In his address entitled ‘Key Aspects of the Theology of Professor Joseph Ratzinger’, delivered in Munich at the Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI foundation, Siegfried Wiedenhofer, one of Benedict XVI’s former assistants, said: “The theology of Joseph Ratzinger is not a theology for all times or a theology about history, but rather a theology for this time, and this time is for him above all the time of a fundamental crisis”. I concur completely with Wiedenhofer’s assertion. In fact, four major documents which Pope Benedict XVI has written, all address four issues which are undergoing a fundamental crisis, namely, love, hope, a limited understanding of the Eucharist and economics.
In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict is countercultural. Although “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16), unfortunately “the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence” (s. 1). In meeting this God in the person Jesus Christ, such an encounter “gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (s. 1). “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should … have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). Thanks to the Incarnate Word, God has taken the initiative to come to meet us. In Jesus, who is God’s eternal agape to humankind, everything becomes holy, including sexuality and Eros. In fact, love between men and women is God’s gift that should not be wasted away. “Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex’, has become a commodity, a mere ‘thing’ to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great ‘yes’ to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will” (s. 5). In Benedict’s view, “love… becomes concern and care for the other” (s. 6) translated in acts of altruistic service. The highest context of love is the conjugal relationship.
In the encyclical Spes Salvi, the Holy Father speaks of a faith based hope. Genuine hope must be established on faith in God, who is love. Christ’s death on the cross did not end slavery, miseries or other temporal problems but presented suffering as a splendid opportunity to come face-to-face with God in the most powerful way. Unlike Spartacus, Barabbas or Bar-Kochba, “Jesus, who himself died on the Cross, brought something totally different: An encounter with the Lord of all lords, an encounter with the living God and thus an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which therefore transformed life and the world from within” (s. 4). Contrary to the prevalent attitude of fleeing from suffering, true hope lies in “our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love” (s. 37).
In the post-synodal exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, Benedict XVI views the Eucharist as the causal principle of the Church. “Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus draws the faithful into his ‘hour;’ he shows us the bond that he willed to establish between himself and us, between his own person and the Church… The Eucharist is Christ who gives himself to us and continually builds us up as his body” (s. 14). For Pope Benedict, “union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own” (s. 89). The self-giving character of the Eucharist motivates to social commitment. This is so, since, “the Eucharist is the sacrament of communion between brothers and sisters who allow themselves to be reconciled in Christ, who made of Jews and pagans one people, tearing down the wall of hostility which divided them (cf. Eph 2:14). Only this constant impulse towards reconciliation enables us to partake worthily of the Body and Blood of Christ (cf. Mt 5:23-24)” (s. 89).
His last social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, is a bold response to a reductive view of development. For the German Pontiff, authentic development is human and integral only if it is directed by charity in truth. “Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity” (s. 1). Against any form of economic corruption and human exploitation, Benedict presents two proposals: (1) “the development of peoples depend above all on a recognition that the human race is a single family” (s. 53); (2) the Christian faith together with other religions, is called to contribute to development “only if God has a place in the public realm” (s. 56). Real development in charity and truth “needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer”; to recover that “love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace” (s. 79), which alone can bring a bright future to our shattered world. Only in this way can “the dignity of persons and peoples” (s. 73) be promoted and supported, as it should, most notably by “an ethics which is people-centred” (s. 45).
Cardinal John Henry Newman once wrote: “Those only can preach the truth duly who feel it personally: Those only can transmit it fully from God to man who have in the transmission made it their own”. The theology of our Theologian-Pope, Benedict XVI, is anointed and gives life. The theological-mystical path which Joseph Ratzinger has undertaken within the solitude of his reason and spirit is becoming evermore harmonised and unified with the light and Spirit of Jesus Christ, so evident and resplendent in his caring, inspiring and foreword looking pastoral approach as Pope Benedict XVI.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap