Seven years of Benedict XVI:
The Pope we need for our time
by Lucetta Scaraffia
Translated from
April 22, 2012
Does it make sense that a person without theological preparation like me would try to evaluate one of the most important theologians of our time, Joseph Ratzinger? And, with some trepidation, I say Yes. Without a doubt.
All his work, in fact, is addressed not just to the narrow world of specialists but to all his contemporaries - be they believers or non-believers - and arises from the questions raised by our time.
His essays and books are thought out for all of us, contemporaries of this great theologian who is able to analyze our time and to seek the answers that Christian culture can and should find. They are texts written in clear and limpid language, understandable even to general readers who are drawn to read them because they discover answers to questions that have always been inevitable, that they have always sensed vaguely but could never express.
Joseph Ratzinger's words are like a clear and patient light, bringing to mind the words 'kindly light' from John Henry Newman - the intellectual English convert whom Joseph Ratzinger had always loved and admired and whom Benedict XVI personally beatified in England in September 2010. It is a light that brings readers clarity on the fundamental questions of life framed in the context of today.
Much of this comes from the fact that Benedict XVI was, for years, a professor, and therefore used to making himself heard by young minds, and who was, by all accounts, an excellent teacher. He was, above all, very open - allowing for diverse viewpoints and the many possible interpretations of a subject under discussion.
"Discussion reigned supreme," recalls Fr. Vincent Twomey, who was one of Prof. Ratzinger's doctoral students in Regensburg. "For every proposition, he would weigh all the possible objections, both historical as well as from contemporary theologians. He considered all opinions and hypotheses presented, even from the latest newcomer."
The publication of Joseph Ratzinger's
Collected Writings - which is ongoing - is an operation of great cultural importance, not just religious, because these writings are proof of the present Pope's character as an intellectual of great depth, one who is truly and properly exceptional among the long list of Popes.
Not since Leo the Great - i.e., not for fifteen centuries - has such a man become Pope who had reflected so profoundly as a theologian on the role of the Church and the faith during his time, a wise man who has sought to understand in depth the world in which he lives.
Such a Pope was necessary for this historical moment, and it is difficult not to acknowledge this. Modernity, in fact, is above all, a crisis of sense, or reason - a cultural fracture that begins with the very way man thinks of himself.
It was not enough that the Church maintained its role as faithful custodian of tradition - something more was needed, a leap of lucidity in order to find a way to explain the patrimony of tradition to the contemporary world, and to do so required an intellectual who understand this world in depth.
The writings of Joseph Ratzinger are, above all, a history of this process of understanding, and above all, the search for a Christian response that would be adequate to stand up to modernity and secularization.
It is also the proof that at a moment of religious crisis as serious as that we are experiencing, it is important, indeed necessary, that he who has become the visible head of the Church possess the qualities of pastor, intellectual, theologian and wise man.
By reading his works, we can understand his thinking, and by doing so, all his decisions and actions as Pope become clear. But we can also understand ourselves better as human beings living in modern times, in a cultural atmosphere that ignores the truth and therefore does not even look for it.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/04/2013 17:57]