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A Turning Point for Europe? The Church in the Modern World- Assessment and Forecast

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This little book collects some speeches of then-Cardinal Ratzinger in the late 1980s and early 1990s, concerning what are now obviously some of his key concerns as pope: the continued viability of European culture, and its derangement by a variety of intellectual currents in the past few hundred years.

Ratzinger of course is an intellectual, and believes ideas are important and effect the behavior of individuals and nations in a concrete manner. He focuses not only on Marxism, but also on relativism, science, rationalism, and secularism among other currents. In this respect, his grasp of present affairs much more resembles a modern European Catholic intellectual such as Milosz rather than John Paul II. His take is also somewhat cooler; he sees opportunities in situations some Catholics would dismiss as hopeless. But he also poses broad, provocative questions: is what is now called "terrorism" really a natural outgrowth of post-Enlightenment "intellectual terrorism"? are there good reasons some in Latin America turn to a Marxist rather than a European democratic model? are modern nation-states which reject faith anything more than mass barbarian hordes?

The style is not polemical or preachy, but what one would expect from a dispassionate group of intellectuals in discussion. Ratzinger speaks the Catholic position not in the nature of a sermon but as a necessary ingrediant without which, he maintains, no dialogue worth the meaning of the word can continue.

While obviously not tailored to a mass audience, nor even focusing on an audience of believers, the book obviously sets forth long-held views which the present pope will continue to hold. The book is also rather revealing regarding both his somewhat academic methodology, and his confidence in dialoguing with peers on that level.