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Description edit
Foreword by George Weigel Never has a Pope, in a book-length interview, dealt so directly with such wide-ranging and controversial issues as Pope Benedict XVI does in Light of the World . Taken from a recent week-long series of interviews with veteran journalist Peter Seewald, this book... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Quotes edit
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“We are living at the expense of future generations. In this respect it is plain that we are living in untruth. We live on the basis of appearances, and the huge debts are meanwhile treated as something that we are simply entitled to. Here, too, everyone understands in theory that it would require careful deliberation to recognize again what is really possible, what one can do, and what one may do. And yet people do not take it to heart. Above and beyond the individual financial plans, a global examination of conscience is indispensable. (47-48)”
Benedict XVI -
“When man sins, the cosmos suffers. (49)”
Hildegard Von Bingen -
“For many people today, practical atheism is the normal rule of life. Maybe there is something or someone, they think, who once set the world in motion eons ago, but he does not matter to us at all. If this attitude becomes a general existential position, then freedom no long has any standards, then everything is possible and permissible. That is why it is so urgent also to bring the question about God back into the center. Of course, this does not mean a God who exists in some way or other, but rather a God who knows us, speaks to us, and approaches us -- and who is then our judge also. (49)”
Benedict XVI -
“When… in the name of non-discrimiation, people try to force the Catholic Church to change her position on homosexuality or the ordination of women, then that means that she is no longer allowed to live out her own identity and that, instead, an abstract, negative religion is being made into a tyrannical standard that everyone must follow. That is then seemingly freedom -- for the sole reason that it is liberation from the previous situation. In reality, however, this development increasingly leads to an intolerant claim of a new religion, which pretends to be generally valid because it is reasonable, indeed, because it is reason itself, which knows all and, therefore, defines the frame of reference that is now supposed to apply to everyone. In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is a real threat we face. (52-53)”
Benedict XVI -
“Certain forms of behavior and thinking are being presented as the only reasonable ones and, therefore, as the only appropriately human ones. Christianity finds itself exposed now to an intolerant pressure that at first ridicules it -- as belonging to a perverse, false way of thinking -- and then tries to deprive it of breathing space in the name of an ostensible rationality. (53)”
Benedict XVI -
“In Brazil, for example, there is, on the one hand, strong growth among the sects, which are often very dubious because, for the most part, they promise only prosperity, external success. There are also, however, new Catholic awakenings, a dynamic of new movements, for instance, the "Heralds of the Gospel", young people who are seized by the enthusiasm of having acknowledged Christ as the Son of God and of bringing Him into the world. As the Archbishop of São Paulo tells me, new movements are being formed there constantly. And so there is a force of new life and awakening there. (58)”
Benedict XVI -
“Less clearly but nevertheless unmistakably, we find here in the West, too, a revival of new Catholic initiatives that are not ordered by a structure or a bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is spent and tired. These initiatives come from within, from the joy of young people. Christianity is perhaps acquiring another face and, also, another cultural form. It does not hold the command post in world opinion; others rule there. But it is the vital force without which even the other things would not continue. In this regard, thanks to what I myself am able to see and exprience, I am quite optimistic that Christianity is on the verge of a new dynamic. (59)”
Benedict XVI -
“I believe that we do not always have an adequate idea of the power of this serpent of drug trafficking and consumption that spans the globe. It destroys youth, it destroys families, it leads to violence and endangers the future of entire nations. (61)”
Benedict XVI -
“I would say that one should not fragment history too much. We are weaving one and the same cloth. Karol Wojtyla was sent by God to the Church, so to speak, in a very specific, critical situation, in which, on the one hand, the Marxist generation, the 1968 generation, called the entire West into question and in which, conversely, real Socialism fell to pieces. In the midst of this conflict to open a path for a breakthrough to faith and to show that it is the center and the way -- that was a historic moment of a special sort. Not every pontificate has to have a brand new task. Now it is a matter of continuing this and grasping the drama of the time, holding fast in that drama to the World of God as the decisive word -- and at the same time giving Christianity that simplicity and depth without which it cannot be effective. (66).”
Benedict XVI -
“We are not a production plant, we are not a for-profit business, we are Church. That means a community of men standing together in faith. The task is not to manufacture some product or to be a success at selling merchandise. Instead, the task is to live the faith in an exemplary way, to proclaim it and at the same time to keep this voluntary association, which cuts across all cultures, nations, and times and is not based on external interests, spiritually connected with Christ and so with God himself. (73)”
Benedict XVI -
“One of the ways in which a bishop takes part in the governance of the universal Church is by properly governing his local church and assuring her inner cohesion.”
Benedict XVI -
“Admittedly, forms of rigorism have also repeatedly gained ground in Christianity, and the tendency toward negative appraisals of sexuality, a tendency that had developed in Gnosticism, also found its way into the Church. Just think of Jansenism, which warped and intimidated people. It is evident today that we need to find our way back to the genuinely Christian attitude that existed among the first Christians and in the great periods of Christian culture: the attitude of joy in, and affirmation of, the body, of sexuality -- seen as a gift that always requires discipline and responsibility as well. (103)”
Benedict XVI -
“<On world youth day>: I am happy that we have been able to establish such a spontaneous contact, and these Youth Days have actually turned out to be a genuine gift for me. When I think about the number of young people who experience these events as a fresh start, one that also sustains them spiritually after the events are over, or about the number of faith initiatives that get started or about the intense joy that remains and about the spirit of recollection that, amazingly, pervades the actual World Youth Days themselves, I cannot help saying: Something is happening here, and we are absolutely not the ones who are making it happen. (112)”
Benedict XVI -
“We must summon fresh energy for tackling the problem of how to announce the gospel anew in such a way that this world can receive it, and we must muster all of our energies to do it.”
Benedict XVI -
“Paul understood the Church precisely not as an institution, as an organization, but as a living organism, in which all the members work with and in relation to each other, in which they are all united because of Christ. (137)”
Benedict XVI -
“We are heading increasingly toward a form of Christianity based on personal decision. And it will decide in turn the extent to which the general Christian character remains at work. I would say that the task today is, on the one hand, to consolidate, enliven, and enlarge this Christianity of personal decision, so that more people can consciously live and profess their faith again. On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that we are not simply identical with the nation as such -- and yet that we have the energy to impress upon it, and present to it, values that it can accept, even when the majority are not believing Christians. (162)”
Benedict XVI -
“In the end, there are two figures that enabled the people of Latin America to embrace the faith: on the one hand, the Mother of God; on the other hand, the God who suffers, who also suffers in all what they themselves have experienced in violence. So we have to say that faith includes history. Cardinal Newman brought this to light. Faith develops. (164).”
Benedict XVI -
“Simplicity is truth -- and truth is simple. (167)”
Benedict XVI
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“The first swallow from the cup of the natural sciences makes atheists—but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting.”
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As Saint Augustine said: World history is a battle between two forms of love. Love of self—to the point of destroying the world. And love of others—to the point of renouncing oneself. This battle, which could always be seen, is in progress now, too.
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In the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is a real threat we face. The danger is that reason—so-called Western reason—claims that it has now really recognized what is right and thus makes a claim to totality that is inimical to freedom. I believe that we must very emphatically delineate this danger. No one is forced to be a Christian. But no one should be forced to live according to the “new religion” as though it alone were definitive and obligatory for all mankind.
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Faith devoid of reason risks becoming superstition and blind prejudice. Reason inattentive to faith risks solipsism, self-absorption, detachment from reality.
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Ultimately this also narrowed the concept of love, which in fact is not just being nice or courteous, but is found in the truth. And another component of truth is that I must punish the one who has sinned against real love.
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After the mid-sixties, however, it was simply not applied any more. The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people.
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Saint Augustine said even in his day: There are many outside who seem to be inside, and there are many inside who seem to be outside.
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“There are so many problems that all have to be solved but that will not all be solved unless God stands in the center and becomes visible again in the world.”
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“The greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church.”
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The Church must not hide, was his attitude; the faith must be explained; and it can be explained, because it is reasonable.
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Authors & Contributors edit
- Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) (Author)
- Peter Seewald (Author)
Other Contributors:
- George Weigel (Foreword)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 260
Subjects edit
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