Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith - Hardcover

Allen, John L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826412653 ISBN 13: 9780826412652

Verlag: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2001

Inhaltsangabe

This biography of Cardinal Ratzinger asks how a once progressive theologian has become an arch-conservative and the second most important figure in the Catholic church. It examines his pre-Vatican life, and his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.

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Críticas

"We needed a book on [Ratzinger] which was well-researched, informative and analytic, adequately critical, yet thoroughly and determinedly fair. John Allen has given us just such a book."-The Tablet "A terrific writer who is well informed in theology and church history, Allen skillfully navigates the ideological and political controversies of the last 20th-century church."-Publishers Weekly "One would not buy a used theology manual from [Ratzinger], or entrust him with the theological education of one's daughter."-Peter Hebblethwaite "Allen asks-and answers-all the right questions about the church's chief 'enforcer of the faith.' His entertaining narrative helps us to understand how and why the institutional church put the brakes on Vatican II. An important book for those trying to ma I devoured John Allen s insightful biography of the man who will now be known as Pope Benedict XVI. ChristianityToday.com, 4/05 "Allen has thoroughly researched this biography, and [ ] there is much material of interest which has not previously been published or cited in English Without doubt it is important."- Laudatory, June MMI "In this absorbing study John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, expounds and explores Ratzinger's theology and highlights the central concerns that have so significantly shaped Catholicism during the pontificate of John Paul II Quite apart form the intrinsic fascination (and readability) of this study of so significant a figure in contemporary Catholicism, there are real challenges here for all Christians, and not least Anglicans, who seek to affirm, to pray and to live out the historic revealed Christian faith in so challenging and pluralist a world." New Directions "Meticulously researched Allen has provided a fairly evenhanded account of a key leader in the Catholic Church today." St. Anthony Messenger "Full of important information about Ratzinger's career and changes of position his most original contribution is to argue that Ratzinger sometimes promotes views even more conservative than the Pope's." The New York Review of Books "It is not just because of the position he has occupied since 1981 as head of what used to be the Holy Office that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is a key figure in the development of the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II John L. Allen puts us all in his debt by tracing how this has come about The resulting book is essential reading." Church Times '...journalism of the highest quality.'--Dom Sebastian Moore "Downside Review " '...journalism of the highest quality.'--, "Downside Review " 'an interesting contribution to the debate....John Allen...has penned an informative and invaluable contribution to our understanding of the mind and opinions of the man who is now our pope.' 03/09/2006--, "An honest unparalleled attempt by a liberal Catholic to appreciate the person and thought of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger." TCR News on www.bigbrother.net

Reseña del editor

A vivid blow-by-blow of the controversies that have wracked the Catholic Church during the past twenty yearsLiberation theology, birth control, women's ordination, inclusive language, "radical feminism," homosexuality, religious pluralism, human rights in the church, and the roles of bishops and theologians-one man has stood at the dead center of all these controversial issues: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. A teenage American POW as the Third Reich crumbled and a progressive wunderkind at the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger, for twenty years, has been head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (until 1908 known as the Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, or Holy Office). The book goes a long way toward explaining the central enigma surrounding Ratzinger: How did this erstwhile liberal end up as the chief architect of the third great wave of repression in Catholic theology in the twentieth century? Based on extensive interviews with Ratzinger's students and colleagues, as well as research in archives in both Bavaria and the United States, Allen's account shows that Ratzinger's deep suspicion of "the world," his preoccupation with human sinfulness, and his demand for rock-solid loyalty to the church run deep. They reach into his childhood "in the shadow of the Nazis" and reflect his formative theological influences: Augustine, Bonaventure, and Martin Luther(!) rather than the world-affirming Thomas Aquinas. When the cardinals of the Catholic Church next gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect a pope, Allen argues, they will in effect be deciding whether to continue the policies Ratzinger has been the central force in shaping."The servility of the sycophants, of those who shy from and shun every collision, who prize above all their calm complacency, is not true obedience. . . . What the church needs today as always are not adulators to extol the status quo, but men whose humility and obedience are not less than their passion for the truth; . . .men who love the church more than the ease and the unruffled course of their personal destiny."-Joseph Ratzinger (1962)>

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0826412653
• ISBN 13: 9780826412652
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar