Francis: Pope of a New World

Francis: Pope of a New World.  By Andrea Tornielli, Ignatius Press, 2013.

 

The Vatican has been surprising the world lately.  Pope Benedict XVI’s abdication on the grounds of old age and ill health was widely unexpected, and the frenzy of media coverage of the ensuing conclave listed many potential candidates to fill the throne of Saint Peter, but very few reporters covering the 2013 conclave even considered that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio would wind up being the man who would be elected pope.  Published swiftly after Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis, Francis: Pope of a New World is Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli’s brief but informative book meant to introduce readers to the new pope.

 

In his introduction to this volume, Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J., writes,

 

“In 2005, I watched the advance of Pope Benedict XVI to Saint Peter’s balcony with a deeper joy, since it meant that another extraordinary teacher would continue to guide the Church, leaving theological and liturgical confusion farther behind.  He focused on Jesus Christ as he quietly, humbly led the Church forward, retaining the love and allegiance of the John Paul generation.

 

Pope Benedict’s retirement came as a jolt but not as a total surprise.  His age had advanced, and his strength had waned.  This book presents many key insights into Pope Benedict’s retirement, and every Catholic will appreciate the mature assessment of a decision that raised much speculation and less wisdom from various pundits inside and outside the Church.”

 

This is a quickly written book, but it is also a joyous book.  Part of the happiness found in this volume, as well as in the other coverage of Pope Francis, is due to the atypical circumstances of his election.  Normally, a new pope is elected while the faithful are still grieving the death of the previous pontiff.  In this case, Catholics were not in a state of mourning, for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is still alive.  Tornielli appears to have nothing but warm feelings and respect for Benedict XVI.  A chapter on Benedict XVI’s papacy provides a cursory overview of the retired pope’s major events and achievements, and it is a well-written and concise summary of his career as pope, although there is a vague sense that this chapter has been added in order to stretch out this admittedly short book to a publishable length.  

 

Pacwa’s introduction also discusses recent events, writing that,

 

“In 2013, the election of Pope Francis evoked another kind of pride– a fellow Jesuit, the first one in history, had been elected pope.  Certainly Jesuits had spoken of him, since he was not only an archbishop in an important archdiocese, Buenos Aires, Argentina, but also a cardinal.  The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus prohibit Jesuits from seeking to be bishops, but the pope can override that rule and choose a Jesuit to belong to the college of bishops, as happened to Father Jorge Bergoglio, S.J.  Vague rumors circulated that he was a papabile after John Paul II died, but most Jesuits I knew dismissed them with the generally accepted assumption that a Jesuit would never be pope.  I remembered him from 2005, but I thought he might be past the age being sought for a new pope in 2013, since so many people were speaking about the importance of a young pope for the modern world.  However, neither his age nor his being a Jesuit hindered him, and Jorge Bergoglio, S.J., walked out on the balcony of Saint Peter’s as Pope Francis.”

 

Tornielli was acquainted with Bergoglio long before his elevation to the papacy, having professionally interviewed him on one occasion and conversed with him casually multiple times.  Bergoglio is always referred to in a warm and admiring manner, and many people who knew him prior to his elevation have nothing but respect for him and his approaches to faith and life.  When describing Bergoglio, Tornielli writes:

 

“What always struck me about Bergoglio was his profound faith vision, his humility, his words, which were able to reach people’s hearts and help them receive the embrace of God’s mercy.  On occasion I have submitted to him articles or reflections published on my blog, but I have also asked him for prayers.  At the end of every encounter, his unfailing request was: “Pray for me, I ask you to pray for me…”

 

There are eleven chapters in this book, plus a forward, introduction, and conclusion.  Though all of them are interesting, some of the most touching include “Risotto in the Bergoglio House,” which provides a warm, gently sentimental, and touching presentation of the future pope’s formative years and education; and “A Priest Under the Dictatorship,” which illustrates the difficult relationship between the Church and the oppressive military regime that ran the country for so long, and the continuing struggle in Argentina between a government whose policies consistently attack the Catholic Church and how the Church serves as one of the most influential rebuttals of the government’s ideologies.

 

For centuries, the papacy has almost exclusively been filled by Europeans, with a few popes from Africa and West Asia, but Francis is the first pope to come from the Americas.  Some commentators have worried that Francis’s country of origin may further alienate a secularizing Europe, but Tornielli argues that Francis is a man who can unite Catholics from all regions of the world, and part of this is due to the quiet, gentle goodness of the man.  Tornielli takes pains to point out the new pope’s gift for the personal touch, citing anecdotes such as the now-famous story of the new Pope Francis personally calling his longtime newspaper man in Argentina to inform him that he would need to be canceling his subscription.  

 

Tornielli paints Pope Francis as a man without pretension but with plenty of simple charisma:

 

“The simplicity of Pope Francis, his profound gesture of bowing his head to receive the blessing invoked on him by his people, his spontaneous greeting– “Buona sera,” “Good Evening”– and the fact that he continued to be himself and nothing more, even as Bishop of Rome and Pontiff, made an impression on the hearts of millions of believers.

 

He did not want the red mozetta (cape) lined with ermine or the red shoes.  He did not want to change his poor iron cross or his very modest ring.  The day afterward, he went to pray before the image of Maria Salus populi romani (Mary, Welfare of the Roman people) at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major without being accompanied by the pomp of a retinue or by an impressive security detail, which too often runs the risk of making the Bishop of Rome, a pastor, appear in the eyes of the faithful like the president of a superpower.  Father Bergoglio, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, the first to take for himself the name of the great Saint of Assisi, with his little yet grand gestures and his words, at the dawn of his pontificate, is already making people understand what it means today to profess Jesus Christ.”

 

In the years and decades to come, there will be many more books about Pope Francis, his life, and his legacy.  As one of the first books about Pope Francis to be published, Francis: Pope of a New World should not be considered a rush job, but a quickly and exuberantly prepared overview meant to introduce Catholics and other interested people to the new pope.  Later books may explore Pope Francis’s career with a more analytical perspective, further behind-the-scenes insights, and possibly a sense of nostalgia; but the studies of the future are unlikely to capture the emotional surprise and excitement that came from this election that brought the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the New World, and the first pope to take the name of Francis.  Tornielli’s book manages to capture the joyousness and anticipation that may get lost in future works.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief

Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief.  By Joseph Pearce, Ignatius Press, 1999.

 

Joseph Pearce has become famous for writing biographies of Christian literary figures, focusing on how their faith impacts their work.  Literary Converts is a collection of essays on numerous Christian authors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Many authors who are the subjects of Pearce’s full-length biographies, such as G.K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien, appear in this work.  

 

In his introduction, Pearce writes:

 

“In 1905, the young G.K. Chesterton published Heretics, a volume of essays in which he precociously criticized many of his contemporaries, including, most notably, both Shaw and Wells.  One critic responded to Heretics by stating that Chesterton should not have condemned other people’s ‘heresies’ until he had stated his own ‘orthodoxy.’  Chesterton accepted the criticism and rose to the challenge.  In 1908 his Orthodoxy was published.  Its central premise was that the most profound mysteries of life and human existence were best explained in the light of the Apostles’ Creed.

 

Chesterton’s ‘coming out’ as a Christian had a profound effect, similar in its influence to Newman’s equally candid confession of orthodoxy more than fifty years earlier.  In many ways it heralded a Christian literary revival which, throughout the twentieth century, represented an evocative artistic and intellectual response to the prevailing agnosticism of the age.  Dr. Barbara Reynolds, the Dante scholar and friend and biographer of Dorothy L. Sayers, described this literary revival as ‘a network of minds energizing each other.’  Besides Chesterton, its leading protagonists included T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Siegfried Sassoon, J.R.R. Tolkien, Hilaire Belloc, Charles Williams, R.H. Benson, Ronald Knox, Edith Sitwell, Roy Campbell, Maurice Baring, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, Dorothy L. Sayers, Christopher Dawson, Malcolm Muggeridge, R.S. Thomas, and George Mackay Brown.  Its influence spread beyond the sphere of literature.  Alec Guinness, Ernest Milton and Robert Speaight were among the thespians whose lives were interwoven with those of their Christian literary contemporaries...

 

Taken as a whole, this network of minds represented a potent Christian response to the age of unbelief.  It produced some of the century’s great literary masterpieces and stands as a lasting testament to the creative power of faith.  The story of how these giants of literature exerted a profound influence on each other and on the age in which they lived represents more than merely a study of one important aspect of twentieth-century literature.  It is an adventure story in which belief and unbelief clash in creative collision.”

 

Most of the authors receive a very brief mini-biography, followed by a more extensive look at their spiritual lives, and an overview of some of their most prominent works on religious themes.  Pearce opens his book with the unlikely conversion of Oscar Wilde.  Contrary to the widespread popular belief that Wilde was more concerned with wit and decadence than spiritual matters, Pearce relates evidence that shows that for most of his life,  Wilde was fascinated by Catholicism, although his eventual conversion occurred right before his death.  Pearce writes:

 

“However, there appeared little sign of Wilde showing any real inclination to join the Church himself until the final months of his life.  Shortly after his release from prison, having completed the two years’ hard labour imposed upon him in the wake of his ill-advised and abortive libel action against the Marquess of Queensberry, he had stated that ‘the Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone.  For respectable people the Anglican Church will do.’”

 

Notably, some of the best and most interesting chapters focus on authors where Pearce has written a full-length book on the subject.  Authors like Chesterton and Belloc are very close to Pearce’s heart, and his second chapter, “Belloc, Baring and Chesterton,” reads as if he is describing dear friends. Pearce writes:

 

“When Sir James Gunn exhibited his famous painting, ‘The Conversation Piece,’ depicting G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and Maurice Baring assembled round a table, Chesterton, which characteristic humour, labeled the three figures ‘Baring, over-bearing and past-bearing.’  Yet Gunn’s group portrait, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery, represented much more than a mere assemblage of friends.  The three literary figures were considered by the reading public to be inseparable in many respects.  They shared not only a common friendship, but a common philosophy and a common faith.  If not as indivisible as the Holy Trinity they were at least as indomitable as the Three Musketeers!  In the case of the Belloc-Baring-Chesterton chimera, the battle-cry of all for one and one for all is not inappropriate.”

 

Nearly all of the chapters are interesting, though the essays on obscure writers are less compelling, partially due to the subjects’ lack of prominence.  It is easier to get immersed in chapters where one is already a fan of the central figure.  One of the best chapters is on the actor Alec Guinness.  One of the few figures in the book who is not primarily a writer, Guinness’s chapter is a particularly lively read, and it makes one hope that Pearce will some day write a biography on Guinness with an emphasis on his movies with Catholic themes.  Another gem of a chapter is the one on Dorothy L. Sayers, which shows the author’s Christian apologetic work, for which she eventually abandoned mystery writing. 

 

The big question that arises from reading Literary Converts is “why aren’t these writers more popular?”  I submit that many of these writers are just as, if not even more talented than many of the leading modernist writers.  It seems to me that there are two main reasons why the subjects of Literary Converts occupy a niche status in twentieth century literary history.  The first is that there is a strong anti-religious strain amongst many influential critics and scholars which intentionally and unfairly marginalizes Christian writers.  The second is that there has not been a sufficiently powerful critical defense of the authors found in Literary Converts.

 

There is no reason why the subjects of Literary Converts need to remain relegated to niche status.  Throughout the early twentieth century, many of the leading authors, including some Nobel Prize winners, were Christian writers whose faith featured heavily in their work.  Many of these authors fell into obscurity because of a critical backlash against them.  It is true that many of the most celebrated modern writers are not traditionally religious, and it is certainly true that there is a strong secular bent to much of modern culture, but the reasons why these authors occupy such a high place in the literary pantheon is because influential critics and scholars put and keep them there.  The selection of canonical authors is largely subjective– the fans and supporters of the leading modernist authors promoted the authors they liked, and denigrated those that they didn’t.  The subjects of Literary Converts can receive more widespread appreciation through the creation of critical arguments explaining why these authors can be appreciated by everybody– not just Christians.

 

Literary Converts is a wonderful celebration of some marvelous writers, but it helps to reinforce the challenging restrictions of the “Catholic ghetto,” which makes talented writers of faith second-tier authors through no fault of the writers.  If Christian authors are going to receive more widespread respect, the whole “age of unbelief” needs to be met head-on, and attempts have to be made to expand the pantheon of “great” writers.  The subjects of Literary Convertsshould not be viewed as simply the best of the religious authors– they ought to be viewed as among the best of all the authors from their times.  The only way to break the unjust strictures of literary criticism is to create a strong and eloquent critical rebuttal, emphasizing that figures like Chesterton, Tolkien, Belloc, Lewis, Sayers, and more deserve a higher level of critical respect, and that perhaps some of the celebrated modernists need to be taken down a notch or two.

 

 

­–Chris Chan

Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau

Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau.  By Jean Bernard.  Translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider.  Zaccheus Press, 2004; translation copyright 2007.

 

The atrocities of the Holocaust are well known, but many aspects of the horrors of the concentration camps are much more obscure. Many people are unaware that during the Holocaust, many Christian clergymen, including Catholic priests, were thrown into concentration camps. Many priests were vocal opponents of Nazism, and as a result more than two thousand priests became prisoners.

 

One incarcerated priest was Father Jean Bernard, a Luxembourg-born critic of Hitler’s regime who was sent to the infamous “Priestblock” in Dauchau, consisting of over three thousand men of the cloth, of which two-thirds were Catholic priests and the other third were assorted Protestant clergymen.  Bernard wrote short vignettes of his experiences, which were printed in the Luxemburger Wort soon after his release in 1945. The number “25487” was Bernard’s number in Dachau, meaning that he was the 25,487^th person to be incarcerated there.  Since at the time of his entrance there were about 12,000 inmates in the camp, and a few thousand people had probably been freed, that meant that by the time Bernard reached Dachau, approximately 10,000 prisoners had died inside the camp.  In his forward, Bernard writes:

 

“I have agreed to make what I wrote then available in the present form, without any alterations, in memory of my fellow priests who died in Dachau– for we must never forget what happened there and in many similar places. Forgetting would be cowardice on the part of the people in whose name all these crimes were committed.  It would be a flight from our own consciences and from the indictment of the world, showing an unwillingness to make reparations and to atone.  And by not imputing such cowardice to them, we honor the German people. 

 

Wanting to forget would also be weakness on the part of those who suffered.  It would mean that even though they could endure suffering courageously, they now lack the inner strength to reflect on what they endured and to assess what it means for their own lives.  That amounts to a wish to forget, in order to make forgiveness easier.  And finally, it would be turning a blind eye to similar events taking place today, in full view, in many other parts of the world.

 

Yet we must forgive.  We must forgive while remaining conscious of the full horror of what occurred, not only because nothing constructive can be built on a foundation of hatred– neither a new Europe or a new world– but above all for the sake of Him who commands and urges us to forgive, and before whom we, victims and executioners alike, are all poor debtors in need of mercy.” (xix-xx).

 

The members of the clergy originally were treated less harshly than the other prisoners, being spared the harsher tasks and being treated with a certain level of respect by some of the guards.  Other guards, in contrast, treated the clergy with particular venom.  Since the inmates did not have access to news from the outside world, rumors spread quickly as to what particular events might have inspired the guards to become particularly angry or vengeful.  Bernard describes one such incident, writing that:

 

“None of us was ever able to say why the clergy block experienced this catastrophe, or to what was due.  Some people said that the Pope had given a strong speech on the radio, and that the German bishops had issued a public protest.  Something must have happened.  It was in early October 1941.

 

It began with the usual shout, “Everybody outside!”  We were hustled out into the barrack street.  Everyone with the few possessions he was able to grab in haste…

 

We are herded around like cattle, and when an SS man turns up, he curses and hits out, giving orders and countermanding them, just to make us jumpy and anxious and keep us in motion, so it looks like something is happening…

 

As we stand in front of barrack 28, Camp Commandant Hofmann addresses us.

 

Dear Reader!  To imagine this speech, take the most vulgar expressions you know, and put them in a pot with the greatest nonsense that you have ever heard a human being utter.  Add a few insults to the Pope and the Church, lard the whole liberally with “clergy scum” and “pack of priests,” and you have a rough approximation of the context in which the only message that really mattered appeared: “The privileges you’ve had up to now are over.” (53-55).

 

Many much more disturbing passages follow.  The terrible ravages of hunger are a recurring theme throughout the book, as the prisoners are forced to subsist on a fraction of a loaf of bread and a paltry measure of thin vegetable-based soup daily.  Bernard discusses the struggle to survive on starvation rations, and how he rationalized his pilfering potatoes from the Nazis’ stores with the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.”  Multiple instances of savage violence and bloody brutality are sprinkled throughout the memoir, along with the mental battles the guards waged in generally futile attempts to break the priests’ faith.  Towards the end of the war, disease was rampant throughout the camps, and the hospital’s general policy was to take anyone who was seriously ill, shove them into a room filled with other sufferers, deny them treatment and wait for them to die.  In many cases, mildly ill priests were denied treatment by special orders by the camp officials.  When the sick people died, they received little respect.  When Brachmond, a close friend of Bernard’s, died in the sorry excuse for a hospital, and Bernard wanted to see him, Bernard was told:

 

““The corpses aren’t gone yet.  But Brachmond is lying at the very bottom of the pile, and you can’t see much of him at all.”

 

I didn’t even try to get up, since I already knew what a pile of naked corpses looked like.  After their gold teeth had been knocked out, the dead of a given day were stacked like firewood in front of the barrack until the crematorium commando came with a cart to get them.” (158).

 

Priestblock 25487 was adapted into the acclaimed 2004 film The Ninth Day, with some fictionalized aspects added for the sake of dramatic effect and to explore the broader moral issues at play in a cinematic manner. The title of the movie stems in part from the highly unusual– and surprising– incident occurring in the middle of Bernard’s narrative. At one point, Bernard was set free for a ten-day leave in order to bury his mother. The first news Bernard had of her death was when he was temporarily released. Though Bernard was not under official surveillance when he was placed on this unprecedented temporary spell of freedom, he was obliged to return as soon as his time was up in order to ensure the safety of his fellow inmates. The title The Ninth Day refers to an imagined psychological and moral dilemma the protagonist (the priest’s name is changed in the film due to the multiple instances of artistic license) faces on day nine of his release.

 

In Night, Elie Wiesel’s famous autobiographical account of the Holocaust, there is a famous passage about how his concentration camp experiences “murdered [his] God” and crushed him mentally and spiritually.  Intriguingly, Bernard and his comrades appear to have experienced a completely opposite effect from their hardships, with their faith fully intact.  Bernard frequently mentions how much he misses performing his priestly duties, as well as the exhilaration and sense of renewal he feels on the rare occasions he is allowed to perform Mass in the camp, and during his extraordinary ten-day leave.  Priestblock 25487  is a horrific story showcasing the worst of humanity, but it is also a portrait some very good men who are striving to protect their souls and their dignity while they are being treated in an inhuman manner.

 

­– Chris Chan

A School of Prayer: The Saints Show Us How to Pray

A School of Prayer: The Saints Show Us How to Pray. By Pope Benedict XVI, Ignatius Press, 2013.

 

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is famous for being a teacher as well as a pontiff.  Benedict XVI has received a lot of publicity lately for being the first pope in centuries to abdicate, but in all of the media coverage over his stepping down, precious little attention was paid to the massive amounts of theological scholarship Benedict XVI produced over his lifetime.

 

In A School of Prayer: The Saints Show Us How to Pray, his last book to be published during his pontificate, Benedict XVI describes the history of prayer, the psychological and social roots of prayer, and how Catholics can use prayer to make themselves better people and bring themselves closer to God.  This book is an anthology of recent essays and address by Benedict XVI, all of which revolves around the role of prayer in a Catholic’s life.

 

In the Introductory Note based upon a letter from May 4, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI writes: 

 

“Today I would like to begin a new series of Catecheses.  After the series on the Fathers of the Church, on the great theologians of the Middle Ages and on great women, I would now like to choose a topic that is dear to all our hearts: it is the theme of prayer, and especially Christian prayer, the prayer, that is, which Jesus taught and which the Church continues to teach us.  It is in fact in Jesus that man becomes able to approach God in the depth and intimacy of the relationship of fatherhood and sonship.  Together with the first disciples, let us now turn with humble trust to the Teacher and ask him: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1)

 

In the upcoming Catechesis, in comparing Sacred Scripture, the great tradition of the Fathers of the Church, of the Teachers of spirituality and of the Liturgy, let us learn to live our relationship with the Lord, even more intensely as it were at a “school of prayer.”

 

We know well, in fact, that prayer should not be taken for granted.  It is necessary to learn how to pray, as it were acquiring this art ever anew; even those who are very advanced in spiritual life always feel the need to learn from Jesus, to learn how to pray authentically.  We receive the first lesson from the Lord by his example.  The Gospels describe jesus to us in intimate and constant conversation with the Father: it is a profound communion of the One who came into the world not to do his will but that of the Father who sent him for the salvation of man.” (7).

 

Benedict XVI has rarely received the credit he deserves for his skills as a communicator and writer.  All of the essays in this volume are clear, concise, and convincing.  Benedict XVI writes with a quiet erudition and unwavering faith, and his voice is that of a man who seeks to bring people true happiness by strengthening their religious lives.  There is a warmth and subtle amiability in his words as he addresses his audience:

 

“Dear friends, in these examples of prayer of different epochs and civilizations emerge the human being’s awareness of his creatural condition and of his dependence on Another superior to him and the source of every good.  The human being of all times prays because he cannot fail to wonder about the meaning of his life, which remains obscure and discomforting if it is not put in relations to the mystery of God and of his plan for the world.

 

Human life is a fabric woven of good and of evil, of undeserved suffering and of joy and beauty that spontaneously and irresistibly impel us to ask God for that light and that inner strength which support us on earth and reveal a hope beyond the boundaries of death.” (12).

 

One of the central themes of this book is to emphasize the important role the prayer ought to play in someone’s life.  Many of the “new atheists” treat prayer as a habit passed on through superstition and ignorance.  Benedict XVI utterly rejects this view, stressing that prayer is an essential need for every human being’s mental and spiritual health.  Prayer, and therefore religion, is essential to making life worth living.  Benedict XVI expounds at length upon this point, writing that:

 

“We live in an age in which the signs of secularism are glaringly obvious.  God seems to have disappeared from the horizon of some people or to have become a reality that meets with indifference.  Yet at the same time we see many signs of a reawakening of the religious sense, a rediscovery of the importance of God to the human being’s life, a need for spirituality, for going beyond a purely horizontal and materialistic vision of human life.  

 

A look at recent history reveals the failure of the predictions of those who, in the age of the Enlightenment, foretold the disappearance of religions and who exalted absolute reason, detached from faith, a reason that was to dispel the shadows of religious dogmatism and was to dissolve the “world of the sacred,” restoring to the human being freedom, dignity and autonomy from God.  The experience of the past century, with the tragedy of the two World Wars, disrupted the progress that autonomous reason, man without God, seemed to have been able to guarantee.

 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “In the act of creation, God calls every being from nothingness into existence… Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence, all religions bear witness to man’s essential search for God” (n. 2566).  We could say– as I explained in my last Catecheses– that there has been no great civilization, from the most distant epoch to our day, which has not been religious.

 

Man is religious by nature; he is homo religious just as he is homo sapiens and homo faber: “The desire for God” the Catechism says further, “is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God” (n. 27).  The image of the Creator is impressed on his being and he feels the need to find light to give a response to the questions that concern the deep sense of reality; a response that he cannot find in himself, in progress, in empirical science.

 

The homo religious does not only appear in the sphere of antiquity, he passes through the whole of human history.  In this regard, the rich terrain of human experience has seen the religious sense develop in various forms, in the attempt to respond to the desire for fullness and happiness.  The “digital” man, like the cave man, seeks in the religious experience ways to overcome his finiteness and to guarantee his precarious adventure on earth.  Moreover, life without a transcendent horizon would not have its full meaning and happiness, for which we all seek, is spontaneously projected towards the future in a tomorrow that has yet to come.” (13-14).

 

Despite his retirement, Pope Benedict XVI is certain to be a major figure in many people’s religious education for a very long time.  Most of the pundits and newscasters who reported on the final weeks of Benedict XVI’s papacy ignored his considerable written output.  Actually reading the works of Benedict XVI takes people beyond the shallow and ill-informed media coverage of the end of his papacy, hopefully strengthening the faith of his readers and increasing their respect for the man himself.

 

 

–Chris Chan