It is not my intention to analyze in these reflections the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, who will cease to be Pope tomorrow at eight o'clock in the evening after a historic Withdrawal loaded with symbolism. Popes like to move their cards thinking in the long term deadline, in the very long term deadline, knowing that they govern a millenary institution, full of leaks and cracks, sometimes ailing, but always alive and thriving. Ratzinger is no exception, quite the contrary. The Pope is fully aware that at this moment he is making history, marking a new guideline in the Church with this last decision of his, as courageous as it is premeditated. Therefore, time to time. The time will come to objectively evaluate a pontificate that, with its lights and shadows, as everything in this life, I think will end up exalting the figure of Benedict XVI.

My goal today is more modest. I only intend to refer to what Joseph Ratzinger has contributed during these years to the science of Law, a science that is suffering the consequences of living closed in on itself, entrenched, oblivious to the outside world. Yes, Law suffers from narcissism since the legal system fell insatiably in love with its own rule, reflected, not in the water, as the old Greek myth tells, but in the Constitution. For this reason, Law, more than other sciences, needs to enrich itself, recovering the interdisciplinary dialogue it has been maintaining with History, Philosophy, Ethics, Economics, Sociology, Logic, Philology, Theology.

Ratzinger has approached Law from the latter, as did the Spanish masters of the School of Salamanca. And he has done so precisely in the same direction as Francisco de Vitoria. If Vitoria sought reconciliation between Modernity and Christianity, Ratzinger has placed all his intellectual power at the service of reconciliation between Christianity and Enlightenment. The Pope's argument is as follows: unlike other religions, such as Judaism or Islam, which are based on religious law, Christianity as such does not have its own legal system. There is, therefore, no Christian law in the strict sense of the word. With this categorical statement, pronounced in the German Parliament in 2011, the Pope gave full validity to the pre-Christian juridical method that arose as a result of the meeting that took place in the 2nd century BC between the Stoic philosophers and the Roman jurists.

If the legal system is for all, believers and non-believers, it must be inclusive; therefore, the tools it must employ are in no way religious or theological. "Please do not tell me that this is just because God has said it is just. Give me other reasons," we could say in a plainspoken phrase. Do not put on God's shoulders what God does not have to carry. On God's shoulders weighs the cross, not the right.

This argument, in no way, intends to expel God from the legal system, but rather not to convert the Law into something revealed, to which one has access only from religion plenary session of the Executive Council . This is the true secularization of law, which I support as the first supporter. The question, therefore, is not to make a Law with God or a Law without God, but rather to make a Law in which God's creative reason is not excluded, that is to say, a Law that is, in some way, open to transcendence. Indeed, if the purpose of law is to serve the human being, and this has a transcendent dimension, law must be open to transcendence in order to protect the integrity of the human person.

In this way, the Pope intends to break the impassable abyss that, after the World War, juridical positivism created between being and ought to be. This gap prevents ethical or religious indications from being derived from nature. Morality and religion would become an exclusively private matter, closed to objective truths. Ratzinger insists, rightly I believe, that law must be reconnected with the other sciences through nature. All the sciences, including law, must listen to the language of nature. The human will is only adequate to justice when the person is admitted as what he is, as a non-self-created being, in whose DNA moral and juridical norms are imprinted. It is not necessary to explain to anyone that killing is wrong or that stealing from one's neighbor is not from receipt.

The Pope's second great contribution to law was not in the field of methodology, but in the international sphere. In the era of globalization, Ratzinger strongly advocated a world authority. He did so in his encyclical Caritas in veritate. This does not mean that the Pope is in favor of a kind of government of the world, just as one can govern a country or a region. Even less of the creation of a sort of World State, which would be the beginning of the end of political life, as Hannah Arendt rightly said. The Pope's argument is as follows: globalization needs to be governed because it directly affects the achievement of a global common good. Therefore, it requires a global authority. This authority would be subject to the rule of Law and Law, and should be constituted on the basis of the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity and division of functions (not of powers, as it appears in so many mistranslations of the Latin text).

Globalization, whether we like it or not, has turned Humanity into a political community. And every community needs a law. This global law is sui generis and must integrate, insofar as it affects them, all the existing legal systems on the planet, without diminishing the rich variety of legal traditions and normative contents. Thus, the contrast between monism and dualism, as current as it is sterile in the contemporary constitutional discussion , loses its raison d'être with the new global paradigm, capable by itself, thanks to its constitutional character, of uniting without unifying, of harmonizing without equalizing, of integrating without equating. Global law is, by nature, plural. Humanity, being inclusive in itself, because it is unique, allows an internal diversity far superior to that offered by the society of States. This reality must be taken into consideration by the new global law in order to avoid any hint of legal imperialism.

A final contribution of Joseph Ratzinger, which seems to me to be of great significance for Canon Law, is that the so-called principle of separation between Church and State is, in reality, a principle of non-exclusionary dualism. The reason is very clear: no one ceases to be a member of the political community because he or she is a member of a religious community. The Church, therefore, is an integral part of the political community to the extent that it lives within it. This has become clear in the wake of the horrible scandal of sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests which has so stained the Pontificate of Benedict XVI and which has made the Pope suffer to exhaustion, despite repeated attempts, since 1988, all of them unsuccessful, to fight pederasty in the Church.

Some ecclesiastics were applying in this matter an antediluvian doctrine that was clearly unjust. It was about affirming that in the same way that a close relative, a father, a mother, a sister, do not have the obligation to inform on their closest relatives, the bishop, as pastor and spiritual father of his priests, could cover up for them in order to protect them before the civil jurisdiction. Yes, the Canon Law should be applied, but this was an internal law of the Church, and, therefore, much more homely. In this way, a paternalistic and moralizing principle was so poorly defended, but totally antijuridical, whose application has caused serious damage to so many families and has blackened the face of the Church to the point of public shame.

Pope Benedict has been radical in the paradigm shift, although the fruits, unfortunately, are slow in coming. For the Pope, ecclesiastical jurisdiction must collaborate with civil jurisdiction in all matters that are skill of the latter because, I repeat, the Church-State dualism is not exclusive. That is why the Church, as a social structure, is also subject to the civil juridical order in India, China and Honolulu. And for civil jurisdiction, the bishop is not the pastor and father of the priest, even if he is so within the Church. I believe that this line of transparency and clarity, initiated by Benedict XVI, is the right one to put an end to so much human drama and to clean up so much misery in a house called to give light to the world. But this is up to the next pontiff.

Rafael Domingo Oslé is Full Professor of the University of Navarra and Visiting Professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta.