Pope Benedict is a Good Preacher

A very good article from an Italian Paper via the Ratzinger Forum

And Papa Ratzinger reveals
himself to be quite a preacher!
by MARCO POLITI
Translated from
La Repubblica
April 22, 2009

The secret Ratzinger, whom few know, is Ratzinger the preacher. His books on theology can be found anywhere, and the activities of the reigning Pontiff are under the eyes of everyone, but to grasp the intimate core of Benedict XVI, one must go listen to him.

Not only in the basilicas, but in a parochial church or in a halfway home for sick people. It is where he reveals - with words that are pregnant and simple at the same time - his desire for an essential Christianity that is pure, not burdened by superstructures.

Ratzinger found this purity in the intensity with which the African faithful abandoned themselves to song at the the Masses during his recent visit to Cameroon and Angola. Whether singing in Latin or in their African languages, they manifested that fullness of faith that he seeks in all believers. Because "Christian hope", he reiterated during the recent death anniversary of Papa Wojtyla, cannot be reduced to "ideology, group slogans, or exterior trappings".

Christ, he said, does not wish believers merely to play at being his disciples. Nor, he has said on other occasions, does it make sense to present Christianity as a package of rules or claims to hegemony of one 'single' culture or one homogeneous world. The word that appears most often in the Pope's vocabulary is love.

Which is the title [and subject] of his first encyclical, Deus caritas est. For Benedict XVI, to be Christian consists basically in 'free adherence to love'. Love for God inseparably linked to love for one's neighbor. It may surprise those who see the Pope primarily as a leader who expresses himself controversially on the international scene, but Ratzinger's soul, nourished by the teachings of St. Paul and St. Augustine, is really oriented towards an intimate faith which, even when expressed as social commitment, remains anchored to the two cardinal tenets of the Christian experience: the Cross and the Resurrection.

If Christ had not resurrected, he said on Easter, echoing the apostle Paul, "the void would have gained the upper hand". Reaching his 82nd birthday and starting the fifth year of his pontificate, Benedict XVI has condensed in the past several days some of the most important themes of his thinking. Above all, there is the incessant quest to encounter the Face of Christ. For Ratzinger, to be Christian is nothing but empty words unless it is translated to the desire and need to find oneself face to face with that Face. Which belongs to a man of flesh and bone, who is 'historical', not mythical. In the disorientation of the contemporary world, the Christian must learn how to pause and contemplate "the face of the Man of sorrows, who took upon himself all of our mortal anguish".

The face of Christ, Ratzinger says, is reflected in every person who is humiliated and insulted, who is sick and suffering, or alone, abandoned, despised. "You will be lost, unless you arrive first," St. Augustine said. Why then don't we welcome this Face into our lives, the Pope asks. He sees a special role for the clergy in all this. This is a man who basically rejects everything that is clerical [in the pejorative sense] and affected.

In the Chrismal Mass on Maundy Thursday, the Pope questioned the concept of absolute freedom proposed by the philosopher Nietzsche, but he even denounced the caricatures or humility and submission in the Church "which we do not wish to imitate". Ratzinger drew the line between priesthood considered as a profession and vehicle for 'self-realization' and priesthood as a daily asceticism focused on service and abandonment to Christ. These are demanding words - but they are fascinating to many Catholics and often, even to followers of other religions or agnostics.

The discussion is different in terms of the Church confronting today's society, which is seen as prey to materialism and nihilism. The Pope sees a Church that is always in danger, besieged by hate, drawn towards the abyss, to the point of giving the impression 'that it is about to drown', were it not constantly rescued by Christ. In this respect, Augustinian pessimism colors the words of the Pope. and perhaps some of the decisions he has made as Pope are born from that pessimism.