A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

the canonization and doctorization of hildegard 311
is fijitting because of: the force of her theological explorations; her example
to women as an academic and in the service of souls; her reminder to
people to respect creation as the work of God; the benefijits sure to come
to the female branch of the Benedictine order in the form of new vocations;
and the gifts and benefijits of the music she composed, still of great
use and appeal today. In short, appealing to the positive example set by
the then-recent nominations of the fijirst-ever female doctors, the bishops
claim that naming Hildegard a doctor would be a move welcomed by all
of the faithful, and be helpful to Christian doctrine as well as the spread
of the faith. In the list of signatories, after Conference President Joseph
Cardinal Höfffner and Bishop of Mainz Hermann Cardinal Volk, one fijinds
the signature of the bishop of Munich and Freising, a certain “Joseph Card.
Ratzinger.”
Six months later, on September 8, 1979, on the occasion of the 800th
anniversary of Hildegard’s death, Pope John Paul II wrote and addressed
a letter to Hermann Cardinal Volk, bishop of Mainz and the second signatory
of the aforementioned letter sent to the Pope by the German Episcopal
Conference. Full of the highest praise for Hildegard—who is referred
to as “Saint Hildegard”—the letter refers to Hildegard as “light of her people
and of her times,” “flower of Germany,” and “prophet of Germany,”
but not as a “doctor.” The German bishops must have been pleased by the
praise expressed by the Pope, but at the same time disappointed that their
letter appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.15
In the next decade, a perhaps more modest request, but one no less
noted by the curia, was made by a young German priest, Ralf Hufsky.
He sent a copy of his dissertation, on Hildegard’s theology of grace, to
the Congregazione delle Cause dei Santi, accompanied by a letter, dated
June 5, 1987, calling for Hildegard to be declared “Magistra Ecclesiae.”16
A sign of the growing esteem granted by the Vatican with regard to
Hildegard may be witnessed by the 2001 version of the Roman martyrology.
It is signifijicant that although many saints originally included by
Baronio have since been removed from the martyrology, the presence of
Hildegard in successive editions has been uninterrupted and, if anything,
magnifijied. For example, in this 2001 edition, one fijinds her entry as follows:
“In monasterio Montis Sancti Ruperti prope Bingiam in Hassia, sanctae
15 The text of the Pope’s letter is in Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, vol. 2, n. 2 (July–
September 1979), pp. 271–72.
16 The dissertation and the letter are conserved in the Archive of the Congregazione
delle Cause dei Santi, R. 641.