Customer Reviews

The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World

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1 star:		(7)

 

 

While Gibson deserves significant praise for a thoroughly written, superbly researched historical approach to the background that provides the setting for the life of then Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, this is a clearly polemical work set out against Ratzinger from the start.

Having studied the theological work of Joseph Ratzinger over more than a forty-year career, read all of the biographies currently on the market, and read the CDF promulgations and Benedict XVI's recent speeches and first encyclical - I feel that I have a relatively good understanding of the life and work of this man. While I do not necessarily agree with everything ever written or spoken by Ratzinger, I cannot clearly admit that the personal picture that is painted by Gibson of Ratzinger/Benedict is at all unbiased or close to accurate. For example, Gibson describes Ratzinger's approach to liberation theology as follows:

"This is in keeping with Ratzinger's grim, purist theological outlook, which sees even the slightest deviation from his view of tradition as tantamount to despoiling an entire theory or movement or person, a seduction so subtle we may not even realize it is happening." (Gibson 193)

This is hardly unbiased, and, frankly, not very accurate. It is an opinion of the author that is presented as objective.

That admitted. I must say that, historically, this is incredibly thorough. The setup is one of such depth that Gibson really does not get to the subject of Joseph Ratzinger until almost 150 pages into the book. The first part of the book is primarily concerned with the rise and reign of pope John Paul II. Only after that background is established does he move to introduce the current pontiff. What is nice about this approach is that while the outline for the program of the book is the life and career of Joseph Ratzinger, the author takes frequent side-trips through the history of the time. What is surprising is the little actual content about Joseph Ratzinger. This seems to me to be more a comparative piece on the differences in the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

While I do not recommend that this book be read as anyone's sole source on the life and work of Joseph Ratzinger, now pope Benedict XVI, I would suggest that this be read in conjunction with other works by and about him. Perhaps it is best served with a side of Ratzinger's own "Milestones" (Ignatius, 1998) and "Introduction to Christianity" (Ignatius, 2004) as well as John Allen Jr.'s "Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger" (Continuum, 2000).

. . . when your position within the Catholic Church has been so marginalized by the last two pontificates as to be almost non-existent.

Nevertheless, the hard Left Catholics slog on, all Sturm und Drang, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Take David Gibson. His last book, The Coming Catholic Church, a jeremiad against the depredations of JPII, the Roman Curia, and anyone who hasn't rolled over in favor of gay marriage, women priests, and free condoms, proved to be not so prophetic after all. The Catholic Church of his fervid dreams seems no nearer materializing than a fata morgana.

Yet he presses on. Since the actual Catholic Church appears strangely resistant to his blandishments, Gibson, in this latest screed, is reduced to vague threats and more dire predictions that if she doesn't shape up and meet the radicals' demands, she may soon find herself bereft of them, a situation one struggles to find problematic. After all, there are numerous other ecclesial harbors that would welcome the hardcore dissidents, from the Unitarian Universalists to the Episcopal Church. I'm sure Gibson and his ilk would find a warm welcome among Jon Shelby Spong, for example.

Why don't they just leave? More fun, and, one supposes, more lucrative to bash the Church from the inside.

A favorite ploy of his is to trot out supposedly revelatory polls about lay persons' preferences--a symptom of his desire to transform a hierarchical Church into a liberal democracy. Well, lemme tell ya, Davy-boy: it ain't happenin'. Your project's doomed. I, for one, am thankful that the Catholic Church is constituted in such a way that progressivist rabble rousers like you can't hijack it, as has happened in numerous Protestant denominations that have caved in to radicals. As annoying as books like The Rule of Benedict are, their net effect, praise God, is practically zero.

Unreadable by anyone except those stuck in a '70s time warp, waiting for the illusive "spirit of Vatican II" to materialize.

This book by David Gibson, is a high quality work with an intelligent combination of historical accuracy and artistic description. You can immediately tell that it is written by a true Vatican "insider" with both an American and an Italian heart. It is easy to read, and gives the reader a sense of both the objectiveness of the Catholic Church (and it's newest Pope), and the depth and beautiful mystery of both. As Mr. Gibson is a convert to Catholicism, there are enough explanations that both Catholics and Non-Catholics alike will find this book easy to follow and will be able to form their own opinions. I would highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with the hierarchical Church or the role of the Church in International politics.

An intriguing read, but definitely biased against Pope Benedict because of a liberal slant. Readers of America magazine will love this book. Readers of First Things magazine will despise it. I think that both sets of readers will find it a fascinating book, though.

This is another book by a soon to be ex-Catholic
If Mr. Gibson doesn't believe in the scripture "I have given you the keys to the kingdom and the gates of hades will not prevail against it"
He doesn't believe there is a real holy power in apostolic succession
and using quasi intellectualizing has the purpose here of making a vain attempt to undermine the authority of a Church established by Jesus Christ himself
The Da Vinci Code takes the exact same approach they steep it historical research to the tune of about 75% worth of data that has a descent factual underpinning and then you hear that "varoooom" That's the sound of the hover craft engines starting up and disney world orchestra tuning up behind it and what is delivered to you in the balance is something all together different.
My question of the day is "who wants to be in the room the day that Mr. Gibson is judged at the foot of the throne"
Rev 3:8 "Behold a set before you a door that no MAN can close"

Summary:

The book starts off well, while Mr. Gibson sticks to the facts concerning the John Paul II--Benedict XVI transition. But after the first few chapters, the book becomes just a very long, very negative, increasingly bitter complaint about everything Mr. Gibson dislikes about Catholicism. It ends up telling us less about Benedict than it does about Mr. Gibson. Better to skip it.

Specifics:

Mr. Gibson repeatedly falls into the trap of referring to the factions in the Church as Left vs. Right, or Liberal vs. Conservative, as if they're political parties, each with personal opinions just as good as those of the other "party." This reduces the debate to a long, multi-chapter, bitter diatribe about how Benedict's `opinion' differs from others `opinions' as if all opinions are equally valid THEOLOGICALLY. With all Mr. Gibson's repetitive complaints about how the "Right" (Benedict et al) turns a deaf ear to the "Left" (majority vote), he never delves into if or why the THEOLOGY might clearly side one way or the other, and that one side may or may not be THEOLOGICALLY correct and the other simply incorrect. He just quotes this bishop here, or that priest there, or some group's opinion, as if the fact that they hold an opinion strongly somehow makes the opinion theologically valid.

Example quote: "The difficulty for the Center and the Left, however, is that within the church the Catholic Right has been ascendant for so long that its partisans not only control the levers of power but are coming to define what it means to be Catholic." Notice how Mr. Gibson leaves out the theology, and the crucial 2000-year-old teaching that "what it means to be Catholic" is defined theologically.

The biases become more apparent as the book progresses. Variously in the book he refers to those he agrees with as "highly respected", but those on the other side as "archconservative" (p. 312) or "a sharp right wing partisan" (p. 342), yet another example of using labeling (Left/Right, Conservative/Liberal, etc.) as a substitute for substantive theological analysis. Now, I have a Masters in Theology, know many educated Catholics (including theologians and professors) far more knowledgeable than myself, but never once have I ever heard anyone say they had any respect for America magazine or the opinions of Fr. Thomas Reese (besides the mainstream newsmedia). And yet Mr. Gibson spends much of his time pushing the notion that America magazine is "highly respected" and that Mr. Reese was sanctioned for "inviting debate"--as opposed to misleading Catholics into thinking that anything controversial is still an open question theologically.

Gibson's commentary is often self-contradictory. He laments the poor theological education the modern-day Catholics have been given, then insists repeatedly that these same poorly-educated Catholics be given a voice in everything from the choice of bishops to the establishment of practices as they relate to doctrinal matters. But he never says why, except that it's what a lot of people want. If he thinks they're not properly educated, how can he claim they know enough to make these decisions properly?

If you read this book, you'll come away with a clearer picture of what Gibson wants for himself than who Benedict is. Skip it--there are much better biographies out there.

David Gibson does an outstanding job of presenting the core controversy regarding the Ratsinger years of the CDF and fairly presents the principles underlying the actions of Cardinal Ratzinger and the early directions of his papacy. Benedict XVI would say there is a core of truth well established by Scripture and Tradition that is no longer fertile soil for argument. The Roman Catholic Church is obligated out of love to stand firm; as Gibson says as a relflection of Benedict, "divine love finds its most complete expression in absolute truth, and thus the greatest act of love is to stand on principle."

Though Gibson reveals his slight reformist bias especially in his treatment of the sacking of Fr. Thomas Reese as editor of the journal "America" (understandable as a fellow journalist), overall Gibson is careful to present the counter views in such a balanced way that one can fairly come away wih the the more conservative opinion after reading this book. A popular treatment of such a controversial area that demonstraits such restraint and balance is a wonderful work of journalism and is rare in the polarizing media. Gibsons work, for med stimulated much though regarding one of the fundamental problems in orthopraxy, how can one act in love and kindness, yet at the same time judge and stand firm. The answer is truth. Determinine the truth is of course our lifelong pursuit, and Gibson has provide insight into how Pope Benedict has arrived at his answers, and how that may effect the course of Catholicism.

Many of the preceding reviews posted here reveal the attitudes of the reviewers towards not the author but the subject of David Gibson's study. My review on the other hand tries to sum up Gibson's own perspective rather than my own reactions to the new Pope himself. Gibson's well-written survey may be limited by its short shelf life given that it appeared only months after the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to the throne of St. Peter. Still, given the author's extensive research, first-hand knowledge as a former correspondent for Vatican Radio, and his wealth of contacts within the Curia and the episcopate, Gibson is extraordinarily well placed to comment upon the initial impact of Cardinal Ratzinger's elevation to the papacy.

The cleverly titled "The Rule of Benedict" moves along rapidly. The first hundred pages tell movingly but objectively the decline of John Paul II and the position that Cardinal Ratzinger assumed within the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith (formerly "The Holy Office" or less neutral that of the "Inquisitor"). Without falling into vapid assent or stereotypical dissent, Gibson remains balanced about the tension that the two popes have created by their respective reactions to the forces of modernity within the post Vatican II ecclesiastical establishment. The analogy Gibson makes between John Paul's sympathy, stemming from John XXIII's own "aggiornamento" or "updating" and Benedict's more conservative "ressourcement" or "return to the sources" is illuminating. Gibson carefully explains how the Augustinian-Platonist vs. the Thomistic-Aristotelian split in the four sessions of Vatican II mirrored itself in the careers of John XXIII and Cardinal Ratzinger. The subject line of my review here cites on pg.128 what Gibson views as Benedict's motto. The pope is suspicious of what would weaken the Church's claim to difference. If Catholics are to become like everyone else, what good is there in staying true to the faith? Vatican II, Ratzinger feared, threatened to toss the true anchor of the Church into the seas of modern liberalism. Adrift, where could the faithful seek shelter?

The future Benedict became less enamored of the rush to embrace the contemporary ethos, and more determined to save the best of a more cautious past that the forces of eager reformers threatened to obliterate in a hasty rush to hurry up to the trends of the consumer-driven, fad-seeking, and overly-politicized attitudes of the wider Western world. Gibson's sympathies, although clearly with the reformers, do not weaken as much as I had expected his attempt to present fairly the more skeptical counter-reactions of those aligned with Benedict against those too hasty in wrenching the moorings of an ancient Church in their determination to bring Rome up to the pace of the rest of society.

The chapters about Benedict's earlier career add much for the lay reader to the complex, and not unlikeable, portrait of Joseph Ratzinger. Still, in places this is less than comprehensive. Not enough detail is given of the future pope's Bavarian career. The place where after ordination he was posted for a year of pastoral duties is not even mentioned by name. A small detail, but such attention to the actual texture and the mundane reality that helped shape Benedict XIV is rather uneven. Similarly, I had little sense of how precisely the student unrest at Tubingen in the later 60s unsettled Ratzinger. I failed to understand what his life was like in the later 50s and into the 60s. The ordinary experiences that helped along with the dramatic confrontations with the forces demanding change remained vague. This era powerfully upset the future Pope in solidifying his resentment and fear of popular unrest and by extension liberation theology and leftist agitation, but Gibson does not offer the "local color" that would have enabled a reader to better understand by firsthand testimony how utterly devastating this radical revolt was to the rather timid lecturer who found his lectern overrun by earnest protesters.

The result, as in the enormous amount of detail in a sympathetic chapter purportedly about American Catholicism to pretty much one case, that of the admittedly likeable Fr Tom Reese of the Jesuit journal "America," reads often more in this portion like a lengthy magazine profile rather than a comprehensive account of American reactions to Benedict's past and the fight in the American church to his rise to the papacy. I also sensed Gibson's dislike of right-wing forces in the American church appointed by the recent popes. I understand Gibson's frustration, but he seems to discount one telling factor. Regardless of one's own allegiances, the only growth in vocations and local clerical numbers is happening with the most traditionally oriented religious orders and among those most closely aligned with conservative movements. Like it or not, the lack of a progressive, socially liberal counterpart enjoying such levels of recruits among liberal lay or clerical leaders-- as opposed to factions that can operate within social work or public welfare realms-- seems to demand more consideration by any observer of today's American Catholic culture.

This is not a weakness in the book's overall design. Yet, the uneven nature of the coverage devoted to such detail does make the total impact of the book less than effective. Therefore this book reads better as a series of topics rather than a thorough study on all the aspects that created the current pope as we know him. The passages on electing a pope are admittedly fascinating, and Gibson's excellent here in making an often mythologized and little known conclave's quotidian challenges come vividly alive. The book as a whole is perhaps better seen as a series of linked subjects--- the decline of the last pope, the education of the current pope, the role of Vatican II in forming both of the outlooks characterizing the two major recent popes, the debates between liberals and conservatives, the arguments between those chillingly (at least as Gibson portrays them) under the eye of the CDF and their half-hidden accusers, and the restive clergy and episcopate who chafe under papal power. Ultimately this is not so much a biography as it is a combination of contextual reflections on the recent post-conciliar Church, how John Paul II and Benedict XVI differ on the extent to which the Church needs to be updated, and how the reforms of Benedict seeking a reaffirmation of core Catholic truths compare and contrast with those of John Paul.

In closing, any Vatican-based author who without sounding cloying or cute can make comparisons to Milli Vanilli, Ouija boards, Bela Lugosi, and the Kennedys deserves acclaim. Gibson does not pander to readers, and you will learn a considerable amount about matters recondite and risible without you feeling like the book's dumbed down or putting on airs-- no mean feat. Gibson can take on recondite theological concerns, explain the root meaning of heresy very effectively (see pp. 186-7), sympathetically show how Benedict wishes to keep the unworldly nature of the Church relevant in an age too quick to make all value systems relative, and how Benedict seeks out of a sincere wish to keep the uniqueness of Catholicism in an era too determined to water down what remains distinctive from the battles of the past two millennia. As a convert, Gibson is also ideally placed to ask whether what the current pope stands for matters to us, how much he can probably expect to stand firm against, and how far he may have to compromise to preserve the gains of the Church within a rapidly secularizing and demographically shifting world that, even since the current pope's own priestly career began, has changed nearly beyond recognition. It's a measure of Gibson's wide learning, diverse contacts, and careful reflection that his book manages to present a balanced view of the pope. He gets beyond facile representations of a severe attack dog or a triumphant chauvinist. He demolishes both left- and right-wing caricatures. Gibson's own liberal tendencies are always evident, but he also seeks to fairly explain why this pope was chosen when he was and why this election has resulted in a pope far more crucial to the future of Catholicism than his initial reduction as a "placeholder" or an interim appointee by Gibson's fellow journalists unfairly patronized Ratzinger. To Gibson's credit, after reading this study I recognized much more in Ratzinger to accept (if not acclaim) and not only-- as might be the usual expectation of a reader of much media coverage of the pope-- to critique.

are completely up-to-date on the papacy or are a complete newbie to the papacy. This book is:

THOROUGH
PROVOKING
ALMOST-TOO-WELL-WRITTEN

Gibson is unable to contain his knowledge, passion, and exciting diction.

Made me wish I were Catholic.

- Cole

Well well, what can one expect from Mr.Gibson? He is of the "Catholic" dissident mold, the type that never tire of throwing out the old "causes" of the liberal 60's and 70's even though the Church (thank God) is finaly past that stage. The book gives a fairly good background on the Holy Fathers early days, but it is full of Gibson's tired old "change the Church so we can be more like protestants agenda."