Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger Report, Leading Up to the Catholic Catechism

Why should we study the Ratzinger Reports, which document a series of 1985
interviews with Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI?
In the interviews Cardinal Ratzinger discusses the challenges facing the post-Vatican
II Church. What can all Christians learn by reflecting on the Ratzinger Report?
Should we view Cardinal Ratzinger as the Rottweiler of the Catholic Church, a
conservative defending the faith, or were all Vatican II popes actually progressive
popes?
Do the Vatican II decrees abandon or reaffirm the decrees issued by the Council of
Trent?
Who is going to influence whom? Will the Church influence the culture, or will the
culture influence the Church?

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video. Feel free to follow along in the
PowerPoint script we uploaded to SlideShare. Please,
we welcome interesting questions in the comments.
Let us learn and reflect together!

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Twenty years after Vatican II the Catholic Church seemed like a boat adrift without
a rudder. Cardinal Ratzinger, who would later be ordained Pope Benedict XVI,
expressed his concerns and frustrations with the lack of direction in the Church
and the misconceptions of Vatican II in interviews with Vittorio Messori, an Italian
journalist, who would publish them in the Ratzinger Report.
Ratzinger discusses the frustration of many in the hierarchy of the Church on how
so few of the faithful, both critics and champions of Vatican II, actually read and
understood the decrees of the Council. Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger
saw this a lack of catechesis, so shortly after the 1985 publication of the Ratzinger
Report, the Catholic Church started the process of drafting a new Catholic
Catechism, soliciting input from over a dozen cardinals, bishops, and theologians.

https://youtu.be/vHtYu6UtiuE
Ratzinger compared the post-Vatican II Church to a
“construction site where the blueprint had been lost
but everyone continues to build according to his taste.”

https://youtu.be/i8WXS7l4OzE
Cardinal Ratzinger emphasizes, “these texts” in the
Catechism “convey the wealth and the beauty of the
faith. We took care to maintain a balance between
witnesses from East and West to truly underline the
truly catholic character of the catechism.”

Like Vatican II, the Catechism strives to present the Catholic
teachings and tradition to the world, not just Catholics, and
since they balance the footnoted teachings of the Eastern and
Western Church Fathers, not only can Catholics learn about
Catholicism through the Catechism, the Orthodox can learn
about Orthodoxy through the Catechism as well, and all
Christians can go back to the original sources of Christian
tradition, from Scripture and the early first centuries of the
church through the ancient, medieval, and more modern saints.

Cardinal Ratzinger told of a note he once
received from Hans Balthasar which read,
“Do not presuppose the faith but
propose it.” As Ratzinger teaches, “Faith
is not maintained automatically,” faith is
never finished, faith can never be taken
for granted. “The life of faith has to be
constantly renewed.” Genuine faith does
not collect dust like plastic flowers, rather
faith is like the flowers of the field who
bloom with brilliant colors that turn to
face the joy and life of the sun.

Ratzinger continues, “Faith is not a
merely intellectual, or merely volitional,
or merely emotional activity- it is all of
these together.” Faith is both I BELIEVE,
a supremely personal faith, a faith that
then transcends ourselves, this faith is
also WE BELIEVE, we the Church, we the
communion of saints, we the Church
who worships God and experiences
Christ through the sacraments, as the
Psalmist sings, Taste and see that the
Lord is good.
Last Supper, by Juan de Flandes, 1500

Our favorite country song is, “You don’t Love God If
you don’t love your neighbor,” and Cardinal
Ratzinger agrees that both are central, and that each
of these two-fold loves lead to the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epArSqlMQ-E

St Augustine is my favorite Catholic saint because in
every one of his major works he explicitly iterates
the two-fold Love of God and neighbor.

https://youtu.be/uQCnAJMPoos
Cardinal Ratzinger pushes back on common slogans, “one of
which that all that really matters to today is orthopraxis, or
‘right conduct,’ or love of neighbor. On the other hand,
orthodoxy, that is, for ‘right belief,’ according to the true
meaning of Scripture, which is read within the living tradition of
the Church, occupies a second rank, when it is not downright
alienating. This is a facile slogan because it is superficial. Does
not” “orthopraxis, the love of neighbor, radically change with
the manner and way orthodoxy is understood?”

Cardinal Ratzinger also
insists we ask, “What is
the right conduct
through which the poor
are to be effectively
helped in a really
Christian manner? Does
not the decision for a
right behavior
presuppose a right
thinking, does it not
thereby itself refer to the
necessity for a search for
an orthodoxy?”
Fresco of Lazarus and the Rich Man at the Rila Monastery.

Ratzinger references the situation in the Third World
and Latin America. When we were reflecting on
Pope Francis’ Gaudete Et Exsultate encyclical, On the
Call to Holiness in Today’s World, we noticed that
the 2013 Latin American Conference Aparecida was
prominently footnoted, and both Pope Benedict XVI
and the future Pope Francis were the leading voices
of this conference.

Aparecida’s message: “Do not forget the poor.”
Aparecida used a typical expression of the
theological and pastoral tradition of Latin
America: “the preferential option for the poor
and the marginalized.” Aparecida proclaims,
“Today, we want to confirm and promote the
option of preferential love for the
poor. Concern for the poor is not optional.”
Pope Benedict summarizes a primary Latin
American theological reflection: “the
preferential option for the poor is implicit in
the Christological faith in the God who became
poor for us, to enrich us with his poverty.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/trail-aparecida

We want to highlight an observation that
Cardinal Ratzinger made about what robbed
the spirituality of a particular monastery,
which is really a universal condition in the
modern world. He commented “on how the
ruin of the monastery began when it was
declared that rising for the recitation of the
prayers of the nocturnal office was ‘no
longer practical.’” What replaced these
prayers? The worldly habit of “television
viewing well into the night.”
Three Camaldolese Monks in Ecstatic
Prayer, by Alessandro Magnasco, 1740

The ruminations in the Ratzinger Report are a
continuation of his thoughts in his Milestones
Memoir, where he also discusses the problems of
the historical critical method of biblical
interpretation, and his memoirs end with his
appointment as archbishop sometime after the
Council.

Rediscovering the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council, and Pope John XXIII, who called the council.

In preparation for the Second Vatican Council, the
officials in the Curia and many others in the
episcopate had drafted schemata of the texts for the
Council to consider. Formerly repressed reformers
such as Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac were part of
this committee on the insistence of the pope, but
they had little influence on the initial drafts.

Council Fathers and secretaries leaving St. Peter's Basilica

Cardinal Ratzinger comments that Pope John XXIII had expected that the
Second Vatican Council would quickly pass many of these documents, but
the pope also credited the Holy Spirit for the inspiration for calling the
council in his speech opening the sessions. (REPEAT) The Holy Spirit
likewise inspired the Council Fathers, they rejected these drafts of the
decrees “as too theoretical, too textbook-like and insufficiently pastoral,”
and not in line with the spirit of the Council as proclaimed by Pope John
XXIII in his speech invoking the Council.
But Ratzinger adds that none of the changed “texts aimed to change
doctrine,” “but rather sought to synthesize, clarify, and develop” these
texts. Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac and many other theologians,
including Ratzinger himself, were influential in drafting these revised
decrees of Vatican II.

Pope John XXIII, by Giuseppe Frascaroli, 2014

https://youtu.be/ALZozpbSrM4
The Council Fathers rejected the Curia drafts of the decrees “as too theoretical, too textbook-
like and insufficiently pastoral,” and not in line with the spirit of the Council as proclaimed by
Pope John XIXIII. But Ratzinger adds that none of the changed “texts aimed to change
doctrine,” “but rather sought to synthesize, clarify, and develop” these texts.

Ratzinger said that “Vatican II was right in its desire
for a revision of the relations between the Church
and the world,” but that does not mean that there
will never be conflicts. Our journalist then asked
Ratzinger if the Church would revert back to its
prior opposition to the world, to which Ratzinger
responded, “It is not Christians who oppose the
world, but rather the world which rejects the
proclamation of the truth about God;” “the world
which waxes indignant when sin and grace are
called by their names.” The Church must have the
courage and “capacity to oppose many of the
trends of the surrounding culture” that distract us
from the two-fold Love of God and neighbor.

Cardinal Ratzinger comments that there are conservatives who think
they can support the teachings of Trent and Vatican I and disdain
Vatican II, and likewise there are liberals who think they can support
the teachings of Vatican II and disdain Trent and Vatican I, but both of
these extreme camps are equally mistaken. (repeat) Ratzinger notes,
“There are no leaps in this history,” “Vatican II did not want to change
the faith, but to represent it in a more effective way.” The Trent and
Vatican Church Councils are on a continuum, they are all part of the
Catholic tradition and teachings, you cannot reject one and affirm the
other, as Vatican II reaffirms the teachings of her preceding councils
and quotes extensively from them.

https://youtu.be/Thq1blvzWHs
Ratzinger notes, “There are no leaps in this
history,” “Vatican II did not want to change the
faith, but to represent it in a more effective way.”

Cardinal Ratzinger teaches us: “Every council
that bears fruit must be followed by a wave of
holiness. Thus, it was after Trent, and it achieved
its aim of real reform for this reason. Salvation
for the Church comes from within her,” not
solely “from the decrees of the hierarchy.
Whether Vatican II and its results will be
considered as a luminous period of Church
history will depend upon all the Catholics who
are called to give it life. As Pope John Paul II said
in his commemoration of Charles Borromeo in
Milan, ‘the Church of today does not need any
new reformers, the Church needs new saints.’”

Bishop Charles Borromeo is mentioned
prominently in William O’Malley’s
history, he made the decrees of the
Council of Trent come alive in his diocese
in Milan not by returning to the ethos of
the High Middle Ages, but by “creating a
modern form of the Church. Ratzinger
states that Borromeo “teaches us how to
live according to the traditional values of
the Church in a new way.”
Charles Borromeo intercedes during
the plague, by Jacob Jordaens, 1655

Ratzinger’s Reflections on Vatican II Council
When asked about the dangers of the
“modern forgetfulness or rejection of
the Catholic concept of the Church,”
Cardinal Ratzinger replies, “The
gravest issue is the decline of the
authentic concept of OBEDIENCE.
Some see it not as a Christian virtue
but a heritage of an authoritarian,
dogmatic past,” which denies the
beneficial role the Church hierarchy.
“This rejects the concept of an
authority willed by God,” not an
authority derived from “the
consensus of the majority.”

Cardinal Ratzinger continues,
“The church is not a party,
not an association, not a
club. Her deep and
permanent structure is not
democratic but sacramental,
consequently hierarchal,”
based on the apostolic
succession from the apostles
of Jesus. “The Church’s
authority is not based on the
majority of votes; it is based
on the authority of Christ
Himself.”

Cardinal Ratzinger repeats one of the main themes
in Yves Congar’s book that helped inspire the calling
of the Second Vatican Council, True and False
Reform: (REPEAT) In past centuries, “saints reformed
the Church in depth, not by working up plans for
new structures, but by reforming themselves. What
the Church needs in order to respond to the needs
of man in every age is holiness, not management.”

https://youtu.be/ALZozpbSrM4
https://youtu.be/yYp7yFZqc3s https://youtu.be/1xqY0kN1eKk
In past centuries, “saints reformed the
Church in depth, not by working up
plans for new structures, but by
reforming themselves. What the Church
needs in order to respond to the needs
of man in every age is holiness, not
management.”

Cardinal Ratzinger has some wise observations
on the Sacrament of Penance, warning that
“there are priests who tend to transform
confession into a mere conversation, a kind of
therapeutic self-analysis between two persons
on the same level. This seems to be much
more human, more personal and more
adapted to modern man,” but the spiritual
danger to this approach is that it can rob the
sacrament of its mystery. Ratzinger teaches us
that confession must retain “the sense of
scandal thorough which a man can say to
another man, ‘I absolve you from your sins,”
drawing authority not “from consent of men,
but directly from Christ.” Confession, by Molteni Giuseppe, 1838

Motives always matter, Ratzinger concedes that many of
the criticisms of the sacrament are valid, that often
confession is all too often routine, “repetitious, external,
and anonymous.” Indeed, two very necessary sacraments,
confession and marriage, are both problematic because
they are both so necessary. Confession only works when
the penitent truly confesses, and strives to improve their
habits and attitudes, and are aided when clergy seek to
encourage and facilitate a true confession.

The Marriage at Cana, by Maerten de Vos, 1596
The Confession, by Pietro Longhi, 1755

Regarding biblical interpretation, Cardinal Ratzinger
discusses both the spiritual benefits and spiritual
dangers of the historical-critical method, which was
developed when Protestants broke the bond
between the Bible and the Church. This method
interprets the Bible based on a linguistic and
archeological study of the original text using both
linguistic and historical methods.

Moses with the Tables of the Law, by José Juan Camarón y Meliá, 1785

Cardinal Ratzinger warns about the
dangers of studying the Bible solely as a
literary work, “the Bible without the
Church is no longer the powerfully
effective Word of God, but an
assemblage of various historical
sources” “from the perspective of the
present moment.” “An exegesis in which
the Bible no longer lives and is
understood within the living organism
of the church becomes archaeology: the
dead bury their dead.”

As Ratzinger notes, “the
rule of faith, yesterday as
today, is not based on the
discoveries of biblical
sources and layers of the
Bible just as it is, but as it
has been read in the
Church since the time of
Fathers until now.”

In his later 1994 Pontifical Biblical Commission Decree,
Cardinal Ratzinger emphasizes his preference for the
patristic method of commentary, which studies the
writings of the Church Fathers on the Scriptures, viewing
the historical-critical method as a valuable secondary
method of interpretation. To Ratzinger, Jesus is best
approached with humility, on your knees, not as merely
your ultimate personal friend.
Our video on this Decree has an expanded discussion of
the historical-critical method.

Regarding the liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger teaches us,
“The liturgy is not a show, a spectacle, requiring
brilliant producers and talented actors. The life of
the liturgy does not consist in pleasant surprises
and attractive ideas but in solemn repetitions. It
cannot be an expression of what is current and
transitory, for it expresses the mystery of the Holy.”
The Council demanded the faithful be active
participants, but this can lead to the spiritual trap
of assuming this can only take the form of activities
like “speaking, singing, preaching, reading, and
shaking hands,” but also important is silent,
contemplative participation, “for silence facilitates
a really deep, personal participation, allowing us to
listen inwardly to the Lord’s word.” Munich Cathedral

Cardinal Ratzinger ends his chapter on Danger Signs with
these warnings that the “the Christian would be remiss
toward his brethren if he did not proclaim:
• The Christ who first and foremost brings redemption
from sin;
• The reality of the alienation from God of the Fall and,
at the same time, the reality of the grace that redeems
us, that liberates us;
• That to restore us to our original sinless nature,
outside help is necessary;
• That the insistence of self-realization and self-salvation
does not lead to redemption but to destruction;
• That in order to be saved, we must abandon ourselves
to Love.”

Cardinal Ratzinger Reflects on Morals
As Cardinal Ratzinger
teaches, “man is like God,
man is capable of love and
truth.” “Moral doctrine
begins with the yearning for
happiness and love that the
Creator has placed in each of
our hearts.” “Love is the
heart of morality. When we
delve more deeply into this
love, we meet Christ, the
Incarnate Love of God.”
Cardinals enter St Peter's, opening Vatican II, by Franklin McMahon

Many people are fine with Jesus and the
Church as long as they do not tell them what to
do, particularly not questioning their love life.
In Cardinal Ratzinger’s words, “these new
moral theologians, since we are ‘now adult and
liberated,’ think we ought to seek other
behavioral norms by ourselves.” This is like the
nightmarish theme of the book of Judges,
which has the most awful collection of stories
in the Old Testament, testifying to a world
where “all Israel did what was right in their own
eyes.” As Ratzinger notes, “man continually
desires only one thing: to be his own creator
and his own master. But what awaits us at the
end of this road is certainly not Paradise.”

However, once we separate intimacy
from marriage, and separate
motherhood from marriage, then we
are no longer seen as persons but
rather as things, “nothing but a product
planned according to one's pleasures.”
“Hence, it naturally follows that all
forms of sexual gratification are
transformed in the 'rights' of the
individual,” which would include rights
to practice homosexuality and to abort
unwanted babies, and probably
polygamy and polyamory as well.

Cardinal Ratzinger views permissiveness as
a grave crisis facing the church. He
observes, “The issue is the rupture between
sexuality and marriage. Separated from
motherhood, sex has remained without a
locus and has lost its point of reference: it is
a kind of drifting mine, a problem and at the
same time an omnipresent power.”
This causes another rupture, “After sexuality
and motherhood were separated, sexuality
was also separated from procreation.” Then
the advances of medicine and artificial
insemination permitted another rupture,
“procreation without sexuality.”
Munich Cathedral

Missionaries: Proclaiming Christ Again

Cardinal Ratzinger commented on the status of
missions in Africa, noting that though Vatican II
introduced necessary changes in its affirmation of
religious liberty, no longer treating faith
communities in Africa and Asia like colonies,
granting local church leaders autonomy, that the
unintended effect of this decree and the broader
decree on ecumenism did lead to a lessening of
missionary zeal.

Cardinal Ratzinger
observes that “hand in
hand with the weakening
of the necessity of
baptism, went the
overemphasis on the
values of the non-Christian
religions, which many
theologians saw not as
extraordinary paths of
salvation but precisely
ordinary ones.”

Ratzinger goes on to observe the slippery
path of relativism many slide down: “Many
begin to wonder, Why should we disturb non-
Christians, urging them to accept baptism
and faith in Christ, if their religion is their way
to salvation in their culture, in their part of
the world?” Ratzinger teaches that we must
guide those who are not saved to the
knowledge of the truth, “God our Savior
desires that all men are to be saved to come
to the knowledge that there is one God, and
there is one mediator between God and man,
and that is the man Christ Jesus, who gave
Himself as a ransom for many.” (Quoting 1
Timothy 2:4-7)

Ratzinger pointed out that the original Jewish
apostles who preached the Gospel to the Greeks,
they too were bringing in the Good News from “the
outside.” He observes that the Nazis in Germany
were well aware of the foreign nature of Christianity,
which is why they tried to obliterate it.

Vocation of the Apostles, Sistine Chapel, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1482

Perhaps the analogy St Augustine gave applies, that
maybe you can attain salvation through a round-
about path through the fields and up and down the
mountains and valleys, but salvation is more assured
if you instead take the straight and narrow path
shown in the Gospels.

Conclusion: Reflecting on Ratzinger Report

Why was Pope Benedict XVI seen by some as the
Rottweiler of the Catholic Church? He did silence some
liberal theologians when their views diverged too
drastically from the official Catholic position. Perhaps
Pope Benedict XVI saw himself as the penultimate
university theology professor, where the Catholic Church
is his giant classroom, where all the faithful are his
students, and his job is to correct his students’ incorrect
notions on the Catholic faith. Did he go too far at times?

Let us conclude with these teachings
of Cardinal Ratzinger. “More than
ever before the Lord today has made
us conscious of the fact the He alone
can save His Church. The Church
belongs to Christ, and she depends
on Him to care for her. We are called
upon to work with all our might,
without anxiety and with the
composure of one who knows that
he is a useless servant even when he
has done his full duty.”
Let the Little Children Come unto Me, Carl Bloch, 1800

Ratzinger says he has “always
tried to remain true to Vatican
II, to this TODAY of the
Church, without any longing
for a YESTERDAY irretrievably
gone with the wind and
without any impatient thrust
toward a TOMORROW,”
particular a tomorrow that
includes “an imaginary Vatican
III,” “that is not ours.”

Ratzinger regrets that “the
authentic reception of Vatican II has
not yet begun, its documents were
buried under a pile of superficial or
frankly inexact publications. The
reading of the LETTER of the
documents will enable us to
discover their true SPIRIT.” Which is
exactly why, in this channel, we like
to quote extensively from the
sources, so you learn more about
them and less about our
interpretations.

We always find Joseph Ratzinger’s books to be very readable, and although he was
the one being interviewed in the Ratzinger Report, he was quoted so extensively
that he really was a co-author.
George Weigel’s biography of Pope Benedict XVI includes a history of the Ratzinger
Report. To prepare for the Catechism, the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops was called
in Rome to get the input on how the council decrees were being implemented.
Vittorio Messori asked to interview Cardinal Ratzinger, and not only did Ratzinger
accept, he was also brutally frank. Consequently, when published, the Ratzinger
Report was an immediate sensation, to the degree that one Cardinal, at a press
conference, declared, “This is not a synod about that book, it’s a synod about the
Council!”
Cardinal Ratzinger allowed the Synod Fathers to discuss two questions publicly,
whether the Vatican II decrees were misinterpreted, and whether Catholicism was
drifting into a type of liberal Protestantism.

There were many trends that were worrying
the Synod Fathers, which included:
• The loss of a sense of reverence and awe
of the Church and its Liturgy, where
“many thought of the Church as a party
or a club rather than as a distinctive
community of faith and charity formed
by the sacraments.”
• “A severe decline in the practice of
penance, or confession, which had too
often devolved into another form of
therapy.”
• “The Church had lost a sense of the
Cross,” “the idea of redemptive suffering
found little resonance” in the secular
west, which was “tone-deaf to the
Church’s appeal for a genuine dialogue.” Council Fathers and secretaries leaving St. Peter's Basilica

I only noticed one sentence in the Ratzinger Report
that mentioned abortion, in 1985 it was not a major
issue, and it does not mention the clerical sex scandal
that has since nearly engulfed the Church.
We also used Cardinal Ratzinger’s book on Gospel,
Catechesis, and Catechism as a source.
We also have a book review video on our sources for
our videos on the history and decrees of Vatican II.

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
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Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger Report, Leading Up to the Catholic Catechism

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