The Quiet Prophet
on Benedict XVI: A Protestant Appreciation
One of the great surprises following the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005 was the accession of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to the pontificate. I was one of those (perhaps many) orthodox Protestants who had been indebted to the work of John Paul, having cut my teeth on his important encyclicals during the 1980s and 1990s while teaching at the university and doing public-policy research in Washington, D.C. Following his penultimate encyclical, Fides et Ratio (“Faith and Reason,” 1998), which in many ways seemed the culmination of a remarkable career, I assumed that his vision would cease, or at best be muted. I was wrong. As it happened, in the years ahead, until Benedict XVI’s resignation, there remained a wondrous continuity, to Benedict’s great credit.
Benedict is said to be the first academic theologian (narrowly defined) in two centuries to become pope. This should have come as little surprise to those who knew him, for at a very early age Joseph Ratzinger desired to attend seminary. His father, a policeman, had been anti-Nazi in sentiment and was thus not infrequently demoted or transferred in his work. Joseph would mirror his father’s attitudes in this regard; at age 14 (1941), though legally required to join Hitlerjugend (the Hitler Youth), he refused to attend its meetings. Following the war, he studied theology and was ordained a priest. In 1953 he received his doctorate in theology, with a thesis titled “The People and House of God in Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church.”
In 1959 Ratzinger became professor of fundamental theology at the University of Bonn, the first of four academic appointments—the others being the University of Münster (1963), the University of Tübingen (1966), and the University of Regensburg (1969). Following his 1981 appointment by John Paul as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was designated in 1986 to head a commission responsible for drafting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
This would be a task to which Ratzinger was well suited as a professional theologian. At the same time, this responsibility would result in much undeserved criticism, given his reputation in the media as the Panzerkardinal, a “watchdog” or “enforcer” of the Catholic faith. (In truth, it is more accurate to describe Ratzinger as one German social theorist has done: as der leise Prophet, “the quiet prophet.”) Following John Paul’s death in early April of 2005, he was elected as the 265th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Task of Theology
Benedict’s literary output was remarkable. By way of illustration, the editors of The Essential Pope Benedict XVI identify at least 39 books by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI that have been translated into English. And, not insignificantly, Ratzinger collaborated in 1972 with the likes of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and Walter Kasper to found Communio, the quarterly review of Catholic theology and culture.
The influence of Benedict’s writings on my own thinking has been considerable. First there is the Catechism, which Ratzinger played a role in commissioning and helped to write. In the 1990s, following its initial publication, I was particularly struck by Part One (“The Profession of Faith”), which is devoted to an exposition of the creedal elements of historic Christian belief in a manner that would surprise most evangelically minded Protestants.
In addition, three books by Ratzinger have stirred my own thinking about the task of theology. In Introduction to Christianity (Einführung in das Christentum) he examines Christian belief through the ages. History, for him, was important. He recognized that the Church is anchored in the historic Christian tradition—a tradition that guides and guards every generation of believers. Without continually drinking from—and being informed by—this tradition, Christian spirituality becomes hollow and vapid.
In Values in a Time of Upheaval (Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs), a collection of essays published independently between 1992 and 2004, Ratzinger wrestles with the moral, theological, and socio-political foundations that historically were important for Europe and the West. What are in fact the foundations on which we build our lives? What supports our societies and holds them together? And what happens when a society is unable—or unwilling—to identify “good” and “evil”? At the time, the fall of the Berlin Wall gave new urgency to these questions, even as contemporary geopolitics does in pressing ways today.
In Truth and Tolerance (Glaube—Wahrheit—Toleranz) Ratzinger examines Christian faith’s encounter with various cultures and religious systems. A recurring theme throughout this volume is the relationship between truth and human freedom, and thus what society is prepared to “tolerate.” To pursue truth is our human obligation, and to anchor our quest for freedom in the truth is likewise our responsibility. Only when human freedom is united and tethered to truth do human beings flourish, which in turn facilitates a building of the common social good and the emergence of a genuine pluralism. Here we may distinguish between a “principled” pluralism, with its acknowledgment of religious freedom and basic human rights, and a facsimile thereof, in which society becomes indifferent to matters of truth, the result of which is a majoritarian tyranny that resorts to various forms of coercion and corrosive intolerance.
J. Daryl Charles is the Acton Institute Affiliated Scholar in Theology & Ethics. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including Retrieving the Natural Law (2008), Natural Law and Religious Freedom (2018), and, most recently, Just War and Christian Traditions (forthcoming). He is also co-editor of Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace: God's Gifts for a Fallen World, Volume 3 (2020). He is a contributing editor to Touchstone.
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