By Mary DeTurris Poust

'He is just like what he appears to be'

American Jesuit who has known Pope Benedict XVI for three decades says pontiff is brilliant, prayerful and transparent

Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, "theologian in residence" at Ave Maria University in Florida, founder and editor of Ignatius Press and longtime friend of Pope Benedict XVI, recently spoke with Our Sunday Visitor to give his personal insights into the man who was his mentor and doctoral thesis director at the University of Regensburg in West Germany in the 1970s.

Our Sunday Visitor: Is there something about the pope that would surprise us, something about his personality that we don't see in media coverage of him?

Father Joseph Fessio, S.J.: The pope you don't get to see is the pope you see. That's the beautiful thing about him; he's transparent. He gives talks without notes. He will be on vacation to speak with priests, and he'll answer their questions. In his Wednesday addresses, he will depart from the text and just speak extemporaneously. He'll give homilies that way. He is totally himself, and so he is just like what he appears to be.

OSV: Does he have a good sense of humor?

Father Fessio: Oh my. It's not the guffaw sense of humor. It's always a kind of smile. We who've been around him notice it all the time, but I saw it the very first moment he stepped out on that balcony. He stands out there and he says, 'I come before you as a humble servant in the Lord's vineyard.' Well, he means that, but he also had a twinkle in his eye. He realizes it's kind of an odd 'humble servant,' isn't it, standing on this balcony out here with several hundred thousand people below?

OSV: What are his passions as a scholar, and, as pope, does he get to pursue those interests outside of what he must do?

Father Fessio: He's written a book, a major book, a serious book...He reads widely. He remembers things very well, and so he's never ceased his scholarly work. The amazing thing is that from 1977 on, when he was an archbishop, he never ceased to read, to write, to do articles, to do essays. He continues that work. And his passion? He loves the Lord, and he loves our Church. If you read what he writes, he is always going to Scripture, to the Fathers, to artists, to historians, to the great monuments of Western culture. He is extremely broad. [Pope] John Paul II was wonderful, but there was a certain more channeled experience and vision with [him]. He was a philosopher, and he'd quote previous documents and so on. But look at the footnotes of [Pope Benedict's] first encyclical; I think you get to footnote 17 before you find a Church document. He's quoting Nietzsche, Descartes, Sallust, Augustine.

OSV: Despite this pope's brilliance and scholarship, his encyclicals seem more accessible to average Catholics. Do you think that's true?

Father Fessio: It's like John's Gospel. He's profound, but he has a simplicity about him ... Sandro Magister is a Vatican watcher in Rome. He also writes for a major Roman secular paper. Many of us have found him to be the most reliable and insightful of the Vatican reporters, and he summed it up. He said that there are more people coming to [Pope] Benedict's Wednesday audiences than went to [Pope] John Paul II's. He said that the difference seems to be that they came to see [Pope] John Paul II; they come to listen to [Pope] Benedict. That's a simplification, but I think there's a kernel of truth.

OSV: What is his prayer life like? Do you have a sense of that?

Father Fessio: Actually, I can give you a very specific response. It was under his patronage that four of us priests founded Casa Balthasar, our own house of formation, and we would meet with him every year to go over what was happening during the year and our plans for the future and to get his approval and so on. He had been with us, and we had a little recreation with these young men who were discerning for formation, and, as usual, he would open it up to questions. This one Moravian-Czech Republic seminarian was there...and he said, 'Cardinal Ratzinger, tell us about your prayer life and how you learned to pray.' He didn't skip a beat. He said that as a young boy he went to Mass with his parents and his brother...He just had a great love for liturgy. He said that his prayer always began with liturgical prayer -- the sacrifice of the Mass -- and the prayer flows from that and that leads you to Scripture.

Mary DeTurris Poust is a contributing editor to Our Sunday Visitor.