By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
People have been reacting somewhat sensationally to the first ever posthumously published papal pennings by Benedict XVI released on January 20. His reign as Pope was unique, and certainly his retirement nearly so, the first in over 600 years. Now, certainly remarkable for the uniqueness of the gesture, he ordered that a book of essays be published only after his death, all of which were composed after his earth-shaking 2013 retirement.
Lay people have been asking me what I think about the matter. A priest friend conversant in Italian ordered the book, not yet available in English, as did I. My copy has not yet arrived so I’ve been leaning for understanding on the few available pull quotes and commentaries published as of now. I rely here on quotes and commentary by Raymond Arroyo and Fr. Gerald Murray from a recent episode of The World Over and an article by J.D. Flynn and Luke Coppen in The Pillar.
Described as a “quasi testament” by the editor, this unprecedented book has been somewhat exaggeratedly described as a “blockbuster.” This though the majority of the essays in the volume are not new. Only four of the six chapters contained previously unpublished material.
This book is not a blockbuster in the sense of content, primarily. More so, it commands attention as another phase in the unusual life and pontificate of only the second Pope to resign in over 600 years and who, as a first-rate theologian, committed much of his thought to writing for the benefit of the Church and the world. He did so as priest, archbishop, cardinal, Pope and Pope Emeritus. He was a protagonist in the tumultuous years of Vatican II and the aftermath. He remains an authority on the proper interpretation of the Council as one who witnessed and participated in the Church-shaping event, though his view has now been largely rejected by those in power.
Benedict held for continuity with the past of the Church’s Tradition, as evident by Summorum Pontificum and honesty about the unchanged status of the Traditional Roman liturgy. We now must strive to live as faithful Catholics amidst the chaos of rupture and a cacophonous legion of voices channeling the world and a Godless agenda.
The new volume — entitled What Is Christianity? — was released after Benedict’s death, he tells us, in order to save the Church from the titanic negative reaction, primarily among Germans, that resulted from his co-published book with Robert Cardinal Sarah on priestly celibacy. “The fury of the circles that oppose me in Germany is so strong that the appearance of the slightest word of mine immediately provokes a murderous uproar on their part,” he wrote.
It’s not clear to me in which chapter the matters on sexual abuse and homosexual activity in seminaries are found, but I suspect it may turn out to be chapter 4, which includes an essay on priesthood, or chapter 5, which is entitled “Topics of Moral Theology.”
His reflections on the sexual abuse crisis had been already published in German. In connection with that he treats of seminary formation after Vatican II. “In several seminaries homosexual clubs were formed, that more or less openly and clearly transformed the climate of the seminaries. One bishop who had previously been a rector, allows pornographic films to be shown to the seminarians, allegedly with the intent to empower them to resist against behaviors contrary to the faith.”
He goes on to write, as paraphrased by Raymond Arroyo on a recent episode of The World Over, that in many seminaries of the day his own books published as Cardinal Ratzinger “were considered harmful literature and seminarians caught reading them were actually deemed unfit.”
The strange inversion here is indicative of the confusion and upside-down disorientation rampant in the Church today. Why is truly harmful is treated as helpful while the truth, what is truly helpful and necessary to the faith, is condemned as harmful.
Kenneth Untener is the bishop who showed the pornographic material to men in formation for the priesthood. According to Fr. Murray, and corroborated by common sense and Catholic morals, this behavior should disqualify a man from service as rector and bishop of a diocese. Rome examined Untener in light of irregularities like this, but then later exonerated him and allowed his advancement. Thus followed a string of moral disasters and faith-endangering scandals. “Deficiencies in affective life” demand pastoral care but such men do not need to be priests, Murray said.
In Chapter 2: “Fundamental elements of the Christian religion,” we find the essay “Monotheism and tolerance.” Benedict decries “the growing intolerance exercised precisely in the name of tolerance. . . . The intolerance of this apparent modernity towards the Christian faith has not yet turned into open persecution. But it presents itself in an ever more authoritarian manner, aiming to achieve, with the legislation that follows, the extinction of what is essentially Christian,”
He surveys the “State of the West”: “The modern Western world state, on the one hand, sees itself as a great power of tolerance that breaks with the foolish and pre-rational traditions of all religions. . . . Moreover, with its radical manipulation of man and the twisting of the sexes through gender ideology, it stands in particular opposition to Christianity.”
“In fact, today the Church is largely seen only as a kind of political apparatus. In fact, it is spoken of only using political categories…and this is true even of bishops who formulate their idea about the Church of tomorrow largely, almost exclusively in political terms.”
As I reminded my congregation recently, we do well in matters of faith to repeat often, “It’s not right or left, it’s right and wrong.”
Chapter 3 is about “Jews and Christians in dialogue,” and chapter 4 concerns “Topics of dogmatic theology.”
Also, there is an essay on the Catholic priesthood which can also be found in slightly different form in Robert Cardinal Sarah’s book, From the Depths of Our Hearts, first written for that purpose but now reworked to — as BXVI describes it — give the essay a “new center of gravity.”
The collaboration between Sarah and BXVI arose in the aftermath of the so-called “Amazon synod” and calls issued in its name for ending priestly celibacy.
Also, a text called “The Meaning of Communion,” warns of a seeping into Catholic circles of “very advanced Protestantization of the understanding of the Eucharist.”
Benedict writes that true communion born of ecumenism must acknowledge major differences of a theological nature that exist between Catholics and Protestants. The struggle against relativism must ever uphold truth by refusing to paper over differences that amount to a denial of that truth.
Chapter 5 is “Topics of Moral Theology,” which says: “It is very important to contrast the lies and half-truths of the Devil with the whole truth: yes, sin and evil in the Church are there. But even today there is also the holy Church that is indestructible. . . . Even today there are many men who humbly believe, suffer and love and in whom the true God, the God that loves, God has his witnesses (martyrs) in the world. We just have to be vigilant to see and hear them.”
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