Select Works of Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI (21 vols.)

“Dogma,” for many people, is a bad word. For the well-informed believer, it shouldn’t be. Dogmas are truths revealed by God, which should enlighten the minds, guide the choices, and gladden the hearts of Jesus’ disciples, including pastors, deacons, and lay teachers. But, as Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), notes in the foreword to this book, “The path from dogma to proclamation or preaching has become very troublesome.” Finding ways to relate the content of the Church’s dogmas to everyday life can be challenging for today’s preachers and teachers. Some people find the task so daunting that they leave dogma out. As a result, they wind up presenting something other than the Church’s faith and speak in their own name, offering perhaps unwittingly merely their own, subjective ideas, rather than the Word of God.

In Dogma and Preaching, the theologian and priest Joseph Ratzinger provides (1) a theory of preaching for today; (2) application of this theory to some themes for preaching drawn from the Church’s dogmas; (3) meditations and sermons based on the liturgical year and the communion of saints; and (4) some thoughts regarding the decade after the Second Vatican and Christianity’s seeming irrelevance. Ratzinger insists that sound preaching should rest on three pillars—Dogma, Scripture, and the Church today. He shows that the proper understanding of the Church, her dogmas, the nature of faith, and the contemporary world allow the proclaimer-believer to remain faithful to the Church’s mission and life-changing message.

This volume is an unabridged edition of Dogma and Preaching, a work that appeared in a much-reduced form in English, in 1985. The new book contains twice as much material as first English edition.

Written in late 2004, shortly before Joseph Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI, this book addresses the serious issues concerning the new European Union and the drafting of a European Constitution, events with far-reaching consequences for the West and, indeed, the world.

The main questions Cardinal Ratzinger raise include: How did Europe originate and what are its boundaries? Who has the right to call himself European and be admitted into the new Europe? What about the spiritual roots of Europe and the moral foundation she is founded on?

Ratzinger sees the lack of focus on these fundamental questions in the formation of a new Europe as a grave problem for the future of Europe and the world. Europe’s link to America and the rest of the world make these questions and reflections by the current Pontiff of critical importance in facing the future together.

Cardinal Ratzinger addresses the challenges and responsibilities that both the Church and society in Europe face after the collapse of Marxism. Both liberalism and Marxism have denied religion the right to have any influence on public affairs and the common future of humanity. Since there is also a great spiritual emptiness growing in the West with the increased secularization, consumerism and hedonism, Ratzinger’s comments apply as much, if not more, to the United States as well.

With the downfall of Marxism, religion has been discovered anew as an ineradicable force for both the individual and society. While there is renewed interest in religion, the dangers also exist to lay hold of religion as an instrument to serve various political ideas. Ratzinger, whose theological work has often dealt with the “reasons for our faith,” reflects upon the various problems facing humanity at this turning point of our history and offers genuine hope based upon a deep Christian faith. He also addressed the critical role that the Church has in relationship to the world and the essential task of bringing Christ back into our culture.

Increasingly, the future is becoming a theme for theological reflection. In the background we can detect a growing concern among many people for the future of faith. Does faith have any future at all, and, if so, where in all the confusion of today’s trends will we discover its embryo?

But the problem of the future assails not only the believer. In the ever more rapidly advancing process of historical evolution, man is confronted with enormous opportunities, but also with colossal perils. For him, the future is not only hope, but sorrow—a nightmare, indeed. He cannot avoid asking what part faith can play in building tomorrow’s world.

Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, approaches this problem of universal concern from a variety of angles, bringing his deep personal faith and theological brilliance to bear on these serious questions.

In this book Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, presents the Word of God as a living reality in the Church. God’s Word, according to Ratzinger, is encountered in the Bible, in Tradition, and through the teaching office of the bishop, who, through apostolic succession, is to be the servant of and witness to the divine Word. Ratzinger examines as well the relationship between the episcopacy and the papacy. He also considers the nature of apostolic succession, and he responds to Reformed objections to the Catholic view of the subject. His treatment is sympathetic to the concerns of non-Catholic Christians while remaining faithful to Catholic teaching and practice.

This book also includes the famous Erasmus Lecture of Cardinal Ratzinger, which assesses the strengths and weaknesses of modern critical approaches to biblical interpretation. Ratzinger proposes a new approach that avoids the pitfalls of a narrowly critical outlook on the Bible without succumbing to fundamentalism.

God’s Word provides profound insights into Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts to renew the Church’s participation in God’s truth through the divine Word, as well as the Church’s mission to proclaim the Word to all people.

Prepared and co-published by the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, this book is a combination of two lengthy essays written by Cardinal Ratzinger and delivered in talks when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both talks deal with the importance of conscience and its exercise in particular circumstances.

Ratzinger’s reflections show that contemporary debates over the nature of conscience have deep historical and philosophical roots. He says that a person is bound to act in accord with his conscience, but he makes it clear that there must be reliable, proven sources for the judgment of conscience in moral issues, other than the subjective reflections of each individual.

The always unique and profound insights that the new Pope Benedict XVI brings to perennial problems reminds the reader of his strong warning before the recent papal conclave of the great dangers today of the “dictatorship of relativism.”

In this beautifully illustrated book, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) gives us profound meditations on what our life in Christ should be like as it is lived through the various seasons and feasts of the liturgical year. This book also includes thoughts on other spiritual and secular themes such as the true nature of peace, why it is difficult for so many to experience joy, the relationship between spirit and matter, vacation and rest, etc. These inspiring insights from the man who became pope, show how Joseph Ratzinger’s deeply spiritual and theological experience, together with his wide literary and cultural interests are a gift to the Church in the modern world. Here is a shepherd leading the faithful entrusted to his care to deep springs of refreshing, life-giving water.

This profusely illustrated book is ideal for personal or group meditations during the Christmas and Advent season. With its inspiring, profound, yet popular meditations on the blessings of the season, this volume by Pope Benedict XVI is a spiritual guide for the soul. Taken from his sermons as well as his writings, these beautiful meditations by the acclaimed spiritual teacher, writer and now Pontiff, give his usual fresh insights into the deeper meaning of this most wondrous event, and show the pope to be a man who knows how to address both the mind and the heart.

Written by Joseph Ratzinger shortly before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures looks at the growing conflict of cultures evident in the Western world. The West faces a deadly contradiction of its own making, he contends.

Terrorism is on the rise. Technological advances of the West, employed by people who have cut themselves off from the moral wisdom of the past, threaten to abolish man (as C.S. Lewis put it)—whether through genetic manipulation or physical annihilation.

In short, the West is at war-with itself. Its scientific outlook has brought material progress. The Enlightenment’s appeal to reason has achieved a measure of freedom. But contrary to what many people suppose, both of these accomplishments depend on Judeo-Christian foundations, including the moral worldview that created Western culture.

More than anything else, argues Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the important contributions of the West are threatened today by an exaggerated scientific outlook and by moral relativism—what Benedict XVI calls “the dictatorship of relativism”—in the name of freedom.

Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures is no mere tirade against the moral decline of the West. Razinger challenges the West to return to its roots by finding a place for God in modern culture. He argues that both Christian culture and the Enlightenment formed the West, and that both hold the keys to human life and freedom as well as to domination and destruction.

Ratzinger challenges non-believer and believer alike. “Both parties,” he writes, “must reflect on their own selves and be ready to accept correction.” He challenges secularized, unbelieving people to open themselves to God as the ground of true rationality and freedom. He calls on believers to “make God credible in this world by means of the enlightened faith they live.”

Benedict XVI continues to astound people. In Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, they were told, the world was getting “God’s Rottweiler” as pope. Now, after Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est or “God is Love,” many people are wondering if he isn’t really the “Love Pope.”

God’s Revolution by Benedict XVI, the collection of his World Youth Day talks and other addresses in Cologne, only adds to the amazement. Thoughtful readers will discover in its author far more than they bargained for.

God’s Revolution isn’t only for young people, for Catholics alone, or even only for Christians. Benedict XVI’s thoughtful and inspiring messages to the Jewish and Muslim communities in Germany are included. Speaking in a synagogue in Cologne, Benedict urges Jews and Christians to grow closer to one another. He recalls the horrors of the Holocaust and warns against “new signs of anti-Semitism.” As he commemorates the 60th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi death camps, the Pope’s words are especially poignant: as a teenager, Benedict XVI was forced to join the Hitler Youth, against his will and that of his anti-Nazi parents.

Benedict speaks to representatives of Muslims in Germany of the common faith in one God that Christians and Muslims share. He acknowledges how some Muslim leaders have rejected terrorism. Yet he adds: “Those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison out relations and destroy trust, making use of all means, including religion, to oppose every attempt to build a peaceful and serene life together.”

God’s Revolution also addresses Protestant Christians. Coming from the land of the Reformer Martin Luther, Benedict knows Protestant concerns. He presents Catholic teaching in a way that underscores Catholics’ and Protestants’ common Christian commitment. “Together we confess that Jesus Christ is God and Lord,” he states, “together we acknowledge him as the one mediator between God and man (cf. 1 Tim 2:5), and we emphasize together that we are members of his Body.”

To the German Catholic leaders, he urges renewed efforts to present Christ and Christianity to the modern world. While challenging them to respect people’s search for the truth, the pope calls on those leaders to be true to the Christian message: “We must teach patience, discernment, realism, but without false compromises, so as not to water down the Gospel!” He asks the bishops to find new ways to address young people, the future of the Catholic Church.

Daughter Zion explores the biblical witness to the Church’s Marian dogmas—Mary’s role as Mother of God, her virginity, the Immaculate Conception, and her Assumption into heaven. Cardinal Ratzinger examines how these beliefs are linked to the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ. Far from competing with the truth about Christ, the Church’s Marian beliefs uphold and underscore that truth.

Mary’s role in salvation, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, was anticipated in the Old Testament. She was prefigured in Eve, the Mother of the Living; in the holy women of the Old Testament, such as Sarah, Hannah, Deborah, Esther, and Judith; and in the prophetic image of the daughter Zion. Cardinal Ratzinger also considers Mary’s place as the embodiment of created wisdom, who faithfully received the Uncreated Wisdom of the Word of God in the Incarnation.

Daughter Zion avoids the extremes of ignoring the biblical foundation for Marian doctrine on the one hand and fundamentalistic proof-texting on the other. Instead, the author beautifully and lucidly develops key biblical themes to help readers understand and appreciate the Mother of God.

Two great theologians endeavor to recover the centrality of Marian doctrine and devotion for the contemporary Church, offering a spiritually rich approach to Mariology that brings into new relief the Marian contours of ecclesial faith. Ratzinger and von Balthasar show that Mary is both the embodiment of the Church, and the mother who cooperates in giving birth to the Church in the souls of believers.

At once profound and yet readily accessible, Mary: The Church at the Source offers a theologically balanced and biblically grounded presentation of traditional and contemporary thought on Marian doctrine and spirituality.

Jesus Christ is as popular as ever. Films, books, and news articles ask, “Who was Jesus Christ?” Even outside of Christianity he continues to appeal to people. And yet for so many, the popular Jesus is not the Jesus of Christianity. The popular Jesus makes no demands and never challenges people. He accepts everyone and everything under all circumstances.

On the Way to Jesus Christ is a series of meditations that Pope Benedict XVI wrote while he was Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The true Jesus, he writes, is the Jesus of the Gospels who “is quite different, demanding and bold. The Jesus who makes everything okay for everyone is a phantom, a dream, not a real figure. The Jesus of the Gospels is certainly not convenient for us. But it is precisely in this way that he answers the deepest question of our existence, which—whether we want to or not—keeps us on the lookout for God, for a gratification that is limitless, for the infinite. We must again set out on the way to this real Jesus.”

This book also examines whether Jesus Christ is the only savior, and the Church’s responsibility to evangelize. It concludes with reflections on Jesus’ Presence in the Holy Eucharist, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s presentation of the Christian mystery as seen through the Catechism’s dynamic view of Sacred Scripture.

Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been the most visible member of the Catholic clergy in the world second only to Pope John Paul II. His status as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made him one of the most discussed churchmen in recent history.

On the occasion of Ratzingers’ 75th birthday, his former students selected essays, lectures, letters, and conferences that Ratzinger has written in recent years—writing that they feel best represents his position on issues of theology, the modern world, secularism, non-Christian religious, and other key topics of the Catholic Church. This book, characterized by Ratzinger’s concisely reasoned style, is an invaluable resource to those who wish to understand the modern Church and the thinking of Pope Benedict XVI, as well as a treasured volume for those who are students of Ratzinger’s theology.

During his years as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, well-known Vatican prelate Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has given three in-depth interviews. The first two interviews have become best selling books: The Ratzinger Report and Salt of the Earth. Because of the tremendous reception those books received, the Cardinal agreed to do another interview with journalist Peter Seewald, who had done the very popular Salt of the Earth interview. This third in-depth interview addresses deep questions of faith and the living of that faith in the modern world.

The interview took place over three full days spent at the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino in a setting of the silence, prayer, and hospitality of the monks. For this meeting with the highly regarded Churchman, theologian, and author, the seasoned journalist, who had fallen away from the faith but eventually returned to the Church, once again provided a very stimulating, well-prepared series of wide-ranging questions on profound issues. The Cardinal responds with candor, frankness, and deep insight, giving answers that are sometimes surprising and always thought provoking.

In Many Religions, One Covenant, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spans the deep divides in modern Catholic scholarship to present a compelling biblical theology, modern in its concerns yet classical in its breadth. It is his classical mastery, his ressourcement, that enables the Cardinal to build a bridge.

Cardinal Ratzinger seeks to deepen our understanding of the Bible’s most fundamental principle. The covenant defines religion for Christians and Jews. We cannot discern God’s design or his will if we do not meditate upon his covenant.

The covenant, then, is the principle that unites the New Testament with the Old, the scriptures with tradition, and each of the various branches of theology with all the others. The covenant does more than bridge the gaps between these elements; it fills in the gaps, so that biblical scholarship, dogmatic theology, and magisterial authority all stand on common ground—solid ground.

Ratzinger, one of the key persons responsible for the compilation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, offers new insights on the catechetical character and Biblical foundation of the worldwide bestselling Catechism that has had such a positive response from ordinary Catholics across the globe. But he acknowledges that the response of many theologians and “professional religionists” has been negative toward the Catechism.

He says that if theologians don’t want to be “shut out” of this worldwide development of sensus fidei and lose touch with the common Catholic, they will have to engage the Catechism positively. The main purpose of this book is to offer an invitation to this changed approach to the Catechism. He wants people to see, as he shows here, how the Catechism is an excellent teaching tool that responds to man’s deepest questions about the meaning of life, how to live a good life, and how to attain happiness in this life and in eternal life. He shows how the Catechism affirms that man’s happiness is love, and that the essence of true love has been manifested in the person of Jesus Christ.

Written over three decades ago, Cardinal Ratzinger’s profound treatise on the true meaning of Christian brotherhood is perhaps even more timely and important now as a clear statement on the biblical grounds for cooperation among believing Christians. In treating Christian brotherhood from the perspective of salvation history, Ratzinger opens up the meaning of both the Old and New Testament in this most essential area. After establishing the distinctively Christian sense of brotherhood (vis-á-vis Judaism, Hellenism, Stoicism, the Enlightenment, and Marxism), he shows how fraternal charity can only be perfected through God’s fatherhood, Christ’s divine sonship, and our brotherhood in Christ.

A collection of essays by three giants of twentieth-century theology: Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Heinz Schürmann. Balthasar’s and Schürmann’s essays were written for the International Theological Commission. Schurmann examines how the New Testament’s teaching provides enduring moral norms for Christian conduct. Balthasar presents nine basic principles of the Christian moral life. Ratzinger, who originally wrote this essay as a series of articles for L’Osservatore Romano, addresses the relationship between faith and morality, and the place of the Church’s teaching authority with regard to moral issues.

Are liturgy and prayer important in an age of political crisis and the technological manipulation of human life? Yes, declares Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Genuine worship of God involves the sacred liturgy and prayer. Only if man authentically worships God will true human dignity be protected, and the principles and the power to resolve the crises of our age be found.

The Feast of Faith sets out to answer one basic question: How can we pray and praise God as we should? Written before Cardinal Ratzinger became pope, this timeless book reflects enduring and inspirational insights regarding divine worship and the sacred liturgy.

St. Bonaventure’s love of wisdom was intimately related to his love of God—so much so that he is called the “Seraphic Doctor” for the ardor that accompanied his great mind. What does this sort of mind have to say about the history of man, a topic long dear to Christian thinkers, especially owing to the Incarnation and the expectation of the Second Coming?

In this academic treatise, then-Father Ratzinger, a young university professor, delves into the work of the Seraphic Doctor to come to a critical and yet appreciative understanding of the theological meaning of history in his work. Particularly interested in Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaemeron, the study sets the saint’s thought against his remote and immediate predecessors, as well as his medieval contemporaries.

While bringing out Bonaventure’s “hope for history,” Ratzinger must collect the spread-out and sometimes enigmatic references to eschatology and time, and, comparing them against Bonaventure’s wider writings, place the saint in the tradition of Christian thought on the subjects. Key to this new theology of time, claims Ratzinger, is Bonaventure’s encounter with the prophecy of Joachim of Fiore—prophecy that threatened to tear the Franciscan Order apart.