Sifting His Writings

Stephen Vincent recommends The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, by John Thornton and Susan Varenne.

THE ESSENTIAL POPE

BENEDICT XVI

His Central Writings & Speeches

Edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne

Harper San Francisco, 2008

512 pages, $15.95

To order: harpercollins.com


Soon after being elected to the papacy in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI said that he did not plan to write many documents but would focus on implementing the many documents of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, and those of the Second Vatican Council.

Perhaps in response to this announced silence, a flood of books and articles came out almost immediately on the new Pope, analyzing his writings.

So much has been written about Benedict in the short time of his papacy, it is not surprising that the title of this book seeks to set it apart, promising his essential or central writings and speeches. Benedict scholars may argue whether all his truly important writings are here, but for the average reader, the book contains a wide enough cross-section of documents to give an idea of the breadth of his thinking and the depth of his insights.

The editors wisely begin the book with Ratzinger’s updated preface to Introduction to Christianity. Written in the immediate wake of Vatican II and republished with a new preface 30 years later, Introduction is Ratzinger’s most popular yet seminal work, and holds the key to all his other writings. In the text reprinted here, Ratzinger sums up the changes since the council and the development of his own thinking.

Also helpfully compiled are the homilies that made Benedict a media figure since they were broadcast worldwide — from John Paul II’s funeral Mass, the Mass for the election of the Roman pontiff and his first Mass as the Pope.

The book then digs deeper into the “essential” Benedict, reprinting texts from many periods and places. His more “controversial” writings on liberation theology, sexual morality and bioethics are highlighted, as are his views on the pillars of the faith — Scripture, sacred Tradition and the Church itself.

Only scholars or Benedict fans are likely to read through all this material. The editors do not make it easy for the reader since they do not offer dates, locations or context for the excerpts.

As they write in the book’s preface, they refrained from doing so because “our goal was to include as many of his own edifying words as we could within the confines of a commercial product.” But I would have taken a few pages less of Benedict’s writings for the editors to provide a better explanation of the excerpts.

This weakness is somewhat overcome by a lengthy and very enlightening introduction to the book by Divine Word Father D. Vincent Twomey, an Irish seminary professor. He offers excellent insights into the Holy Father’s theological outlook and methods, and breaks Ratzinger’s writings into three periods of development.

Deus Caritas Est is, he writes, “a masterly synthesis of his dogmatic theology and his theology of politics. It has all the density of his earlier writings, a density that lends itself not to summary but to exposition.”

After reading the introduction, one gets the impression that Pope Benedict’s best thinking lies ahead, as he brings the weight of his scholarship to the challenges facing the Church in the modern world.

Stephen Vincent writes from

Wallingford, Connecticut.