When Cardinal Carlo Martini, the former Archbishop of Milan, died on August 31, many must have wondered what kind of leader the Church had just lost. “Progressive Catholic Icon . . . Dies After Saying Church ‘200 years’ Behind,” headlined CBS news on September 3. The following day, the Catholic News Service reported Pope Benedict’s tribute: “The late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini was a ‘generous and faithful pastor of the church,’ who not only studied the Bible ‘but loved it intensely and made it the light of his life.’”
Could the secular press and Benedict, be speaking about the same man? Yes, and their reactions to Martini’s passing reflected his multifaceted and sometimes controversial life.
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