(s.m.) In bookstores as of a few days ago is the third book of volume XIII of Joseph Ratzinger’s Opera Omnia in the Italian version, with the title: “In dialogue with his own time.”
The volume, of over 500 pages, collects 39 interviews given by Ratzinger (pictured with the philosopher Jürgen Habermas) from 1968 to 2004, many of which have never been made public in a language other than the original German.
An excerpt from one of these previously unpublished interviews is presented here for the first time in Italian, French, and English, with the permission of Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
The full interview takes up twenty pages of the volume. And reproduced here are the passages that concern three crucial questions: the reasons for the crisis of faith in our time, the conflict between the Jesus of the Gospels and the “historical” Jesus, the lack of understanding of the true reality of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the Mass.
It is interesting to note that at the end of this interview, which was given in the fall of 2003, a year and a half before his election as pope, Ratzinger announces that he has begun writing a book about Jesus, and that he expects to have to work on it “for three or four years.”
An announcement confirmed by the facts. The first volume of his trilogy on “Jesus of Nazareth” was released in bookstores in April 2007, with the double signature of Joseph Ratzinger and Benedict XVI, and with these final lines of the preface:
“I was able to begin working on it during summer vacation in 2003. In August of 2004, I gave definitive form to chapters 1 through 4. […] I have now decided to publish the first ten chapters as the first part of the book, going from the baptism in the Jordan to the confession of Peter and the Transfiguration.”
Here is a presentation of that first volume, with a summary of each chapter and two excerpts, on the temptations of Jesus in the desert and on the origin of the Gospel of John:
> And He Appeared in Their Midst: “Jesus of Nazareth” at the Bookstore (4/16/2007)
And here is Ratzinger’s preface to that same volume:
> The Next Battle For and Against Jesus Will Be Fought by the Book (15.1.2007)
Getting back to the volume just published of Ratzinger’s Opera Omnia, here is an excerpt from the interview he gave to Guido Horst for Die Tagespost, in the fall of 2003.
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“The true Jesus is still the Jesus whom the Gospels present to us”
by Joseph Ratzinger
Q. – It is often part of the “bon ton,” among Catholics conscious of tradition, to speak of a crisis of faith in the Church. But hasn’t it always been that way?
A. – First of all, I would like to agree with you. The faith of the individual believer has always had its difficulties and its problems, its limits and its measure. On this we cannot judge. But, in the underlying spiritual situation, so to speak, something different happened. Up until the Enlightenment, and even beyond, there was no doubt that God shone through the world; it was somehow evident that behind this world there stands a higher intelligence, that the world, with all that it contains – creation with its richness, reasonableness, and beauty – reflects a creator Spirit. And there was also, beyond all the divisions, the fundamental evidence that in the Bible God himself speaks to us, that in it he has revealed his face to us, that God comes to meet us in Christ. Whereas at that time there was, let us say, a collective presupposition of some sort of adherence to the faith – always with all the human limitations and weaknesses – and it really took a conscious rebellion to oppose it, after the Enlightenment everything changed: today the image of the world is exactly upside down.
Everything, it seems, is explained at the material level; the hypothesis of God, as Laplace already said, is no longer necessary; everything is explained by material factors. Evolution has become, let us say, the new divinity. There is no step for which a Creator is needed. Indeed, introducing one seems to oppose scientific certainty, and is therefore something untenable. Likewise, the Bible has been snatched away, because it is considered a product whose origin can be explained historically, which reflects historical situations and in no way tells us what it was believed could be drawn from it, which instead must have been something entirely different.
In such a general situation, where the new authority – what is called “science” – intervenes and speaks the last word to us, and where even scientific popularization declares itself to be “science,” it is much more difficult to take notice of God and above all to adhere to the biblical God, to God in Jesus Christ, to accept him and to see in the Church the living community of faith. In this sense I would say, on the basis of the objective situation of conscience, that there is another starting point, on account of which faith requires a much greater commitment and also the courage to resist apparent certainties. Going to God has become much more difficult.
Q. – Modern biblical exegesis has certainly contributed greatly to disorienting the faithful. Many commentaries on Scripture interpret the faith of the first communities, but no longer cast their gaze on the historical Jesus and his actions. Is this the fruit of a solid scientific knowledge of the Bible, or is it better to return to the historical Jesus?
A. – That must be done in any case. The problem of historical-critical exegesis is naturally gigantic. It has shaken the Church, and not only the Catholic Church, for more than a hundred years. It is also a big problem for the Protestant Churches. It is very significant that fundamentalist communities have formed in Protestantism, which oppose these tendencies toward dissolution and have wanted to fully recover the faith through the rejection of the historical-critical method. The fact that fundamentalist communities should be growing today, that they should be successful throughout the world, while the “mainstream Churches” should be in crisis, shows us the dimensions of the problem. In many respects we Catholics are better off. The Protestants who refused to accept the exegetical current, in fact, had no other recourse than to fall back on the canonization of the letter of the Bible, declaring it untouchable. The Catholic Church has, so to speak, a broader space, in the sense that the living Church itself is the space of faith, which on the one hand sets limits but on the other allows a broad possibility of variations.
A simple blanket condemnation of historical-critical exegesis would be a mistake. We have learned an incredible number of things from it. The Bible appears much more alive if one takes exegesis into account with all of its results: the formation of the Bible, its progress, its internal unity in development, etc. Therefore: on the one hand, modern exegesis has given us much, but it becomes destructive if one simply submits to all its hypotheses and elevates its presumed scientific nature to the sole criterion.
It has been particularly devastating to have taken up the poorly assimilated dominant hypotheses in catechesis, and to have considered them as the latest craze in “science.” To have identified the exegesis of the moment each time as “science,” presenting it with great fanfare, and to have looked to this “science” as the only valid authority, while no authority was attributed any longer to the Church, has been the great error of these last fifteen years. As a result, catechesis and proclamation have become fragmented: either the traditions have been carried forward, but with little conviction, so that ultimately anyone could see that doubts were being entertained in this regard, or apparent results have been immediately passed off as sure voices of science.
In reality, the history of exegesis is a cemetery of hypotheses, which each time represent the spirit of the times more than the true voice of the Bible. Those who build on it too hastily, too rashly, and take this for pure science, end up shipwrecked, perhaps looking for some sort of life raft, which however can also quickly go to the bottom. We must arrive at a more balanced picture.
There is a tension that is once again at work this very day: historical-critical exegesis is the support of interpretation and allows us essential knowledge and, as such, must be respected, but it must also be criticized. In fact, it is precisely the young exegetes who today are showing that an incredible amount of philosophy is concealed in exegesis. What seems to reflect only concrete facts and passes for the voice of science is in reality the expression of a certain idea of the world, according to which, for example, there can be no resurrection from the dead, or Jesus could not have spoken in this way or that, and so on. Today, precisely among young exegetes there is the tendency to relativize historical exegesis, which maintains its significance but carries within it philosophical presuppositions that must be criticized.
So this way of interpreting the meaning of the Bible must be integrated with other forms, above all through continuity with the vision of the great believers, who by a completely different path arrived at the true, deep core of the Bible, while the apparently clarifying science, which seeks only facts, has remained very much on the surface and has not penetrated to the profound reason that moves and holds together the whole Bible. We must once again recognize that the faith of believers is an authentic way of seeing and knowing, in order to arrive at a greater context.
Two things are important: to remain skeptical of everything that is presented as “science,” and above all to trust the faith of the Church, which remains the authentic constant and shows us the true Jesus. The true Jesus is still the Jesus that the Gospels present to us. All the others are fragmentary constructions, which reflect the spirit of the times more than the origins. Exegetical studies have also analyzed how often the different images of Jesus are not scientific data, but rather a mirror of what a certain individual or a certain time considered as a scientific result.
Q. – A personal opinion: in the near future will Catholics and Lutherans find themselves together at the altar?
A. – Humanly speaking, I would say no. One initial reason is above all the internal division of the Evangelical communities themselves. Let us think only of German Lutheranism, where there are people with a very deep and ecclesially formed faith, but also a liberal wing that ultimately considers faith as an individual choice and allows the Church to vanish.
But even leaving aside these internal divisions within the Evangelical sphere, there are also fundamental differences between the communities that arose from the Reformation of the 16th century and the Catholic Church. If I think only of the official “brochure” on the “Supper” of the German Evangelical Church, there are two things that truly indicate a very deep rift.
On the one hand, it is said that basically every baptized Christian can preside at the Eucharist. Therefore, beyond Baptism there is no other sacramental structure in the Church. This means that apostolic succession is not recognized in the episcopal and priestly office, although it already appears in the Bible as a constitutive form of the structure of the Church. The structure of the New Testament Canon — the “texts” of the New Testament — falls within this context. The Canon certainly did not form on its own. It had to be recognized. But this required a legitimate authority to decide. This authority could only be that apostolic authority which was present in the office of succession. Canon — Scripture — apostolic succession, as well as the episcopal office, are inseparable.
The second point, in the “brochure”, that amazed me is that the essential parts of the celebration of the Holy Supper are indicated. But there is no trace of the “Eucharistia,” the prayer of consecration that was not invented by the Church but derives directly from the prayer of Jesus – the great prayer of blessing of the Jewish tradition – and, together with the offering of bread and wine, represents the constitutive offering of the Lord to the Church. It is thanks to it that we pray in the prayer of Jesus, and through his prayer – which was the real sacrificial act accomplished bodily on the cross – the sacrifice of Christ is present and the Eucharist is more than a supper.
For this reason, the Catholic vision of the Church, as well as of the Eucharist and of everything that is said in the “brochure” of the German Evangelical Church, are clearly very far removed. Behind this, then, there is the central problem of “sola Scriptura.” Jüngel, a professor in Tübingen, sums it up in the formula: the Canon itself is the apostolic succession. But where do we know it from? Who explains it? Each one on his own? Or experts? In this case our faith would rest only on hypotheses that do not hold up either in life or in death. If the Church has no say in the matter, if it cannot say anything authoritatively on the ultimate questions of faith, then in fact there is no communal faith. One could then erase the word “Church,” because a Church that does not guarantee us a common faith is not a Church.
So the fundamental question relative to Church and Scripture is ultimately a question that is still present and has not been answered. All this does not exclude, however, that true believers can meet in a profound spiritual proximity, as I myself can continually experience with gratitude.
Q. – You are also dean of the College of Cardinals. Do you, however, have any hope of being able to dedicate yourself to your personal work? If you had the time, what theological question would you like to address as the most urgent, and what could be the title of the corresponding publication?
A. – First of all, I have to learn ever more to entrust myself to Our Lord, whether I have time or not, because with the years there is no going back. But somehow, in the free hours that I have, although rarely, I try to carry something forward, little by little. In the month of August I began to write a book about Jesus. It will certainly take me three or four years, from the way things seem to be going. I would like to demonstrate how, from the Bible, we are presented with a living and harmonious figure and how the Jesus of the Bible is also an absolutely present Jesus.
(Translated by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
As is the complete index of the blog www.chiesa, which preceded it.
