I’ve met a good number of people who adore the previous Pope, John Paul II (who doesnt?), but who couldnt make up their mind over Benedict XVI. Most of them think of the former head of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as the Vatican German Shepherd, more intent on punishing wayward Catholics and theologians, rather than bringing them back to the fold like the kind, old Father of the prodigal son. I’ve done a little research and it’s safe to conclude that Benedict is exactly the opposite of what the media tries to portray. Of course, he is an intellectual giant no less than John Paul II. But unlike John Paul, he is not media-savvy, and extremely shy. Whereas John Paul was an actor, Benedict was a university teacher and theologian. The fact that Karl Wojtyla was a virtually unknown cardinal in a country locked up by communism helped deepen the world’s affection for him. Joseph Ratzinger, meanwhile, was waging intellectual wars in universities in Germany. And, of course, before he became Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger was the Head of the Congregation that censured several theologians over their incorrect (and even dangerous) doctrinal conclusions. That position and funtion alone was abundant fodder for the media who’d rather side with the underdog, not minding if the underdog is a rabid pitbull or a loyal sheepdog.
Anyway, enough of introducing the Benedict. He has written fantastic books which everyone, Catholic or not, should read. I found this little pamphlet by John Allen (CNN Vatican Correspondent). Dont be repulsed by its size! It packs a ton of wisdom from Benedict XVI. Here are tidbits from that booklet.
10 Things Pope Benedict Wants You To Know
1. God Is Love: Against any abstract or purely philosophical concept of God, Deus Caritas Est (Benedict’s first encyclical) reminds us that the Christian God is not just a force or a concept, but a lover. God’s passionate love for humanity is reflected in eros,or human sexual love. Yet eros, is not an end in itself. Rather it calls out of ourselves, toward something higher. Eros must be transformed towards agape, the complete gift of oneself for another.
2. Jesus Is Lord: Placing Christ at the Center is Benedict’s Modus Operandi. He wrote “Jesus of Nazareth”, his first book, because a number of Bible scholars and theologians ‘reinterpreted’ Jesus to make him more ‘relevant’: Jesus as a preacher of liberal morality, as a social revolutionary, as an inspired prophet on the level of other founders of religious movements. Out of impatience to achieve desired social outcomes, revisionist images of Jesus subvert the only basis for real humanism: belief in God and in an objective truth that comes from God and stands above the human will to power.
3. truth and Freedom are Two Sides of the same coin: Many people unconsciously endorse this “dictatorship of relativism” because they dont want to live on the basis of someone else’s truths. Such as desire reflects a flawed understanding of what freedom entails. Freedom is not the absence of restraint on our behavior, but the capacity to become the kind of person God calls us to be.
4. Faith and reason need one another: Faith and Reason desperately need one another. Christianity presupposes the rationality of God, and on the basis of that conviction, Christianity itself must be reasonable. Much dysfunction in contemporary culture can be explained by attempts to separate reason and faith. Reason without faith becomes skepticism, cynicism, ultimately nihilism, leading to dispair. Faith without reason becomes fundamentalism, extremism, and violence.
The next six next week.
