BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

And now, a full-blown book review, which even better, does not contain a single negative word or thought about Benedict XVI!....


In 'Light of the World',
Benedict XVI expresses himself
straight and to the point
by Isabelle de Gaulmyn
Translated from

Sunday, Nov. 21, 2010

The interview book with Benedict XVI, Light of the World, is permeated through and through by the idea that the world cannot deal with its problems without God, the Other.

One must take the road to Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the Popes. Sit on a comfortable chair, in front of the Pope, with a crackling fire nearby. [Why would there be a fire in the summer???] And listen. This is what this book invites us to do, and truly, it is a total success.

The tone is free, simple, sometimes light, as when Benedict XVI admits he does not use the stationary bicycle prescribed for him by his doctor, or when he states his appreciation for the Don Camillo films.

But the conversation becomes deeper and covers all the great stakes of the world and the Church, and the greta spiritual questions.

Here is a book that should once and for all silence all those who would portray Benedict XVI as a closed man, all coiled up to spring backward into the past. The man who, since 2005, has sat on Peter's Chair shows himself with stunning humility, with the capacity, which no Pope before him has had, of intellectual self-criticism.

He looks at the world full of hope, despite its upheavals, aware of its difficulties, its joys and its pains. If there is any catastrophism at all, it's on the part of the interviewer, Peter Seewald, some of whose questions end up rather jarring by their apocalyptic tone.

But the Pope lends himself gracefully to questions meant to look at the first five years of his Pontificate. No revelations here, but the impression that Benedict XVI deeply feels all the incomprehensions about him.

On the Regensburg lecture, this admission: "I conceived and gave the lecture as a strictly academic text, without thinking that the reading given to a pontifical discourse whould not be academic but political", but then he notes that it served to relaunch Christian-Muslim dialog.

On the Williamson case, the feeling that he was misunderstood: "Their excommunication [of the Lefebvrian bishops] had nothing to do with Vatican II - it was because of a transgression against Papal primacy [Mons. Lefebvre defied John Paul II's express instruction and went ahead and ordained four bishops not approved by the Pope] which they had just proclaimed in a letter expressing their approval of that principal. Therefore, the juridical consequence was clear".

But, he underscores afterwards, "Alas, we did a bad job of public information" about the lifting of the excommunications, and on top of that, there came 'the Williamson catastrophe": "We made the mistake of not having studied and prepared adequately in this regard". [Humble Benedict, loyal to his 'team' and sharing their mistake!]

About AIDS and his infamous statement about condoms, he does not regret anything. On the one hand, the Church is doing a great deal in the field to combat AIDS, but on the other, that "one cannot resolve the problem by distributing condoms".

On this occasion, however, he opens a door, looking at the use of condoms in order to reduce the risk of infection, which "could nonetheless be a first step on the road to a sexuality that is lived differently, a more human sexuality".

Finally, the pedophile crisis, that he compares to a volcanic explosion whose ashes have covered the Church and her priests. His words are strong, in proportion to his reaction.

"It caught me by surprise," he says, because from his personal knowledge of the cases that had gone through his desk at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "the extent of it was a shock to me, despite everything".

He rejects the idea of a conspiracy against the Church: "But because the evil was within the Church, they were able to use it against her".

On his pontificate, Benedict XVI points out the main axes:

- Ecumenism, especially the rapprochement with the Orthodox Churches, and he considers a meeting between Rome and Moscow as 'within the order of the possible'.

- Relations with other religions, especially the Jews, whom, he says, he prefers to call 'our fathers in the faith' rather than 'our older brothers' [John Paul II's phrase].

In this respect, one must note how often Benedict XVI refers explicitly to the Second Vatican Council, in whose line he fully situates himself. He does not think it is necessary to call a new Council, but rather, to apply Vatican II.

Basically, the chapter dedicated to reforms that have been demanded by liberal Catholics, like married priests, the problem of remarried divorcees, or the Church position on contraception, shows that Benedict xVI does not believe in the possibility of changing the Church from the top, through transformation of its organisms, or by any form of 'activism'. [Whoa! This is a conclusion by the reporter, not a quotation. I hope she is is not implying that he believes it can be changed from below, heaven forbid! If at all, I would think that he does not believe the proposed 'reforms' are possible at all in the Church!]1]

One may reproach him for that. But it's been a constant position with him for years: that true reform will come from communion, to a return to what is essential in Christianity, by means of a profound conversion.

His firm belief: One must make visible the center of Christianity at the same time as the simplicity of being Christian.

Benedict XVI is haunted by the urgent need to repropose the question of God in a escularized world. "We are moving towards a Christianity by choice," he says. "But the general power of the Christian imprint comes from him".

He notes that if John Paul II, in a precise critical situation ddeply branded by Marxism, was concerned with "achieving a breakthrough to faith, to show it as the center and the way", then for his part, his mission is "to uphold the Word of God as the decisive word, while at teh same time, to give Christianity the simplicity and profundity without which it cannot function".

That is the great challenge of what he calls the 'new evangelization', with the two pillars that he never tires to recall, the bond between faith and reason, and the centrality of Christ as the only way to salvation.

From cover to cover, one is struck by the consistency of a thought that is convinced that the world cannot find a way out of its problems without meeting God, the Other: "So many problems need to be resolved, but not one will be, if God is not in our heart and if he does not become visible again in the world".

At the start, not without humor, Benedict XVI depicts himself as a 'small Pope' beside a 'giant' like Karol Wojtyla...

A 'small Pope'? History will decide. But in any case, a Pope who is capable of looking beyond the walls of the Vatican in order to place the Church once more in the vaster perspective of human history and its salvation at the start of the third millennium.





Seewald: ‘I know of few young people
so alive, so curious and so modern as the Pope’
By Edward Pentin

Friday, 19 November 2010


A series of candid interviews with Pope Benedict XVI will go on sale around the world next week in the eagerly anticipated book: Light of the World, The Pope, The Church and The Signs of the Times by Peter Seewald.

Mr Seewald, a German author and former magazine editor, has shared these brief comments about the book – the first ever to contain verbal interviews between a pontiff and a journalist.

Mr Seewald, how important do you think the book will be in helping people become better acquainted with the Pope?
Benedict XVI is still always falsely portrayed. Fundamentally, he is a very dear man and extremely lovable. Here is someone who is inexhaustible, a great giver. And if I’m honest, I know of few young people who are so fit, so productive, so alive, so curious and in a certain sense so young and as modern as this seemingly old man on the throne of Peter.

This book contains not only an analysis of the crisis in the Church and society, but it is in some ways also a portrait of the Pope.

How much has the Pope changed since your last conversations with him?
Well, to begin with, he’s quite simply gotten older. Aged 83 and leading the universal Church with 1.2 billion members is no trifling matter. Of course, this office has a tremendous aura, but the Joseph Ratzinger of earlier times is also the Joseph Ratzinger of today.

He is like hard wood when it comes to the basic tenets of the faith – but he is also a shepherd, even more sensitive, humble and wiser now. Above all, he has kept his beautiful, subtle humor. Basically he is a very dear man, extremely lovable. and his willingness to help others is positively touching.

You have said that some people will be upset by the book. What did you mean by this, and might this harm his pontificate?
This book will not fit well for many people, some because they will feel uncomfortable, their critical attitude to this Pope won’t change, and for others because this man does not correspond to their image of him as a reactionary.

Conversely, Light of the World will make many people sit up – through his clarity, his truth, and ultimately through his prophetic words. It’s inconceivable to me that it would harm his pontificate.

On the contrary, it will give us a new, unobstructed view of the Pope’s work and his great achievements so far. And it can help us in a world where so often the blind lead the blind, looking to find guidance.

There is no doubt Pope Benedict is not only one of the greatest theologians, but also one of the greatest intellectuals and thinkers of our time. This book is a message to the world and the Church. And I think, as rarely before, it helps us come to understand not only the times in which we live, but also the core issues of the faith.