Just acquired this book on Kindle, so I hope to be able to record my impressions, pertinent informal translations, as I go along. It is, of course, most exciting that the book is
a bestseller in Germany, for all that the German CINO(Catholics in name only) have always abominated him. Obviously, not a few German-speaking readers think enough of
Benedict XVI to plunk down $38 for a 1200-page book that would by no means be light and easy reading. Meanwhile, here is Edward Pentin's interview with author Peter
Seewald to provide more context for his new biography.
Peter Seewald’s
spiritual and historical journey’
with the Pope Emeritus
by Edward Pentin
May 28. 2020
In writing his definitive and monumental new work on Benedict XVI, biographer Peter Seewald discovered “countless” new elements to the Pope Emeritus’s life and character, including that his role in the Second Vatican Council was “not marginal but enormously significant.”
In this May 21 email interview with the
Register, Seewald explains how the book,
Benedict XVI: The Biography — running 1,184 pages in the German version — juxtaposes Joseph Ratzinger’s life and teaching with the dramatic and stirring events of the 20th century.
He also explains the genesis of the book, as well as Benedict’s relationship with Francis, the advice Benedict offers for dealing with the crisis of faith in the Church and the world today, and why Benedict decided to write a spiritual testament to be published after his death. Seewald also provides an update on how Benedict is faring during this time of pandemic.
The English edition of the first volume of
Benedict XVI: The Biography will be published in November by Bloomsbury Continuum.
Why did you decide to write this book? How did it come about?
I sort of saw it as my job. Admittedly, there is now a wealth of books about Benedict XVI, such as the meritorious work of the Italian theologian Elio Guerriero. But there was none that showed Ratzinger’s biography and his teaching in connection with historical events, and that, above all, tries to tell the life, work and person of the German Pope in such an exciting way, as it corresponds to this life, in all its drama and its importance for the history of the Church and the world. To this end, I carried out extensive research, analyzed archives and conducted conversations with about 100 contemporary witnesses. Last but not least, Pope Benedict made himself available to me for this project in countless meetings.
It is not only about the past, but also about the future. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, therefore called my book a “brilliant pitch,” which connects the path of a scholar with the core question of what is important in the Church of today.
The book contains many new interviews with the Pope Emeritus. When did these take place?
I began them during the year 2012, when Pope Benedict was still in office. We continued the interviews until 2018, most recently in his small monastery in the Vatican Gardens.
You’ve known Benedict for many years, but when you wrote this book and from the interviews you had with the Pope Emeritus, what did you learn about him that you did not know before?
Oh, countless things.
The life of Joseph Ratzinger is the biography of a century. One had always thought that the rise of the former professor of theology was one smooth progression, a career without any breaks. But there are countless ups and downs, with dramas that led to the brink of failure.
There were the experiences during the Nazi era, when it was said that after the “Final Victory” [of the Nazis], Catholic priests would either be banned or end up in concentration camps. As a student, he had fallen in love with a girl — a story that made his decision to enter priestly life an existential one. A critical essay almost cost him an appointment to a faculty chair at the end of the 1950s. In Bonn, on the other hand, he was feted as a new star of theology and, at the same time, considered to perhaps be a dangerous modernist or even a Freemason.
His proximity to uncomfortable, independent-thinking personalities is striking. I was also unaware that Ratzinger’s role in the [Second Vatican] Council is not marginal but enormously significant. He himself always played it down. But alongside Cardinal [Josef] Frings, he was basically the definitive Vatican spin doctor. Pure legend, however, is the story of his “trauma” during the student revolt in Tübingen [in 1968], or the story of his turn from revolutionary to reactionary brakeman. I have examined all these things thoroughly, including the so-called scandals, such as the [former Society of St. Pius X bishop Richard] Williamson affair or “Vatileaks,” and come to quite different conclusions than those [voices] who merely reiterate stereotypes.
Ratzinger is not without fault. Nor did he get everything right when he was pontiff. But it is not by accident that he is considered worldwide as one of the great thinkers of our time. His work is important, and his life exciting, so it is always worthwhile to study him.
In addition, the biography, with its contemporary historical background, is not only a spiritual and historical journey through an exciting and dramatic century; it also shows the lessons to be drawn from all those decades and the cutting-edge answers these provide to the current faith and Church crisis in the West.
According to what we already know from the contents of your book, Benedict says that modern society is in the process of “socially excommunicating” those who disagree with abortion or the same-sex agenda that he attributes to the spirit of the Antichrist. What does he advise believers to do in the face of these threats?
Pray and work. Just stand firm. Do not be infected by relativism, and do not despair — for, in the end, Christ will always be the victor. Society is dependent on the streams that nourish it through religion. We see from the cruel experiences of the 20th century what would be threatened if the Christian worldview and Christian ethics were to be completely banned from public debate.
At the same time, Ratzinger never had any illusions about the fundamental contradiction between secular society and the thought and life of Christians. He saw early on the situation of a diminishing community of faith coming closer. In his 1958 work
The New Pagans and the Church, he says:
“In the long run, the Church cannot avoid the need to get rid of, part by part, the appearance of her identity with the world and once again to become what she is: the community of the faithful.”
Ratzinger saw in God's “path of salvation” a Church of the minority. That means a church of relatively few confessed faithful, who are then charged with representing the many. Only when the Church ceases to be “a cheap, foregone conclusion, only when she begins again to show herself as she really is,” he admonished, “will she be able to again reach the ear of the new Gentiles with her message.”
You mention that Benedict has written a spiritual testament to be published after his death. Why did he feel the need to write it, and do you have a general idea of what it might contain?
At first, the Pope Emeritus did not want to write a spiritual testament, but he has now come to think differently about it. I think that Benedict XVI wants to serve his Church and society once again with words that go beyond time. There is a good tradition in these posthumous papal texts. We think of the beautiful testament of Paul VI. I am not a clairvoyant, but I can imagine that in Benedict’s paper, he expresses concern for the future of the faith, but at the same time helps to strengthen people in troubled times, and not only the faithful.
You mention that relations between Benedict and Pope Francis are good, but there are some Catholics who wish that Benedict had not resigned, who contend that he would never agree with some of the decisions of this pontificate. What do you say to this view?
The former and the current pope have different temperaments, different charismas, and they each have their own way of exercising the office. We see from the popes of previous centuries that a more intellectual pontiff is usually followed by a more emotional one. That was never a disadvantage. Undoubtedly, there can be different views between Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. But that does not matter. The pope is the pope.
Ratzinger promised obedience to his successor before he even knew who would follow in his footsteps, and he has been scrupulously careful all these years to first of all ensure that no accusation of interference could arise. Many of the later questions I asked him, for example, he refused to answer. One answer, he said, would “inevitably constitute interference in the work of the present Pope. Anything that goes in that direction I must, and wish to, avoid.” Moreover, in my book he literally says: “The personal friendship with Pope Francis has not only remained, but has grown.”
Catholics who are disappointed with the current pontificate argue that Benedict remains pope. Is this question addressed in the book, and perhaps the concerns these people have that he seems to be promoting the image of “two popes” by retaining some of the trappings of the papacy?
As I said before, the pope is the pope. There is no other pope besides him, at least not in our time.
Talk of Ratzinger as a “shadow pope” is as nonsensical as the fairy tale that Bergoglio is hounded by the “wolves” in the Vatican.
As the first really reigning pope in history who resigned his office, Ratzinger had to establish a new tradition in the Catholic Church, so to speak. Nobody knew what a resigned pope should call himself, how he should dress and which things he should or should not do after his resignation.
On the one hand, Benedict XVI is emeritus, as there are emeritus bishops; but on the other hand, as a former pope, he is different from ordinary bishops. This includes the fact that he removed the insignia of a reigning pope, but continues to wear white. I do not believe that people are so simple-minded that they do not know who is the incumbent pope and who is not. If Francis also resigns and Benedict XVI is still alive, there will even be three living popes, but only one who sits as
vicarius Christi on the chair of Peter.
Does the book offer a more complete picture of Benedict’s reasons for his resignation, and if so, how?
The complete circumstances of his resignation are explained in detail in my biography. In addition, Benedict XVI once again takes a clear position on this. I think that with it, really, all has been said. Basically, this is also a very simple story. It only seems so mysterious because certain people don’t get tired of always spinning some secrets.
Anyway, the whole act was a resignation with an announcement. It had nothing to do with “Vatileaks,” as is still claimed, nor with blackmail or anything else. Like the popes before him, Benedict XVI, soon after his election, had signed a resignation declaration in case he could no longer exercise his office due to a serious illness, such as dementia.
In our interview book
Light of the World, he already explained in 2010 that a pope not only has the right but sometimes also the duty to resign from office if he is physically and/or psychologically no longer able to really exercise it. John Paul II is a special case here. He had a charism of his own, and his ordeal, which was necessary to bring new strength to the Church, cannot be repeated. In the last years of Wojtyla’s life, however, a vacuum was created, which was not without problems.
Benedict XVI saw for himself another vocation. He was no longer a young man when he was elected into office. In the many decades before [his election] he also never spared himself, fighting as a front-line defender of the faith. During his pontificate, which lasted, after all, eight years, he had completely exhausted himself. The fact that he, at his old age and with health handicaps, of which the public had no idea, then also wrote a trilogy on Jesus almost bordered on the superhuman.
In the end, he was powerless and saw the necessity of giving the shepherd’s crozier to younger, fresher hands. Above all, he did not want to deprive his potential successor of the chance of starting his office with the thrust of the World Youth Day of Rio de Janeiro, as he himself began his pontificate with World Youth Day in Cologne.
Benedict XVI knew what he was getting into with his act of resignation. He thought through this step for many months and suffered through it in prayer. One can believe him when he says that he is at peace with it, especially with his Lord, to whom alone he is ultimately responsible.
Critics might say that the book is another breach of the oath that he swore to himself to remain hidden from the world, in silent prayer. Why do you think he agreed to speak not only in this book, but also already in the Last Testament and in sporadic statements and essays?
Stop — my biography is not Pope Benedict’s publication, but the work of a journalist. And
Last Testament contains interviews that had already begun in 2012 within the framework of my work for the biography — that is, still during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. Ratzinger originally did not want them to be published in a separate work. But I was able to convince him to publish the work when speculation about his resignation would not be silenced. However, he made the publication of the book dependent on the approval of Pope Francis, who also gave it willingly.
Moreover, Benedict did not take a vow of silence when he resigned. His last words as acting pontiff were: “I wish to continue to work, with my heart, with my love, with my prayer, with my thoughts, with all my spiritual forces, for the common good, for the good of the Church and of humanity.”
How is Benedict doing these days, especially these days of quarantine? Are you in regular contact with him?
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, his Mater Ecclesiae residence has been subject to the general regulations for Italy. This meant for the first time: Nobody goes out; nobody comes in.
Physically, the pope emeritus is now very frail. His voice has become so weak that one can hardly understand him. Mentally, however, he is still fit. He still carries out an extensive correspondence, and his letters are, as always, intellectually stimulating and refined. I only see him occasionally.
Pope Benedict has answered all sorts of questions from me over the years, and, of course, I still have some questions that I would like to ask. But at some stage, it’s enough. I am glad that the many encounters were possible and look with gratitude on our interviews, which help to correct misconceptions of Benedict XVI and give many people the opportunity to penetrate more deeply into the Christian faith through the life and work of Joseph Ratzinger, or to discover Christ in a completely new way.
Meanwhile, here is a German journalist's observations - sketchy and seemingly at random - about the Seewald biography, in which he does cite some snippets from the book.
Benedict XVI’s way to God
A note about Peter Seewald's
'Benedikt XVI: Ein Leben'
By Thorsten Paprotny
Translated from
May 16,2020
Do you remember a bestseller in 1996,
Salt of the Earth? It was published almost 25 years ago by journalist Peter Seewald – once a quarrelsome, later renegade agnostic, who returned to the Church and has since become a professing, deeply religious Catholic - at a time when interview books were not at all as ‘in’ as they have since become.
Seewald has undertaken many spiritual journeys with the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith who was labelled in Germany as the Panzerkardinal. And the fruits of his conversations with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger all became bestsellers.
At the time, many readers were particularly touched by the fact that the future Pope answered the question "How many ways are there to God?" quite simply: "As many as there are people." I came across this concept later, expressed in other words, for example by the Mariannhill Missionary priest Father Adalbert Ludwig Balling, who was particularly popular in Bavaria and widely read by simple-believing, pious Catholics – including the cardinal’s sister Maria Ratzinger.
Cardinal Ratzinger obviously had not specially thought out his answer but had simply stated what he always thought, using these words to express his trust in God and not to spell out any new mission ‘strategy’.
Peter Seewald succeeded like no other in conveying the personality and theology of Joseph Ratzinger in an understandable, easily accessible manner to the German-speaking world. More interview books followed
[two more with the cardinal, one when Joseph Ratzinger was already Pope, and one after his resignation].
Now, Seewald’s long-awaited biography of Benedict XVI has been published, reverberations in the media that provide deep ‘insights’ which must be indulged by whoever wishes to deal with the book, which will survive the debates it is causing. Some perceptions and comments are meaningful, but what emerges more prominently are the ‘profiles’ of the commentators who range from critical to outraged. Perhaps no one should be surprised.
[i.e., No one familiar with media targeting of Joseph Ratzinger in the past 50 years!]
The Christian faith is a religion ‘of the book’, but it is a story of relationships. For Peter Seewald, meeting Jospeh Ratzinger was extraordinarily important, formative, groundbreaking. Our faith thrives in relationships, and grows and matures through encounters with persons and with books. The image that we often have of the Church and theology, is sometimes sharply contoured. And it seems to me that while the public debates on the new biography
[and on Joseph Ratinger/Benedict XVI] are current, they are perhaps not important in the whole picture.
Where can we hear God’s voice? What spaces are open for pilgrims of faith who only want to pray and who only seek protection and refuge? Peter Seewald’s supremely knowledgeable biography of Benedict XVI shows that the Church has offered and offers such a home. Not even surprising statements from within the Church herself, then as well as now, can detract from that.
Seewald does not hide the fact that, for example, the Freising bishops’ conference, though it did not give up its ideological reservations against the Nazis, said defensively in a 1933 statement: “Membership in the NSDAP [formal acronym designating the National Socialist Party] or any of its structures…
no longer constitute a violation of Church law”.
[In contrast], the Catholic faithful often kept a clear eye. Even as the Church was preaching eschatological hope within, it was the secular spirit of Nazism that reigned outside the door. Even as a child, Joseph Ratzinge already knew that the Ratzinger family would only follow and be faithful to no one else but Jesus Christ and his Church.
All his life, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has spoken of the way with God and the way to God, through his quiet example, through the kindness, goodness and open-mindedness of the Catholic world that became his own, with humor as well as with great seriousness. Take up a copy of Seewald’s book if you want to know more of the Emeritus Pope’s life.
The stories of his childhood are particularly told lovingly. ”It is not known that he ever took part in a scuffle or a snowball fight. Nor in the wrangling of kids who would run down to the piers to lie on their belly to watch the fish during recess.”
There is the touching story of the teddy bear that the three-year-old Joseph absolutely wanted to own and which has accompanied him all his life, up to the Vatican. Seewald notes: “It [the toy] ended up on a chair in the bedroom of the papal apartment”. Even today, the almost 90-year-old toy must certainly be in the Emeritus Pope’s retirement home.
The youngest son of Joseph and Maria Ratzinger lived a somewhat ‘hidden’ life, unlike what it would be eventually: “He hardly had any playmates [other than brother Georg and sister Maria]. After school, children in rural areas mostly become occupied in farm and field work. Joseph indulged his romantic streak, preferring to pick flowers, write poems on nature and Christmas, and liked being with farm animals… Learning was easy for him, (though) he didn’t like school as much. He experienced physical education as a gruesome plague, and everything military was alien to him. He loved reading, mostly narratives, and especially the novels of Herman Hesse. Later, with Augustine, he was enthusiastic…”
“Joseph Ratzinger always lived modestly, at home, in Pentling
[the only house he ever owned, located in a suburb of Regensburg] and elsewhere. When, after he was elected pope by a large majority, he first showed himself to the faithful on St. Peter’s Loggia of Benediction, his old sweater was clearly visible under the new cassoc.k”
Seewald recalls that Lufthansa once mocked the cardinal's battered suitcase as "damaging to business”. On the other hand, former students and companions report that, as a theology professor, whenever he heard about a student or employee's financial hardship, he would quietly say to them: "Write your account number on a slip of paper."
Joseph Ratzinger’s love for the Church, Seewald says, appeared to be ‘innate’. Franz Niegel, one of his students at the Freising seminary
[his first teaching position], noted about him:
“With the young theologian, a new sound had come into the world, at least into the world of Freising… He brought things that had never been heard before. The time was already very musty, and then someone comes and can tell you the message anew. We paid attention to the content of what he said. A new door has opened for us. Until then there was only the traditional view, and he was able to make things shine anew."
Theologically he was regarded as “left-wing Catholic”, (but) was free from professorial attitudes and was an attentive listener when students visited him or, by correspondence, as companions in faith, when they sent him troubled questions. And he would continue to do even as cardinal and pope, “as I myself would always thankfully experience with him,” Seewald notes. “How gladly Joseph Ratzinger would have had more time for theological studies in his old age. But the Lord needed him as Pope of the universal Church. Today he carries us all in prayer – even as we, too, pray for our dear Father Benedict in the Vatican”.
With his valuable book, which is important in every respect, Peter Seewald has given us valuable insights into the life of Joseph Ratzinger. We should be very grateful to him for this, and in faithfulness to God, like Benedict XVI to this day, remain connected to the Lord's Church.
So we belong together as sisters and brothers in faith, safe in the great family of God, which encloses all times and places, and connects heaven and earth. How unspeakably beautiful it is to be Roman Catholic!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/06/2020 03:42]