1. Vintage Ratzinger, it is a modest, unpretentious offering. This is neither an infallible papal ruling nor an exhaustive historical analysis. It is more like an old timer, in his rocking chair, going back in memory, to the war or the depression or something.
2. In line with this, I found the anecdotal style charming. Some of them seemed more personal than global in nature, but those put me in touch with the person. For example, he recalls that in some seminaries his writings were banned: he was cancelled before "cancel culture" was born.
3. This piece surely is one of the last of his writings and valuable for that alone. He is, in my view, one of the three GREAT Catholic theologians of my lifetime: with his friends John Paul and Balthasar. These three are in a class of their own, lapping every competitor. This is because of sheer intellectual genius-energy-stamina-erudition, holiness of life and a happy blend of continuity with Tradition and creativity-freshness of spirit. He is the least of the three in terms of the total gravity of his work. His theological corpus would have been far greater if he had not served pastorally, but his influence would not have been so great.
4. He is, however, the superior catechist: his writing is sweet, crystal clear, and available to the ordinary Catholic. There are a handful of Catholic writers who combine theological orthodoxy, docility to the Holy Spirit and a charm, a sweetness, a gentleness of manner: Cardinal Newman, St. Francis DeSales, Caryl Houselander, Heather King. Anything they write has a taste of delightfulness. Joseph Ratzinger in in this club.
5. Expectedly he writes about the sexual revolution and the concurrent disorientation of moral theology as the climate in which the scandal erupted. I for one would have been shocked if he neglected this. The surge of priest abuse 1965-85 is undeniable.
6.A particular irony surrounds him: the most quiet, soft-spoken, humble, meek and gentle of men, he is at the same time among the most hated of Catholic thinkers. Before becoming Pope, he was referred to as "Ratzi the Nazi." A more unjust, vile slander I cannot imagine. It was related to his genius and his orthodoxy. His brother said of him: "He does not look for a fight but he will not back away from one." Hans Kung, a theologian of comparable natural genius, said of him when he became Pope: "He is very sweet, and very dangerous." At the Council he was known to everyone as the young, brilliant, liberal-but-grounded Ratzinger; as Pope he became with his older partner THE definitive interpretation of it.
7. He provides technical detail of why the canonical procedures in place were inadequate to the catastrophe: they were inorinately directed towards the repentance of the accused and to protection of his rights. He would know as he was given, by John Paul, primary responsibility for the review of the cases. He describes this as his "every Friday penance exercise." He may know as much detail as any living person by virture of this task and his other positons in that decade.
8.Correctly, he identifies a root cause as the loss of God in our lives. Here, as in other things, he simply echoes the unchanging proclamation of the Church: God alone is our Savior. Sin is the cause of all evil. In particular he emphasizes loss of reverent love for Christ in the Eucharist: this love has been the untiring theological theme of his life.
9. Specifically he speaks of the mission of the Martyr in testifying to the Truth and he happily expresses gratitute for his own little family where he finds daily such testimony. So simple, so thankful, so joyful! He is indeed living the "Benedict Option" which Dreher named after the ancient monk but I always identified with this holy Pope.
10. Lastly, most striking and...for me...troubling. He thanks and praises his successor Pope Francis for all he has done. I swallowed hard when I read this. Francis is a complex case...he is many things...but prominent among them he is theologically the anti-John-Paul-and-anti-Benedict. Why does he praise, so sincerely, an adversary who has set back so much of his work? Could it be that he is suffering some dementia or that he is unaware of events since his retirement? I think not. His thinking is clear. More likely it is a combination of the following: One, his esteem for the Chair of Peter is such that he reveres the workings of the Holy Spirit in that office notwithstanding the failings and mistakes of the occupant (which only he of all the living would understand.). Two, he is grateful to be relieved of that heavy burden. Three, his concern for the unity of the Church urges him to a gracious act of peacemaking. Four, like the dying Thomas Aquinas he is approaching the Thone of Grace and sees so much of our theological/cultural/political wars as "straw" by comparison. Five, he no doubt appreciates the strengths of Francis, strenghts which are strikingly different from his own.
For me personally, he is a tremendous example and an inspiration: to be loyal to our current Pontiff and to be (this doesn't come natural to me) humble, meek, and charitable in my theological convictions.
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