The Ratzinger Report

I went to a used bookstore in Baltimore over the weekend and bought some books. Among them was an interview with Cardinal Ratzinger who is Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Holy Office or the Roman and Universal Inquisition). The interview was done in 1984, but not a whole lot has changed since 1984 so much of what he says is still very relevant. I’ll share a few excerpts below.

Chapter on Liturgy

"The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely, the Saints the Church has produced and the Art which has grown in Her womb. Better witness is borne to the Lord by the splendor of holiness and art which have arisen in the community of believers than by the clever excuses which apologetics has come up with to justify the dark sides which, sadly, are so frequent in the Church’s human history. If the Church is to continue to transform and humanize the world, how can She dispense with beauty in Her liturgies, the beauty which is so closely linked with the radiance of the Resurrection? No. Christians must not be too easily satisfied. They must make their into a place where beauty – and hence Truth – is at home. Without this the world will become the first circle of Hell."

Chapter on Morality

"The now dominant mentality now attacks the very foundations of the morality of the Church, which, as I have already said, if She remains true to Herself, risks appearing like an anachronistic construct, a bothersome, alien body. Thus the moral theologians of the Western Hemisphere, in their efforts to still remain ‘credible’ in our society, find themselves facing a difficult alternative: it seems to them that they must choose between opposing modern society and opposing the Magesterium. The number of those who prefer the latter type of opposition is larger or smaller depending on how the question is posed: consequently they set out on a search for theories and systems that allow compromises between Catholicism and current conceptions. But this growing difference between the Magesterium and the ‘new’ moral theologies leads to unforeseeable consequences, also precisely for the reason that the Church with Her schools and Her hospitals still occupies an important social role (especially in America). Thus we stand before the difficult alternative: either the Church finds an understanding, a compromise with the values propounded by society which She wants to continue to serve, or She decides to remain faithful to Her own values (and in the Church’s view these are the values which protect man in his deepest needs) as the result of which She finds Herself on the margin of society."

Chapter On Separated Christians

"It will always be hard, if not impossible, for a Reformed Christian to accept the Priesthood as a Sacrament and as an indispensable precondition for the Eucharist. For to accept this he would have to accept the structure of the Church founded on apostolic succession. For the present at least, the furthest progress achieved is the acceptance of a model of the Church based on apostolic succession seen as the better solution – but not as the only and indispensable one."