Product Description

This book is the only existing biography of Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in southern Bavaria. Comprehensive in scope and intimate in content, it provides a vivid blow-by-blow of the controversies that have wracked the Catholic Church during the past twenty years: Liberation theology, birth control, women's ordination, inclusive language, "radical feminism," homosexuality, religious pluralism, human rights in the church, and the roles of bishops and theologians. One man has stood at the dead center of all these controversial issues: Joseph Ratzinger. A teenage American POW as the Third Reich crumbled and a progressive wunderkind at the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger, for twenty years, has been head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (until 1908 known as the Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, or Holy Office). The book goes a long way toward explaining the central enigma surrounding Ratzinger: How did this erstwhile liberal end up as the chief architect of the third great wave of repression in Catholic theology in the twentieth century? Based on extensive interviews with Ratzinger's students and colleagues, as well as research in archives in both Bavaria and the United States, Allen's account shows that Ratzinger's deep suspicion of "the world," his preoccupation with human sinfulness, and his demand for rock-solid loyalty to the church run deep. They reach into his childhood "in the shadow of the Nazis" and reflect his formative theological influences: Augustine, Bonaventure, and Martin Luther rather than the world-affirming Thomas Aquinas. In his words, Ratzinger affirms that “What the church needs today as always are not adulators to extol the status quo, but men whose humility and obedience are not less than their passion for the truth; . . .men who love the church more than the ease and the unruffled course of their personal destiny."-Joseph Ratzinger (1962)>

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1138427 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-04
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.44 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Booklist
Widely considered a conservative "enforcer of the faith," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger may be the most important figure in the Catholic Church's rightward turn under John Paul II, and he will have major influence in the conclave that elects the next pope. Allen traces Ratzinger from his Bavarian boyhood "in Hitler's shadow," through a distinguished if stormy theological career and a rapid rise in the hierarchy, to his current position as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Allen responds to Ratzinger's recollections (e.g., Milestones , 1998) by carefully attending to documentary evidence and thus forges a balanced depiction of him. Ratzinger's experience of the radical student movement, Allen argues, affected his change from being generally progressive to conservatism. That conservatism shows tellingly in Ratzinger's relations with theological colleagues and his battles against liberation and feminist theologies. Ratzinger, Allen notes, has been a polarizing figure, dismissed without a hearing by the Left and embraced uncritically by the Right. Allen's careful reading facilitates more responsibly interpreting Ratzinger's probable influence beyond this papacy. \plain\f0\fs17 Steven Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Full of important information about Ratzinger's career and changes of position…his most original contribution is to argue that Ratzinger sometimes promotes views even more conservative than the Pope's." --The New York Review of Books "A terrific writer who is well informed in theology and church history, Allen skillfully navigates the ideological and political controversies of the last 20th-century church." --Publishers Weekly “An important, sensitive, and well-written book.” --National Catholic Reporter “A fair and unfailingly interesting account of one of the most controversial figures in religion today.” --The Irish Times “Well researched, informative and analytic, adequately critical, yet thoroughly and determinedly fair.” --The Tablet “...[Ratzinger] is perhaps the most important theologian of the twentieth century. He was a principal architect of Second Vatican Council, and for many years now he has been the principal agent in the restoration of the church to the condition before the council. John Allen’s cautious, objective, and fair biography...explains this seeming paradox and, with full respect for the [former] cardinal’s brilliance and his good intentions, raises some serious questions about the long-term effects of his influence on the church.” -Andrew M. Greeley “John Allen brings a journalist’s discipline and a keen understanding of the Catholic Church both as an institution and as the people of God to this extraordinarily well observed study of one of the most powerful of all Roman officials...Allen’s story has ready-made drama, which, to the education and pleasure of his readers, he handles in an even-handed and professional manner, showing the complexity of this man...Anyone interested in Catholicism, in religious institutions, or in the moral and cultural issues now intersecting before our eyes must read this book, the story of a man that is also the religious story of our times.” --Eugene Kennedy “Allen asks--and answers--all the right questions about the church’s chief ‘defender of the faith.’ His entertaining narrative helps us understand how and why the institutional church put the brakes on Vatican II. An important map for those trying to map the future.” -Robert Blair Kaiser "In this absorbing study John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, expounds and explores Ratzinger's theology and highlights the central concerns that have so significantly shaped Catholicism during the pontificate of John Paul II…Quite apart form the intrinsic fascination (and readability) of this study of so significant a figure in contemporary Catholicism, there are real challenges here for all Christians, and not least Anglicans, who seek to affirm, to pray and to live out the historic revealed Christian faith in so challenging and pluralist a world." --New Directions "It is not just because of the position he has occupied since 1981 as head of what used to be the Holy Office that Joseph Ratzinger is a key figure in the development of the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II…John L. Allen puts us all in his debt by tracing how this has come about…The resulting book is essential reading." --Church Times “Elegantly written…An estimable biography” –The Furrow

“…this book is the first biography of Ratzinger in English, and probably the only one written prior to the papal election of 2005…the book is an excellent introduction to the underlying theological concerns of Ratzinger in his role as prefect of the CDF…this book is also an excellent historical survey of the division and controversies that have divided the Catholic church, especially in North America, in the post-conciliar world.” –Catholic Books Review, 2005 (Catholic Books Review )

Pacifica, June 2001
"Provides a useful overview of Catholic debates in recent decades and highlights many problems that still need attention."