With the appeal of new films often focusing around the glossy stars they can attract to their roster, and with corporations like Disney hiring whole teams of screenwriters for any one script, the authenticity of the art of screenwriting has arguably suffered.
“Cinema is sort of dying,” John tells me. Instead, in the eyes of scriptwriters who want to maintain their own style and voice, “everything’s for television”.
However, modern ‘binge’ culture has, in John’s opinion, taken its toll on this form of writing too. “It becomes more like manufacturing, you know; the sort of television equivalent of the Model T Ford. Your manufacturing process creates a more reliable product, or products that are more predictable. The end product is good, and then that’s fine. It works. But it’s just… it’s just different.”
This isn’t to say that John doesn’t still find immense enjoyment in crafting new scripts. He notes that one of his proudest creations was the sequel to Trainspotting. He says, “It was not as successful as Trainspotting – it’s not as exciting a film. And I’m totally okay with that. It was never conceived of as something that would be as exciting as Trainspotting, for the very simple reason that the characters are in their 40s. Life in your 40s is not as exciting as it is when you’re 21. It just isn’t. And there’s no point in pretending otherwise. And so it’s an inherently depressing film, because it’s a film about ageing, and nostalgia.
“Obviously, the phenomenon of Trainspotting and being involved in that was a big part of my life. So the the act of going back to that with the same people 20 odd years later was quite emotional. This was more or less due to the privilege of working with these great actors. I thought they were just all fantastic. And it was so easy to write [the script] because I had their voices in my head. And it was just a pleasure. [The] same crew worked on the film who’d worked on the original 20 years before. Of course, the film carried its own stresses and hassles and everything with that. That’s just taken as read. But I just really felt really privileged to be involved in that again, it was great.”
If one thing is for sure, it’s that whilst John may have struck gold with a generation-defining film script in his early years as a writer, he hasn’t lost his touch. As for what we can expect to see from him in the future, he tells me: “I’m developing a film with Danny [Boyle]. We’ll see what happens with that.”
CW: Eating disorders, racism, body dysmorphia, references to sexual violence.
Before I begin, I’d like to say thank you to all students that interacted with the forms and polls that were released to gather information for this article. To those of you that are struggling with the issues addressed in this article, please seek help from your college welfare supporters or the University’s welfare service. The appropriate contact details are below.
Charlie’s Angels (2000). A film made from an old-school TV show about gorgeous women spies. What’s the tactic? To take advantage of the fact that men are unsuspecting of beautiful women, making them the perfect spies. Whilst this nurtured an adoration for films and was somewhat empowering for young Sahar, watching it recently, I’ve realised that this is a prime example of pretty privilege. Yes, I’m basing this article off of a cheesy 2000s film that was probably my queer awakening, however, it doesn’t remove from the fact that pretty privilege not only exists but has a deep-seated place in Oxford. Growing up with films like this in conjunction with ideas of what it was to be “pretty” or conventionally attractive – and more the fact that this was not what I looked like – I was taught that pretty privilege was just the way that the world works. This didn’t change when I matriculated, even though my relationship with my appearance improved, and I would come to realise, especially in a context where I was expected to be more outgoing, that there were moments in which I would be overlooked in the “attraction” department.
I started writing this article as part of an exploration as to whether anyone else felt like this as well. It turned into a revelation about how prevalent pretty privilege is at Oxford. 70% of people that responded to our Instagram poll recognised that pretty privilege is a problem and 34% even acknowledged that they’d been positively affected by it. It’s safe to say that most people can at least come up with a definition for it:
“For me, pretty privilege means greater freedom and social opportunities”
“Pretty privileged to me is being treated like you’re worth more than others, just because of appearances”
I think you get it.
Pretty privilege has a diverse impact on Oxford students, not only in the way that it is advantageous for certain people but also in how very many students oppressively feel it in their lives here. Of course, where most people feel it most is in the dating scene:
“I got into my first and only proper relationship at the big age of 19. I never thought I was pretty enough to have a partner.”
Before I carry on, I want to linger on this statement for a minute. A lot of the time, you’ll hear an Oxford student say that they never dated or were in a relationship before university because they were working or studying. Therefore, when we get to Oxford (especially in Michaelmas term of first year), the overwhelming pressure to get with the person to your left can be incredibly terrifying when you haven’t, first, addressed possible factors that will have knocked your confidence in the dating scene that can be attributed to pretty privilege. Now, I’m not saying that everyone who has said this has the same experience, but I also want us to realise that it is possible for these things to come hand in hand. One response, even without naming pretty privilege, showed how this was strikingly present in dating apps:
“Once, I was added to a group chat of unknown numbers where they made fun of my appearance… There’s a reason I don’t use dating apps. I don’t know what pretty privilege is, but it’s probably avoiding that harassment.”
Whilst dating apps can be used to facilitate healthy and long-term relationships and romantic interactions, I don’t think we acknowledge how often they facilitate pretty privilege when someone is only deciding to go on a date with you based on your appearance. After a conversation with a friend, we also realised that the reason we felt so insecure on dating apps was because we didn’t fit into the cookie-cutter image that appealed to most others on it. These people shared this experience:
“I feel like people overlook me, before they get to know me”
“There are moments that you remember yourself, and you realise that you’re not attractive here. This is not your space to be loved or appreciated for the way you look.”
“it just feels like men often don’t want a woman who is bigger than them – they want someone small and slim and kind of dainty?”
Dating apps, completely based around pictures with “a few questions” to keep up the pretence of connecting people through their personalities, exacerbate so many issues around body image such as body dysmorphia and possibly even eating disorders – especially as a woman because of the way that the heterosexual dating scene expects women to fit a certain image for the sake of men. A couple of interviewees who identified as queer described how pretty privilege seems to exist less frequently in the LGBTQ+ scene at Oxford; “embracing the queerness” of their appearances – in the way that they didn’t fit into the male gaze – allowed them to become more confident with themselves and alleviated the pressures to look a certain way. However, unfortunately, the queer scene is not immune to the influence of pretty privilege. This was a heart-breaking response to our google form:
“I think all of these issues with body image and the lack of plus size people in Oxford is heightened in the queer scene – it feels like there’s a cookie cutter image of what “queer” looks like at this uni and that’s often very skinny and white. The only place that I’ve actually been verbally assaulted about my weight in Oxford is in the gay club Plush, on several occasions by queer men/nbs who have shouted things like “fat bitch” and worse at me while I’m just dancing with my friends or trying to get out there in the queer scene and meet someone.”
“As a queer woman, I feel particularly insecure when getting with other queer women/I feel myself comparing myself more which is stupid”
This need to be more “feminine” might not be as present amongst the queer community here, but it still presents itself when queer students “seem to care about the male gaze much more than the female gaze”. One student also said that, regardless of how feminine they were, they were worried that they weren’t “‘gay enough’ for women.” Pretty privilege also presents itself in the queer scene through the way that it affects trans and non-binary students:
“It’s difficult navigating dating – wanting to be seen as attractive and seen as my gender can feel at odds with each other. I worry I am only considered attractive when I’m not being seen as my gender.”
“Trans women especially I’ve seen be more likely to be misgendered and mistreated if they aren’t deemed attractive or feminine enough to “pass”.
Whilst the queer scene can serve as some sort of an escape from cis and heteronormative standards of beauty, there are still people within this community that hold these values.
I also received an overwhelming percentage of written responses from people of colour. Before I show them to you, I want to give you a quote from Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie came to me when I read these responses: “You know, when we go out, my friends get chatted up by guys who say, ‘I’d love to take you for dinner, and in the same breath they come over to me, put their hands on my bum and tell me they want to take me back to theirs and fuck me”. I think it perfectly encompasses the disparity that is felt between the treatment of people of colour and white people, especially in the dating scene. The only thing that I would add is the way that there were other people of colour who these same guys would overlook. These were a couple of other responses that I received:
“I’ve never dated so I wouldn’t know, but I’ve low-key accepted that I might be single for the duration of my degree, because I think it’s harder to date as a POC here. Not only do I worry about not meeting the beauty standard, I do want to meet someone who’ll like me for me, and not fetishise me.”
“Look around and ask why so many beautiful beautiful WOC are passed over in Oxford compared to fairly average-looking blonde upper-class counterparts – there are exceptions but it’s so weird to see attractive people at uni regularly discussed without anyone mentioning this.”
I’m sure at this point you’ll have noticed that I’ve focussed a lot on the dating scene at Oxford. This is, in part, because many of those who responded to my survey would bring up how they’ve been impacted by pretty privilege in Oxford without prompting. It is also because I think that the impacts of pretty privilege are exacerbated and demonstrated more strongly in the prominence of the dating scene in Oxford. It is a brilliant demonstration of how those who benefit from pretty privilege receive more attention or free drinks based on the way that they look.
When asked about how others have experienced pretty privilege, this was a common response that I received:
“A lot of people who have pretty privilege don’t particularly like to admit it, I’ve found they like what they get from it. It’s not a bad thing and it makes a lot of sense, no one would pass up the opportunity realistically”
This is a really difficult problem to be faced with because when someone benefits from pretty privilege, they may not realise it because being given a free drink or a discount by someone who likes the way you look could easily be interpreted as that person “just being nice”. They may not even see themselves as pretty and won’t see it as pretty privilege in the first place. But someone else may step up behind them, not as conventionally attractive, and get a nod before they’re charged the full price for the same thing. It’s a sure way to strike down someone’s confidence especially when no-one around you can see what all of these people have done wrong. A lot of the time, it comes across as confidence or sociability:
“Friends who are absolutely beautiful with regard to conventional beauty standards tend to make friends more easily I think – they never EVER acknowledge that their appearance has anything to do with this though”
It can take time to realise this. When you first find these friends, it seems as though they’re just confident. It’s inspiring! They serve as role models to boost your own confidence and need to be outgoing. Suddenly, one day, the penny drops. The likelihood is that their confidence comes hand in hand with the fact that they’ve not had to scrutinise every physical aspect of themselves to get what they want. For example, one interviewee described how she internalised people’s opinion that her afro-textured hair would be “taking up too much space”. As a result of this, she became aware of how her personality took up too much space. The same has been said by interviewees that felt self-conscious about their weight:
“Being overweight naturally means you take up more space so I have a fear of taking up even more space ‘than necessary’.”
It’s a frustrating never-ending cycle of both external and internal bias surrounding your appearance which means that whether or not we fit into the frame of “pretty” also has a huge impact on our confidence. Even if they share their free meal with you, it may not necessarily soften this blow at all.
However, I don’t want to ignore the fact that pretty privilege is not costly to those who might benefit from it. For example, one person brought up how, whilst she has benefited from economic pretty privilege (in receiving gifts etc.), she has felt that she has suffered from “the beauty penalty as a woman in an academic setting” because “if there’s a woman who got somewhere high up, yeah, they either slept their way to the top, flirted their way to the top, or somebody liked the look of them and wanted them to hang around”. Some people also discussed how being pretty opened you up to sexual violence:
“If you’re a woman then [pretty privilege] is sort of balanced out by the fact that you’re going to get catcalled and objectified and have a sexual harassment and sexual violence like that.”
Prettiness can also be distorted for non-binary and trans students:
“For afab non-binary people – people such as myself, it can be the other way around and “prettiness” becomes less of a privilege, as it is often be tied to being misgendered as a woman.”
This has been a difficult article to write because, honestly, it seems like there’s no winning, and the only truth that I’ve found in this is that these qualities, these conventions of pretty privilege benefit one person and one person only and that is the (usually straight) tall, athletic, rich, white, blonde man that we all see as the Oxford poster boy.
Well, what’s our solution to all of this? One of my interviewees highlighted that this is not something that can be measurable in the same way that a company could measure how many employees are women/people of colour/non-binary people. However, just because this is not a measurable bias, this should not be your response:
“It isn’t gonna stop, so grit your teeth and bare it”
Please don’t let this stick with you, despite the “doom and gloom” feeling of this article so far. Yes, we’ve seen that pretty privilege exists and that Oxford is not immune to it. I don’t want to let the pedestaled image of the Oxford poster boy damage your confidence any more than it has already. We didn’t let that guy stop us from getting here, we didn’t let him stop us from studying the subject that we love, hating the texts we have to read (thanks Milton), or the tute sheet that’s staring at you from your desk. Please! What authority does he have to make you look in the mirror and hate yourself? Or stop you from having a boogie at the musicals night at the Bullingdon, auditioning for your favourite play, or asking out that person you’ve been ogling at in the RadCam? The best takeaway that I’ve had from these surveys and interviews is that people have felt more able to express their individuality in Oxford. Yes, this place was made for that poster boy, the man who can give you a charming smile or will promise his entire trust fund to the “thin sexy hooker virgin with boobs and hips but not big ones”(see Leading Lady Parts, BBC on Youtube). But look around you. We’re not all Keira Knightley or Jonathan Bailey but nor should we be. If this sermon didn’t do it for you from yet another student journalist, then try my favourite pieces of advice that some of our interviewees would give their Fresher/Term1 self:
“Oxford is a bubble and other people’s perceptions of you don’t matter! Everyone is beautiful”
“Don’t stress about your appearance, there’s not much you can do about it. Just be grateful for what you have, think of all the things you like about your appearance and focus on being your best self. A beautiful personality goes a long way :))”
Benedict XVI’s legacy – a misunderstood pope?
With the death of Joseph Ratzinger, former Pope Benedict XVI, just before the dawn of the new year, more than a billion Catholics lost a powerful spiritual guide. Whilst Benedict XVI lacked the charisma of those who preceded and succeeded him, respectively Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Francis, he was a towering theological and intellectual figure. And, perhaps most importantly, a profoundly misunderstood one.
Pope Benedict XVI was a controversial figure, both in life and death. Dubbed ‘God’s Rottweiler’ he was seen as a strong enforcer of church doctrine, maintaining confrontational and deeply conservative stances, particularly regarding issues such as LGBT+ rights, the sacramental definition of marriage, abortion and other issues surrounding female reproductive rights. From 1981 to 2005, he led the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith – once known as the Roman Inquisition. There, the then German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, sneeringly referred to as the ‘Panzer Kardinal’, became John Paul II’s right hand man in all theological matters. Indeed, Cardinal Ratzinger’s views differed little to his predecessors, and, arguably, even with his successor when it came to the important issues of the day. Benedict XVI was an intellectual and an academic prior to being a pastoral guide: perhaps, this was his biggest shortcoming. Yet, many have argued that the three popes of the twenty-first century must be seen in a framework of continuity. Perhaps, as Ratzinger’s own secretary affirmed, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis encapsulated the three different theological virtues asked of a spiritual leader: hope, faith, and charity. It is this strong continuity which I believe ought to be stressed, particularly against those conservative fringes within the Catholic Church who have recently hijacked the legacy of Benedict XVI and used it in opposition to Pope Francis. The legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, nevertheless, speaks for himself, and sheds light particularly upon the importance of dialogue with young people and across faiths.
While seen as a conservative, ‘God’s Rottweiler’ belonged to a reformist faction of the church for most of his life. In the 1960s, he befriended Hans Küng, a liberal theologian who questioned the Vatican’s control over individual priests, and Ratzinger was one of 1,360 prominent and radical theologians who, in 1968, signed a statement asserting their freedom in exploring their faith. The tumult of 1968 certainly shifted his approach, yet he never abandoned a reformist agenda. Indeed, the chaos of the 60s merely signified a transition towards a more controlled theological reformist project. In the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), Benedict XVI found ideological soulmates. Interestingly, even regarding the scandals which would eventually cause havoc during his pontificate, Ratzinger always took an uncompromisingly reformist line. It was he who asked John Paul II to take the powers to try cases of sexual abuse amongst the clergy away from the individual diocese and centralise them in the hands of the Vatican. In doing so, it became harder for individual bishops to cover up the scandals – something he must have encountered during his brief term as Archbishop of Munich and Freising in the late 1970s. The then Cardinal Ratzinger also argued that there should be no statute of limitations for cases of sexual abuse and paedophilia and pushed for a fast-track of clerical tribunals and dismissals. Crucially, Benedict XVI’s pontificate saw the largest number of priests and bishops be tried and lose their clerical status, hence being removed from the church.
Benedict XVI, certainly, did not possess the charisma or the pastoral attention of his successor, yet he laid the strong foundations for Francis’ pontificate. He continued the path set by John Paul II in placing young people as the central focus for the future of the church, and thus he continued to champion and be patron of the various world youth days and connected celebrations. Further, he was a strong promoter of interfaith dialogue. His visit to England in 2010 was a historic moment, the first visit made by a Pope to England since Henry VIII’s break with Rome. And while his 2006 speech in Regensburg was criticised as taking an aggressive stance towards Islam, he never ceased to dialogue with the various representatives of the Islamic faith. Indeed, he was a strong advocate for a recognition of Palestine and had a close relationship with Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority. The problems which afflicted Benedict XVI’s pontificate were many, and perhaps his promotion of liturgical traditions, dogma and aesthetics aided in causing a rift between conservatives and reformists – a rift he desperately sought to avoid. Yet seeing Benedict XVI as belonging to one faction in opposition to that of his successor is a temptation which must be resisted. Controlled reform was what Benedict sought to secure, and all his reforms to the papal curia were confirmed by Francis. Benedict, as an academic rather than a prelate with much pastoral experience, was perhaps too weak to impose them on a divided church. This need not signify he condoned the extremes and excesses by some Catholic fringes. Indeed, his historic resignation must be seen as a partial admission of failure against those very fringes which now attempt to reclaim his legacy as their own. While Francis’ success in attracting young people belonging to different communities, as well as furthering reform in liturgy and theology, Benedict XVI’s pontificate must not be seen as the antithesis of Francis’. Rather, it should be deemed a humble, prudent, at times faltering, but steadfast antecedent to Francis’ laudable reformist policies. Benedict XVI may have become a rallying icon for catholic conservatives – chiefly represented by Cardinals Raymond Leo Burke and Robert Sarah – to be consequently deployed against the reformist Francis, but we must let Ratzinger’s own words speak for himself. In a speech given in 2016, the former pope gave a sermon on gratitude where he argued that ‘[the word] Eucharistomen points us to the reality of thanksgiving’, prior to arguing that ‘the Pope is one’. Ratzinger’s thanksgiving was towards the fact that Francis, who was present at the event, had been so generous and kind to him after his renunciation and de facto resignation. In practice, it was gratitude for the fact Francis had been chosen as his successor. Indeed, with this intricate Ratzingerian code and entanglement of words, befitting of a complex academic mind, Benedict XVI had signalled both his approval for Francis, and the strong reformist continuity between himself and his successor.
Image credit: M.Mazur/www.thepapalvisit.org.uk / CC BY 2.0 via Flicker