Customer Reviews

Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Associate Professor Tracey Rowland, Dean of the Melbourne John Paul II Institute, is described by Cardinal Pell in the foreword to this book as making progress towards "becoming Australia's leading theologian." Anyone who has read her 'Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II' will understand that she is a theologian of substance. Those who read 'The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI' will see why she is indeed becoming a leading theologian, not just in Australia but in the English-speaking world.

For her present work demonstrates a profound grasp of the wide-ranging theological work of Pope Benedict XVI and of the theological and philosophical schools within which and in contradistinction to which he has written. No one book can hope to encompass his theological achievement, but certainly one finds here a reliable and sympathetic introduction to it. For serious students of Catholic theology and indeed for those seeking an insight into Pope Benedict's vision of the Church's role in the modern world, this book is a must.

Of the recent "introduction" books out there on Benedict XVI, I found Rowland's introduction to be the best.

Rowland pulls together a wide range of material and synthesizes it quite well. Unlike Nicol's book, which just walks the reader through some early texts (where he seems to simply restate what Ratzinger just wrote) and other books which attempt to polemicize him needlessly, this one honestly looks at the controversial aspects of his insights, but not in a hysterical tone.

She moves from some of his earlier ideas into his later thought, again done thematically. I thought she also provided excellent insight into the general theological atmosphere in which Ratzinger wrote. She contextualizes in a straightforward manner that allows the reader to grasp the significance and deeper targets Ratzinger sets his sights on. One glaring omission in the text is handled deftly by Hahn in his book Covenant and Communion (2009). While Rowland covers the wide range of Ratzinger's thought, Hahn tackles Ratzinger's understanding of Scripture and synthesizes a tremendous amount of the pope's scholarship in order to develop the heart of Ratzinger's theology: a eucharistic/Christological/sacramental communio ecclesiology.

For those not versed in theology, Rowland will require some work. It is worth it. Those versed in the field will find this extremely insightful. It is a must read for those who want to delve into Benedict's work and gain some sense of coherence and direction.

Dr Rowland's second work is an excellent piece of scholarship. It introduces the reader to the major trends in Ratzinger's thought. Material is carefully synthesised and arranged in a thematic order. This work is obviously the result of a thorough read of Ratzinger's work. The author is to be commended for surveying his major ideas, including his more controversial ones, particularly those on the liturgy. Whatever you think of the current Pope, if you want to understand the blueprint for this papacy, this book is a must.

This book brilliantly explains Pope Benedict's theological understandings, but more importantly for this reader, relates these to the dramatic debates occurring within the Church and the broader society. Thus, in explaining the relationship between theology and history and culture (indeed, the book notes there is no such thing as a theologically "neutral" state) it is particularly useful for those Catholics stranded within the outer reaches of the Anglo-sphere, such as Australia, where a new and decidedly aggressive post-Protestant secular liberalism now dominates the public space. Unfortunately, the fact that the modern state has its own secular theology and is also increasingly coercive has yet to penetrate the minds of many Catholic pastoralists and bureaucrats. Within Australia, one has only to look at how they let themselves be rolled on a compulsory national curriculum, which by its very nature will impose a world view at variance with a Catholic understanding of history, and which will ignore or minimize the vital rôle of Christianity in forming our society. How we wish that Dr Rowland's book could somehow be made compulsory reading for those guiding the future of Catholic institutions within this country.

Tracey Rowland has produced a work which should be of immense interest to both "fans" and "enemies" of the famous "panzer-Kardinal" now His Holiness Benedict XVI. This is so because she paints the theological landscape as it stood at the (now long ago) time of the Second Vatican Council. I am not aware of any author who has as skillfully and concisely achieved this difficult and complex task. It is also remarkable for the breadth of work which is synthesized and faithfully presented and unpolemically explained. Exception must be taken to this aspect of a another reviewer's attack on Mm Rowland, he has it would seem taken a shot at the messenger. Whatever the merit of the reviewers arguments it is with Pope Benedict that battle must be joined as Mm Rowland in almost every instance meticulously supports the assertions she makes with her subject's cited authority.

The Communion school of theology and its Ressourcement project would seem to be vibrant with not only the Holy Father but Cardinals Scola and Ouelet among others leading the cutting edge of a Christo-centric, Trinitarian and Nuptial reading within the Tradition. All of this can be said to have begun well prior to Vatican II - John Henry Newman emphasized the importance of being "deep in history" and led a recovery of interest in the Fathers which echoed to Przywara and Balthasar. To derrogate the importance of history in theology is to have failed to grasp the central and burning question facing theology in this and the later part of the last century. This is not to be anti-Thomas but to fossilise the Angelic doctor and to rely on Suarezian systematised parodies of his insights is not only absurd but does a great disservice to the man who was a disciple of St Augustine and whose Catena Aurea shows him to be deep in history and the tradition of the Fathers.

The forces of liberal secularisation are to the Church more grave a threat and as real as those she faced against the ideology of dialectical materialism during the Cold War. It is now secular post-modern materialism which threatens. History and our patrimony and identity are vital theological questions not only for the institution of the Church, the family and all Christians and persons of goodwill if we are to survive in a secular world which ignores with some justified disinterest mere bald statements of a dogma, doctrine, rules or even (pace, dear scholastic) down-pat syllogisms.

We do not abandon all the rules but our faith, but the faith of the Church is not moralism (merely a set of rules to be followed - a code of ethics): it is about being in love with a person (Deus Caritas Est). We accept the Church's teachings as true for they are His (the love of our heart) own, as Newman put it in his hymn. These teachings are His Church's, the mediatrix between Being and Time (Principles of Catholic Theology), and we accept them in love because the Church - the Communio Ecclesia - is His spouse(in history). We cannot save ourselves (Spe Salvi) and we cannot be saved by systems, rules, goods of flourishing (unless the good is Christ) or a school of theology, even noble Thomism, let alone other worthy -isms.

Anyone interested in the renewal of Catholic theology will find this book essential and compelling reading.

Very well written and balanced. But while the book indicates it's not for the professional theologian, a certain amount of background knowledge is presumed by the author. One who has no formal theological training may find this a difficult read.

Ratzinger's Faith provides a very clear and, as far as I know, accurate representation of the major highlights of Pope Benedict's theology. However, I have given Ms. Rowland's work two stars only, because of her constant repetition of the new big lie in contemporary Catholic theology. This lie concerns the nature of scholastic/thomistic theology in the first half of the 20th Century and has many points. It is claimed that neo-Thomism was not true to classical Thomism (apparently only St. Thomas was a classical Thomist) because it is overly dependent on Thomistic commentators such as Cajetan and John of St. Thomas. Neo-Thomism is constantly criticized for being dry, rigid, unhistorical, and lacking serious scholarship. Its position on the relationship of nature and grace is claimed to be inadvertently responsible for the secularization of modern western culture. It's accused of stripping the liturgy of its beauty because of its position on the essential matter and form of the sacrament of the eucharist, and because it supposedly does not consider beauty to be a transcendental. And amazingly, all of these serious charges are made against neo-Scholastic/neo-Thomistic theology by Tracey Rowland's work without a single quotation or citation of a theologian from this school. The only Thomists that Rowland has anything good to say about are those who repudiate neo-Thomists and the Thomistic commentators (basically all Thomists between St. Thomas and the arrival of the supposed discoverer of the true "historical Thomas," Etienne Gilson).
Concerning these charges, anyone with a bit of intellectual honesty would have considered these counterpoints:
1.) It is proper for history to not be of much use in scholastic theology. Scholastic theology is distinct from positive theology, which treats of what exactly it is that has been revealed and in which history is very useful. Scholastic theology starts where positive theology ends, and determines what else man can know from what has been revealed. St. Thomas Aquinas was as "unhistorical" as any neo-Thomist because Scholastic theology was what he did, not positive theology. And you may find neo-Thomistic theology to be dry and rigid, but the last time I checked theology was a science and its goal was knowledge, not the satisfaction of your aesthetic cravings.
2.) Rowland did not even consider that de Lubac's interpretation was incorrect, and that the traditional Thomistic interpretation is the correct one, when in fact there is much scholarly work to support this thesis (for instance, Lawrence Feingold's dissertation, McInerny's Preambula Fidei, etc.). Furthermore, it's much easier to argue that the positions of de Lubac and Rahner lead to a secularist vision. If I am in my innermost being ordered to something that I cannot obtain on my own, then God does owe ME grace (this includes the aborigine) and hence the structure of the Church as the channel of grace in the world is seen as unnecessary.
3.) Well, what is the essential form and matter of the sacrament? This is an important theological question so that we know when a sacrament is valid. Given the diversity of Eucharistic prayers, if Rowland has a better answer than St. Thomas and all Thomists (not just those evil neo-Thomists), I'd like to hear it. And making a theological point about what is essential for the confection of the sacrament in no way leads to the position that "we can change almost everything, so we should" as Rowland argues that it does. It's absolutely ludicrous to blame the failings of the liturgical reform on the neo-scholastics. Neither Lecaro, nor Bugnini were very fond of Scholastic theology (cf. Bugnini's The Reform of the Liturgy, pg. 673). In fact, Ottaviano was one of those pesky neo-Scholastics, and the few that exist today belong to traditional congregations. And finally, Thomists (with the exception of Cardinal Mercier and one or two others) do believe that beauty is a transcendental. But to blame someone's liturgical taste on whether or not that person believes that beauty and being are convertible and different in conception only is also as flimsy as can be.

I know that the main point of her work was to expound key themes in the theology of Pope Benedict, and when she did this she did it well. But the work was peppered with her own take on the neo-scholastics, and it was really, really annoying, and even more inaccurate.