Abstract
Pope Benedict XVI seemed an unlikely fellow to declare Hildegard of Bingen a Doctor of the Church in 2012. Yet Joseph Ratzinger’s studies as a medievalist disposed him to the symbolist tendencies of Hildegard and her contemporaries in reflecting on the relationship among scripture, history, and the Church. Deeply affected by the abuse of political power and corruption within the Church, both Ratzinger and Hildegard developed prophetic outlooks on the nature of the Church and its mission in the world, centered on the singular light of Christ’s Incarnation. We find, across the centuries, a shared embrace of the enigmatic tension between the Church’s corrupted institutions and their prophetic renewal. Ironically, Hildegard came to distrust the authority of the papacy and prophesied its ending, even as Benedict would be, as pope, her greatest champion.
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2019) 10, 22–35.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-018-0111-5
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Campbell, N.M. (2022). The prophetess and the pope: St. Hildegard of Bingen, Pope Benedict XVI, and prophetic visions of church reform . In: Bowling, J., Walker, K. (eds) Prophetic Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18519-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18519-9_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-18518-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-18519-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)