The 5th Most Powerful Man in the World?

Last week Forbes magazine published its list of the most powerful people in the world. When I saw the name of Benedict XVI there in fifth place, it seemed an interesting subject for this week’s article. Forbes’s editors ranked the candidates on that list according to four criteria of power: power over many people; control over financial and other resources; power in multiple spheres or arenas; and active use of power.

Naturally, supernatural or spiritual criteria are not taken into account when drawing up this list, but there is something very important to clarify: the Holy Father Benedict XVI, who is also considered one of the most intelligent men of the last century and of this one, is nothing more and nothing less than the visible head of the Holy Catholic Church, founded by God himself: Our Lord Jesus Christ. For that reason Pope Benedict XVI, the vicar of Christ, has truly extraordinary powers that any king, billionaire, business magnate, president or sheikh in the world would love to have.

For example, Benedict XVI has an immense army of highly prepared people (cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay people) who work for God and for His Church, regardless of salary or working hours (they may work up to 20 hours a day), regardless of having to give up excellent professional opportunities or forming a family; all to devote themselves exclusively to God and His Church. Only the Pope can count on an army with these characteristics; we call them the “soldiers of Christ.”

Benedict XVI has thousands of Catholics ready to give their lives (thousands have been killed, or are being persecuted in order to be killed) to extend the kingdom of God to every corner of the world, just as Jesus Christ commanded, regardless of being insulted or mocked, persecuted or imprisoned (as many members of the Church in China suffer today), regardless of being beheaded (as has been done to priests, nuns and missionaries in Africa), regardless of dying in a bomb thrown into a church by some extremist who forbids them to go to Mass, and so on.

Benedict XVI heads a Church that receives incredible donations. From people who have very little and give everything they have with great sacrifice, to very wealthy people like the Spaniard Amancio Ortega, who donated 20 million euros to Caritas Spain, which, in these times of crisis in Spain, is helping the unemployed in a unique and exemplary way.

Benedict XVI heads a Church that provides one of every six hospital beds in the world and has 120,000 Catholic health facilities. These are not only large clinics in the Western world but, above all, institutions that provide medical care in developing countries, caring for the sickest, those few want to care for. Not to mention the thousands of volunteers who accompany and comfort the sick in the great hospitals of the whole world.

Benedict XVI heads a Church that in the twenty-first century, when some said religion would disappear, has grown not only in quantity but in quality. There are many who were not content with a simple, unexamined faith and who through study have discovered that the Way, the Truth and the Life are found in the Catholic Church. That is why there have been great conversions of Lutheran and Anglican theologians, of Catholics “in baptism only” (as I was), and others who are ready to follow this Way, which is not at all easy. The famous convert theologian and former Protestant minister Scott Hahn points out in one of his many books (Reasons to Believe) that if religion were an invention of man (and not of God), why would the Catholic Church have invented a religion so hard to live and not an easier one? Through study and reason we can understand perfectly well that the Catholic Church was not created by men but by God.

All that remains for me to say is that, since God is the founder and owner of our Holy Catholic Church, acting through the brilliant Joseph Ratzinger and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the Holy Father Benedict XVI, his power in this world cannot be measured by earthly criteria, because the power is not his but God’s. Putting Benedict XVI on that list does not square with the Truth, and he, with his astonishing brilliance and humility, must know it. We love you very much, Holy Father. Keep using the wonderful gifts God has given you so that our Holy Catholic Church may remain young, alive and strong for ever and ever…