Benedict XVI: Reason’s Revolutionary

The National Review Online ^ | 2/11/13 | Samuel Gregg

[marshmallow]

Ever since I started writing about Joseph Ratzinger in the late 1990s, two qualities about the man impressed me. The first was his quiet but clear love of Christ as a living Person rather than the vague abstraction of liberal, often atheist theologians.

The second was Ratzinger’s genuine humility. Intellectually, Ratzinger far surpassed the usual suspects who want to turn Catholicism into something between the disaster otherwise known as the Church of England, and the rather sad leftist-activism of aging nuns stuck in 1968. But against the increasingly-absurd rants of a Hans Kung or Leonardo Boff, Ratzinger simply continued defending and explaining orthodox Christianity’s essential rationality with a modesty lacking in his opponents.

Which brings me to what I think will be this great Pope’s last legacy. In forthcoming weeks, there will be many commentaries on what this Pope has achieved in a relatively short time. This ranges from his efforts to root out what Ratzinger once called the “filth” of sexual deviancy that has inflicted such damage on the priesthood, his successful outreach to Catholicism’s Eastern Orthodox brothers, his generally excellent bishop appointments, to his reforms of the liturgy.

But we need to remember that Benedict XVI is arguably the most intellectual pope to sit in Peter’s Chair for centuries—even more so than his saintly predecessor, who was certainly no slouch in the world of ideas. And if there is one single thing that stands out in Benedict’s papacy, it’s this: his laser-like focus on the root-cause of the intellectual crisis that explains not only Western culture’s present wallowing in facile relativism that’s on full display in the content-free rhetoric of your average EU politician, but also the trauma that explains the violence and rage that continues to shake the Islamic world and which Islam seems incapable of resolving......

[Bringbackthedraft]

He has also shown that even a member of the Hitler Youth can find salvation.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Benedict XVI: Conversion is putting God first

[livius]

In the religious world, the crisis of reason means two things. First, God is reduced to the status of a cuddly Teddy Bear incapable of distinguishing between good and evil and who, as Benedict once wrote, “no longer does anything but affirm us.” Or, conversely, God becomes a creature who demands that we behave unreasonably—be it by driving trucks full of explosives into Catholic churches in Nigeria, beheading teenage Indonesian Christian schoolgirls, or other unmentionables that professional inter-faith dialoguers never want to talk about.

Very well put.

[marron]

It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?

[Slyfox]

You are not so stupid that you do not know that being part of that youth group was mandatory. He had no choice.

How dare you make such an insinuation.

[NotTallTex]

He has also shown that even a member of the Hitler Youth can find salvation.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think being a member of the Hitler youth was a voluntary thing. I think it was...be a member, or else.

[Yossarian]

He has also shown that even a member of the Hitler Youth can find salvation.

Sleazy. Young Ratzinger was forced into membership. His father hated the Nazis, and spoke out against them.

In 1939, aged 12, he enrolled in a minor seminary in Traunstein.[2] This period lasted until the seminary was closed for military use in 1942, and the students were all sent home. Ratzinger returned to the Gymnasium in Traunstein.[3] During this period in the seminary, following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth, as membership was legally required in effect beginning 25 March 1939. Following the seminary closure he continued required attendance with the Hitler Youth to not receive financial penalties in the Gymnasium tuition fees. The financial penalty, which theoretically required documentation of attendance at Hitler Youth activities was overlooked when [4] a sympathetic mathematics professor allowed him not to attend any meetings. In Ratzinger's book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger says the following " ... Thank goodness, there was a very understanding mathematics teacher. He himself was a Nazi but an honest man, who said to me, 'Just go once and get the document so that we have it' ... When he saw that I simply didn't want to, he said, 'I understand, I'll take care of it', and so I was able to stay free of it."[5]

[Salvation]

Benedict XVI: Reason’s Revolutionary
Some Interesting Tidbits From Today’s Vatican press conference
Pope Decided to Resign After Cuba Trip, Vatican Advisor Says
Pope Says He's Resigning for the 'Good of Church'
Watch for the Anti-Catholics To Weigh in on the Papal Succession
The challenge Pope Benedict has left for his successor—and for ordinary Catholics

Historian Notes Precedents for Papal Resignation
US Will Have Unprecedented Voice In Electing New Pope
Pope Benedict’s Resignation and St. Corbinian’s Bear
Pope Benedict XVI’s Musical Legacy
Benedict announces resignation and lightning strikes
DHS's curiosity piqued over Pope Benedict XVI's retirement and Catholic Prophecy
Prayers for Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict's Devotion to Saint Celestine Signaled His Resignation from the Papacy
Cardinal Sodano to Pope Benedict: “We have heard you with a sense of loss and almost disbelief”
Pope's resignation invokes sadness, gratitude from US bishops

Pope cites waning strength as reason for resignation
Report: Brother Says Pope Was Considering Resignation for Months
Some Notes About the Upcoming Conclave
An Evangelical Looks at Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict’s Resignation in Historical Context
Virtually unprecedented: papal resignation throughout history
Pope Benedict XVI:a papal timeline
"I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome" [Full Text]
Pope Benedict's Address on Resignation of the See of Rome
POPE BENEDICT XVI WILL RESIGN AT THE END OF THIS MONTH, VATICAN PRESS OFFICE TELLS FOX NEWS